I wish I would have taken photos of the food; a visual would be excellent. But if you want recipes, definitely check out Mennonite Girls Can Cook. If my brother ends up marrying a Mennonite girl, I vote they host at least one holiday per year. (Andrew, you're a high school senior and you've got a lot of amazing stuff ahead of you ... this can wait for a while.)
My brother Andrew is a senior at Heartland Community School in Henderson, a traditionally Mennonite town located on the very western edge of York County. Slightly smaller than Wisner, it’s been home to my mom and brother for the past two years. I’ve spent enough time there to know it has a flavor all its own.
If you eat anywhere in Henderson, like we did at the Heartland High School Band’s annual Smorgasbord, you’ll know without a doubt you’re in a place that takes its heritage seriously.
As I surveyed the tray of food in front of me, I realized I recognized about a quarter of it. So I asked my brother to “translate” for me. Here’s a sampling of what we had: Verenika (cheese-wrapped dough, fried or baked) in ham gravy, zweibach (sweet yeast bread), borscht (cabbage and vegetable stew), priescha (similar to verenika), homemade noodles and gravy, portzelky (raisin cookies), sausage, ham with beans and coleslaw.
There was more on the tray, which fairly creaked with the effort of holding all the food, that I didn’t have time to ask about: I was too busy enjoying it. My daughter, who normally eats like a bird, devoured everything I fed her. Between the two of us, however, we didn’t come close to finishing it all.
It was the ultimate comfort food, delicious and homey. Andrew told me the band parents prepare a lot of the food weeks ahead of time and freeze it, but trust me, it tasted like it had been made earlier that day. And apparently, everyone else in town seemed to think so, as the line for food wound its way around the halls of the school and didn’t let up until it was time for the concert.
The meal reawakened my love for traditional food, tasting the dishes my ancestors would have made regularly and knowing it sustained them to travel to new frontiers and begin life in a new world.
I may, however, concentrate more on the German side of my culinary heritage ... I can’t imagine trying to convince my toddler to eat lutefisk.
On the Lighter Side
Published March 21, 2012
1 comment:
Love your comment about lutefisk.... My Dad still tries to get us to eat it once a year. According to one Norwegian I talked on a plane, it's useful as a threat to get their kids to do what their told....
There is much better food from Scandinavia than litefisk!
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