Pfefferneusse

en Päpanät Re'ssapt

Peppernuts  Flaten – Wall, from Mountain Lake, MN / Lustre, MT / Salem, OR / Falcon Heights, MN

1 cup milk

1 cup sugar

1 cup lard or Crisco™

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon cloves

4 cup flour

    Heat milk and sugar over medium heat.  Remove from fire and add lard or Crisco™.  Set aside to cool.  Sift dry ingredients or combine spices and baking powder, mixing well.  Add to flour and sift with whisk.  Add to cooled mixture.  (We poured liquid mixture slowly into dry ingredients while mixing.)   

    Chill overnight (traditionally, many Mennonites keep the dough in the entry, garage or car during the winter).  Next day, roll into pencil-thin strips, or the size of a thick crayon.  Cut into ½ -¾” pieces and bake in 400⁰ oven until a light brown. 

    Peppernuts are eaten with coffee or soaked in hot chocolate.  I find that their spicy flavor can also sensationalize a rich red or fruity white wine.

    Peppernuts, pfefferneusse, papanuta, however you choose to spell their name, peppernuts are a holiday tradition that unifies Mennonite generations and the international diaspora of Prussian and Russian Mennonites into a single cultural identity, at least for those holidays.

    Karen and I made these for Christmas out of a collection of family recipes, mostly relating back to the Kleine Gemeinde of Nebraska and the Bruderthaler of Minnesota.  Enjoy!

Steve Wall's 1994 essay on Peppernate's:

En lostijch Weinachte!

Holiday Traditions from the Prairies of the Assiniboia  

(Central Canada, North-central USA)

(c) Lauren Grace O'Malley, courtesy www.vintagewings.ca

The Shepherd, a CBC-1 Christmas Radio Tradition:

Allan Maitland reads the CBC-1 Christmas Classic, The Shepherd

CBC-1's As it Happens reveals the story behind "The Shepherd"

The Man and the Birds, a Paul Harvey classic from the Great Plains:

Paul Harvey tells the Classic tale The Man and the Birds 

The Man and the Birds by Paul Harvey transcribed by Keiki Hendrix 17 Dec 2010

The man to whom I’m going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn’t make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.

“I’m truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.” He said he’d feel like a hypocrite. That he’d much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound…Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud…At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.

(c) wallpapersus.com/snow-birds-blue-jay

Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.

Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them…He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms…Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.

And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me…That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.

“If only I could be a bird,” he thought to himself, “and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safe, warm…to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand.”

Courtesy http://www.free-hdwallpapers.com

At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells – Adeste Fidelis – listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas.

And he sank to his knees in the snow.

Peace.

Bruderthaler

A Mennonite Tomte

Courtesy http://jeffsprayerconnection.blogspot.com

Ne Too’frädenheit

    According to various Mennonite historians, theologians and sociologists, Anabaptists have historically been quite ambivalent towards the concept of Christmas.  Such was not my experience growing up.  In fact, I can recall at least two sermons from childhood on keeping the “Christ” in ‘X-mas’. 

    Sociologically speaking, and coming from five generations of public school teachers, Christmas traditions and celebrations, as we know them today, probably entered into our North American lives and folkways via the public schools which were mandatory, non-Mennonite and well-meaningly assimilationist.  Further inroads were probably made by participation in and adherence to post-World War English-language, non-Anabaptist Sunday school curriculums, conference fellowships and ecumenical holiday drives (including the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC)’s school packets and children’s gift box campaigns).

    At the same time, many Mennonite folk holiday traditions seem so innate to our culture and world-view that one can hardly consider a time when they would not have been followed – including the baking, the hymn sings, the family and church fellowships, the church Christmas programs and a general feeling of shared peace and fellowship for at least that one night with all of creation – especially, for us former farmers, with our non-human companions – both domesticated and wild.

Spiritually Restless Holidays

ne jeistlijch Pogge

    Religious traditions and holidays are meant to bind us together – especially in the traditional faiths such as Judaism, Anabaptism, Catholicism and Protestant Lutheranism.  But sometimes the ties that are meant to bind often seem rather to distance us from each other – even within our own faith traditions.

    These days, ethnic Mennonites and Roman Catholics seem to get along quite well.  All four of my sisters married Roman Catholics and the majority of my friends in the Midwest seem to be Roman Catholic (admittedly with many significant exceptions).  In fact, given the dearth of active Mennonites in my age group (being the 20s and 30s), I often find myself fellowshipping or spiritually caucusing with Roman Catholics of my age group. 

    I have already written that the recent elections in the United States were bruisers – ideologically divisive in the extreme – especially within the Catholic parishes which are now just as split politically as their Anabaptist counterparts – a relatively new phenomenon for a religious electorate that has often been noted for its cohesive unity.  Many of my Catholic friends are considering changing parishes or redefining their religious identity.

    Understanding the split within my own family between Social Progressive elements and the Fundamentalists and that we no longer even celebrate holidays together, many non-Mennonites have asked me why I continue to identify as Mennonite as why don’t just give up on the family.

    The answer is simply that while Anabaptists remain a relatively united ethnic religion, we are in fact about as diverse politically and spiritually as one can find outside of the Jewish culture.  One of my greatest frustrations – past Mennonite treatment of my non-Mennonite mother, actually reflects one of our greatest strengths.  Ethnic Mennonites such as my father provide stability, context and an historical perspective to the church and ethnic group while adult converts from other backgrounds tend to provide the enthusiasm, the energy and the vital faith that reenergizes the ethnic pact generation after generation.  This is a lesson shared with the faculty and leadership of Grace University in Omaha who recognize that while the school seldom identifies as Mennonite any longer, it is the old Mennonite families and churches that continue to imbibe Grace with a depth of support and heritage.  To this day, many of the multi-generational, multi-unit (meaning cousins and cousins) families at the University are of some sort of Mennonite derivation.  Conservative or progressive, liberal or fundamentalist, all Mennonite-derived or affiliated congregations tend to share these two pillars of strength and identity.

May Day and ne Pelsbloom

(c) Kim Wheeler of crexmeadows.org

Ne Pelsbloom, de easchte Mei

    Many holidays just make more sense and are more fun for their context on the highly seasonal prairies of Agassiz and the Assiniboia.  One such holiday is May Day (de easchte Mei) – both highly controversial and widely, if quietly, celebrated by Prairie Mennonites across North America.

  More controversially known as International Workers’ Day, most of us grew up noting May Day as that day when the former Soviet Union paraded out the nuclear missiles and other military hardware designed to destroy God, Democracy, and the West.  As we grew more sophisticated, it was the day to determine who was in and who was out based on the line-up of Soviet dignitaries atop Lenin’s Tomb in Red Square.  Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, the Socialist (or Soviet) celebration of May Day was designed to commemorate the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago, 04 May 1886, and not some sort of pagan, atheist Soviet holiday. 

    More personal, and more memorable to me was that other aspect of May Day – the celebration that spring had come to the prairies – a time to gather the first wildflowers, normally ne pelsbloom (aka Pasqueflowers, wind flower, danesblood, Anemone patens or prairie crocuses) and try to surprise our mothers, grandmothers and schoolteachers by placing poesies of furry, delicate lavender blooms on their doorsteps, knocking or ringing the doorbell, and then hurrying around the house to get away before they could catch us and tickle us for playing tricks on them – a sort of reverse trick-or-treating where the children left the treat as part of the trick.

Holiday Perischke

Traditional Mennonite Fruit Pockets

    In my experience, perischke have been an essential fastpa treat, but they have struggled to find a true place in the North American holiday schedule.  Anabaptists have long enjoyed perischke for “tea”, coffee breaks (lunch) or fastpa while working in the fields, between church services and choir practice or tucked into summer Bible school (DVBS) lunch-sacks.  Eating them always makes one feel warm inside – like when Grandma would sneak you an extra molasses cookie.  Like molasses cookies, they were never a “holiday” food, but just that sort of home-cooked goodness that gave you a sort of after-lunch or mid-afternoon hug from Mom or Grandma.

    The Mennonites of Montana have made perischke into a Schmekfest classic – along with pfefferneuse, tweibach and verenika.  In fact, while Grandma often made perischke for everyday consumption, Mom was more likely to make her annual super-batches that required a herculean effort to complete.  A few dozen were set aside for Schmekfest – the rest were squirreled away in the freezer to last out the year.

    Of course, the entire family, privileged patriarch excepted, got roped into helping Mom complete her late night baking.  To this day, the baking of perischke remains one of the few activities us kids have retained binding us and the grandkids together in her memory (their privileged patriarchs now excepted).

    The term perischke is seemingly becoming an anachronism amongst the American Russländer.  While Canadian, Mexican and Paraguayan literature and cookbooks continue to use the term, apart from the Mennonite Brethren and the Brüderthaler, many American Mennonites now seem to prefer the term peroghi (drawing from the Bethel  archives, Edna Kaufman uses the term perogi).  No self-respecting Russländer Mennonite would make such a mistake, however.  Everyone (at least those with whom I grew up) knows that perogi are boiled while perischke are baked.  A Polish friend in Chicago once actually apologized for serving his grandmother’s perogi baked (he had just moved and did not yet have a boiling pot).  “No problem,” was my response, “these are just like my grandmother’s perischke” – which was almost true.

    Judging from Winnipeg, Minneapolis and Chicago – all with large Polish enclaves, true perogi  are a bit more similar to vereniki – more of a noodle dough rich in cream and eggs.  When you bake, rather than boil, a verenika or a peroghi, the dough tends to form a tough outer skin that easily turns rubbery in the oven.  So it is really a misnomer that perischke are merely fruit-filled peroghi.  Like lions and tigers, perischke and peroghi might look alike but are entirely distinct species.

    Nor are perischke a form of Anabaptist danish – the doughs are not at all similar.  A danish is constructed from a flakey, buttery puff pastry dough more similar to a croissant than to a pie crust. 

   Thus resisting all attempts at cultural ecumenicalism, the perishke must stand alone.

    In the 3^rd Lustre EMB Ladies’ Aid cookbook, What’s Cooking in Lustre, journalist and cultural historian Carolyn Fauth defines perischki  as “… a fruit-filled pastry.  The crust is generally a rich pie crust dough but can also be a yeast dough like a basic sweet roll dough.  The fillings vary with the two most commonly used ones being finely cut apples with sugar and flour mixture sprinkled with cinnamon or fruit mixture made of dried apricots, dried peaches and prunes or each separate cooked with water until the mixture thickens like jam, then add sugar to taste.  Other fruits are cherries, Juneberries [Saskatoons], or blueberries.”  To her list of add-ons, one might readily add the historic mulberries of Molotschna.

    Having identified perischke, here are a couple of ideas to make holiday perischke special and reflective of other holiday food traditions (see the recipe tab for recipes).

     The Pumpkin Perischke is an idea whose time has come.  An aficionado of traditional pumpkin pie, I have often been guilty of having pie for breakfast.  These treats are equally good for dessert or that quick morning pick-me-up.  I recommend the half-circle shape for the pumpkin perischke.  Just beware that pumpkin perischke are a bit more work than pumpkin pie.

    There are a couple of differing opinions regarding the correct shape of perischke –  namely whether they should be cut and formed into half-circles similar to verenika or folded into true square fruit pockets.  My mother preferred the more decorative square pockets she had been taught by my great grandmother – but also tended to make perischke only for special occasions. My grandmother tended to make perischke more often for everyday consumption and almost exclusively folded hers into little half circles.

    Otherwise there is no clear reason as to why some fold their perischke one way or another.  I have heard that the half circles are easier to form, but this has not been my personal experience. 

    It is possible that more people from Mountain Lake tend to fold theirs into half-moons – this might also hold true for their descendants out West.  Possibly then, the square pockets might be a more traditional Nebraska approach to perischke -- with possible ties to the Kleine Gemeinde.  But this is all speculation.

    Another new holiday favorite for me is the cranberry-apple perischke.  These tasty bites look great peeking through the folds of the traditional square pockets.  You might even want to consider adding walnuts to the filling -- but be sure to label your perischke clearly for those guests with food allergies.

    Celebrating the global diversity of the Mennonites diaspora during the holidays, I am a new fan of the guava perischke reminiscent of Mexican or Cuban Pastelitos.  Definitely consider cheating and resorting to use of a commercial guava paste such as is used by my local Mexican pasteleria – you might have to look in the ethnic food aisle of your favorite grocer or specialty market.  Guava paste has the added benefit of being relatively inexpensive – a lot of taste for the buck.

    Finally, for more of an ethnic Mennonite touch, it is now possible to purchase dried mulberries at Whole Foods.  While they are sold as “The Turkish Super Food” meant for trail-mix, it should be possible to reconstitute them into a suitable filling.

    So while I am comfortable with the humble perischke remaining a simple everyday treat, try out a few new twists and dress them up for the holidays.  There might be some life left in them yet.

Silence

    Old newsletters  often seem a nuisance – cluttering up countertops, junk drawers and email accounts – yet every so often, one stands out – finding a new life of inspiration taped to the refrigerator, computer desk or tucked gently inside the cover of one’s Bible.  Helen Wells Quintela’s Only in Silence the Word from the summer of 1997, is one such piece.

    Helen reminds us of the place of silence and of words in God’s creation, God’s presence and the spiritual union of the gemeinde – the church and community – “Out of the silent formless void, God spoke, ‘Let there be,’ and there was.  The moment of creation, the profound response of void to Creator is rooted in the Word.”