30 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 1 N O R T H D A K O T A L I V I N G w w w . n d a r e c . c o m

R E C I P E R O U N D U P

Mini Pumpkin Whoopie PiesOld-Fashioned Soft Pumpkin Cookies

Mixed Nuts & PopcornSour Cherry Brittle

by Kent Brick

The rewards and challenges of a N.D. cattle rancher

RUSSIAN BORSCHT (vegetable soup)

Simmer until soft. Skim. Stir in lemon juice. Serve with sour cream and dill weed garnish. Add vinegar at table.

Taken from page 7 of the Food ‘N Customs: Recipes of the Black Sea Germans cookbook

Recipe by Vi Schielke

1 lb. boneless beef chuck, cubed

1⁄4 lb. soup bone 3 qts. water 1 qt. tomato juice 1 T. salt 1⁄4 tsp. pepper 2 cups grated beets

2 cups cabbage, chopped

1 cup grated carrots 1 pt. green beans 1 onion, chopped 1 T. lemon juice 1 T. dill or caraway

PORK CHOPS WITH KRAUT

Brown chops in shortening on both sides in 12” skillet. Remove chops. Add onion and apple to pan droppings, and heat. Stir in sauerkraut, liquid, brown sugar and caraway seed. Arrange chops on top. Sprinkle with salt. Cover and cook over low heat 30 minutes or until chops are tender. Add additional water if needed, a small amount at a time, to keep sauerkraut moist. Serves 6.Test notes: Instead of cooking on top of a stove, put the skillet containing the assembled dish in a 300-degree oven and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes. Taken from page 60 of the Sei Unser Gast (“Be Our Guest”) cookbook

6 pork chops, cut 1⁄2” thick

1 T. shortening 1 cup onion, chopped 1 cup coarsely

chopped unpared raw apple

1 can (1 lb. 11 oz.) sauerkraut, drained (save juice)

1⁄2 cup liquid (sauerkraut juice supplemented with water)

2 T. light brown sugar, packed

1⁄2 tsp. caraway seed salt

Heads bowed before the bountiful noon meal, our Ger-man-Russian ancestors of a century ago would offer

this prayer: “Segne, Vater, diese Speise, Uns zur Kraft und dir zum Preise. Amen.” (Translation: “Father, bless this food,

for our nourishment and to your glory. Amen.”)

Though the language, the communities and the customs have fad-ed, commitment to the food those remarkable pioneers cooked and blessed has not.

Preserving the food traditions of the Ger-mans from Russia is one of the key activities of the North Dakota State Univer-sity (NDSU) Libraries’ Ger-mans from Russia Heritage Collection (GRHC), GRHC is located in the main library

on the NDSU campus.The mission of GRHC is, “To collect, docu-

ment, preserve, exhibit, translate, publish, promote and make accessible resources on the culture, history, folklore, textiles and clothing, and food ways of the Germans from Russia.” The offi ce focuses on German-Russians who pro-duced North Dakota and Northern Plains descendents.

GRHC Director and Bibliographer Michael Miller says he is proud the collection houses the largest German-Rus-sian cookbook and recipe collection of its kind in the world. Miller, whose German-Russian roots are in Strasburg, says mastery and ingenuity with basic farming staples were the keys to how people survived.

“The food of the Germans from Russia refl ects that they were so limited with funds and resources,” Miller says. He says fl our, eggs and milk were the basics for the many dough-based dishes, often prepared in heaping batches for large families.

GRHC has 62 original, locally produced cookbooks for sale, along with the exten-sive archive of non-circulat-ing cookbooks and massive index of German-Russian recipes. This is strong proof that German-Russian off-spring of today want to pre-serve their culinary culture.

For this month’s Reci-pe Roundup, the GRHC has furnished three cookbooks from among those it sells (to browse these, go to: http://li-brary.ndsu.edu/grhc/). Chal-lenging as it was, North Da-kota LIVING has selected and

published one recipe from each cookbook.

The fi rst cookbook is Food ‘n Customs: Recipes of the Black Sea Germans, by The Germans from Russia Heritage Society, Bismarck, 2004; cookbook committee: Jo-sephine Eckman, Vi Schielke and Katherine Meidinger. This book’s introduction emphasizes the importance of publish-ing specifi c ingredients, measurements and techniques to preserve what had been just oral family folklore. It reads: “Grandmothers from the old country were brought up in ‘humble beginnings’ and lived close to the earth. Many had no formal education, so recipes were handed down verbal-ly. They felt the recipes in their hands.” From this cookbook we present the Russian Borscht recipe.

The second cookbook is Sei Unser Gast: Be Our Guest,

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Find more great recipes in “Recipes & Home Cooking Tips” in Taste of Home magazine.

H E A LT H Y H I N T S

Explore world cuisine in N.D.

Can you list a couple of typical “Amer-ican” foods? If you thought of ham-

burgers, hot dogs and ice cream, think again. Hamburg-ers are a German import, hot dogs are associated with Greece, and ice c ream was first “made in China.”

As we recently worked on a proj-ect about North Dakota food and culture, we learn-ed about the wide range of foods associated with past and recent immigrants to our state. As the population of North Dakota is becoming more diverse, so is our cui-sine. If someone offered you a Sambusa or some Fool, would you know what to ex-pect when you took a bite? On the other hand, would you be familiar with Fleisch-keukle and Rommegrot?

Sambusas and Fool are associated with African cuisine. Like Fleischkeuk-le (a German recipe), Sambusas consist of dough filled with meat stuffing and are deep-fried. Fool, a dessert, is simi-lar in consistency to its creamy Scandi-navian counterpart, Rommegrot.

Food goes beyond providing nour-ishment for the body. It also helps nur-ture family traditions and connects us with other cultures. If you are fortunate to have your great-grandma’s delicious des-sert recipes, I am not going to suggest that you alter them to make them health-ier. Enjoy them in moderation on spe-cial occasions. On the other hand, if your heritage recipes are for canned goods, be sure to have an extension agent evalu-ate them for safety based on present-day research.

As part of our project, we compiled recipes associated with several cultures in North Dakota, including Norwegian, German, Native American, Mexican, Bos-nian, Somali and others. The North Da-kota State University (NDSU) Extension Service publication, North Dakota Food and Culture – A Taste of World Cuisine, is available online at www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/foods/fn1513.pdf.

Until next time … enjoy some old and new recipes!

Julie Garden-Robinson is an associate professor and food and nutrition specialist with

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Julie Garden-Robinson,Ph.D., L.R.D.

FLORENCE’S PUMPKIN BLACHINDADough ½ cup shortening 2 cups sweet cream 1 cup sugar ½ tsp. salt 3 eggs 3 tsp. baking powder 5 cups all-purpose fl our

Filling 9 cups pumpkin 1 cup sugar 1⁄2 tsp. salt 11⁄2 tsp. cinnamon

Rolling mixture 1 cup all-purpose fl our 1 cup sugar

Mix dough gently and set aside. Mix fi lling in separate bowl and set aside. Roll out a large walnut-sized piece of dough on rolling mixture into a 6- to 8-inch-round disc. Put 1 to 2 heaping tablespoons of fi lling mixture on one half of dough disc. Fold over the half without fi lling and roll the edge of a plate around the edge to seal. (Re-use the leftover dough scrap into the next walnut to be rolled.) Cut two small vent holes on top of Blachinda and place on greased cookie sheet. Back at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Taken from page 61 of the Connecting Generations cookbook.

produced by the North Star Chapter, American Historical So-ciety of Germans from Russia, Minneapolis-St.Paul, 2008. This group consists of about 100 fam-ily members in the Twin Cities, with most of the German areas in Russia represented. According to its introduction, this cookbook is presented, “… to document German-Russian cuisine and food ways so that present and fu-ture generations can enjoy their unique culinary heritage.” From this cookbook we present the Pork Chops with Kraut recipe.

The third cookbook is Connecting Generations: Fond Rec-ollections of German-Russian Heritage, Traditional Family Recipes and Reminiscent Stories from Five Generations of Cooking with Mom, by Donna Erbele Iszler and daughter Mya Iszler Mayer, self-published, Bismarck, 2005.

In the opening Mayer writes, “The recipes in this documentation of our family’s heritage kitchen are authentic. They are the recipes we have all come to love. Mom and I have spent hundreds of hours to-gether writing down proportions and cooking instructions that were passed to her verbally or through experience throughout the years.” Donna’s family roots are in the Lehr area. From this book, the recipe we present is Florence’s Pumpkin Blachinda.

The GRHC encourages present-day German-Russian family mem-bers to get familiar with and add to the collection’s resources. In addi-tion to the Web site http://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/, contact the GRHC by telephoning Michael Miller at (701) 231-8416 or Acacia Stuckle, GRHC special collections associate, at (701) 231-6596. To learn more about the Germans from Russia Heritage Society in Bismarck, go to http://www.grhs.org/.

Kent Brick is editor of North Dakota LIVING. Kent can be reached at kbrick@ndarec.com