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Archiver > GER-VOLGA > 2006-01 > 1136147192


From: Carla Wills-Brandon <>
Subject: Pirogi/Bierrock - Conference in London
Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2006 12:26:32 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <43B80F19.6080404@concentric.net>


Hey Lauren,

How's San Antonio? We just put our 19 year old on a plane with 200 other college students, bound for Israel. As he was walking through gate security, he turned to me and asked, "Which way do I go?" I CRINGED!

As for pirogi, I learned how to make them from my Polish/Russian (depending on the boarder of the time - the area is now considered Belarus - I was in Poland, Belarus and western Russia several years ago - and of course when the Nazis invaded, they too took ownership for a time being) mother-in-law. From scratch, they are like a cut noodle...same dough our Volga GR ancestors used for "noodle soup." The dough is cut in a square, 1 to 1 and a half inch square. Then it can be filled with meat, meat and cabbage, potato, potato and meat, potato, meat and cabbage, onion. This "type" of pirogi (I don't want to start any disputes) is typically served in a broth soup.

As I said, I've made Berrocks for years, stuffed them with traditional meat, cabbage, onion, Boca burger for a vegetarian variety, potato, and I remember my grandmother stuffing them with kraut, potato, fruit, sour cream and raisins.

So, Happy New Year Everyone! Every New Years the menu of my childhood was Berrocks, noodle soup. lemon meringue pie and pickled water melon. I've got the first three prepared. By the way, I leave for London on Sunday to present at the Beyond Camps and Forced Labour Conference, to be held at the British Museum of War, January 11th through the 14th. It should be interesting. My topic of presentation will be Hitler's Holocaust and Statin's Gulags with an emphasis on the impact this has had on second and third generation individuals of GR, Judaic and Armenian ancestory.

Carla


Lauren Brantner <> wrote:
I wonder what our Polish friends would say about Pirogi being identified
as a Russian food. It seems to be the national cultural identity dish
for Polish Americans. From what I've observed, those sold commercially
are more like a filled noodle dough rather than filled bread dough which
is the runza version I grew up with. Unfortunately, I have no Polish
friends in my circle who could make their authentic version for me to
taste. Jimmy Sturr's Grammy Award winning orchestra which plays Polish
style polkas and has some Polish musicians is sponsored by a pirogi
company.

My Grandparents were Volga Germans and my 93 year old father still
prefers the runza made with onion and cabbage without the beef in it.
It was easy to make that for him when my mother made the weekly bread
batch - she just made the filling while the bread was rising, diverted
some of the dough to make his runza and he was a happy man at lunch
time. I make runza with the ground beef - no one in my family would eat
them without it. Pirogi seem to be more closely related to the filled
noodle dough my Volga German relatives made - sometimes the squares were
filled with cottage cheese and onion, sometimes with fruit. They were
sealed and then gently simmered in water and served in cream with butter
browned bread crumbs on top. I can't think of the name of it offhand.

I guess all the German settlements in Russia carried some of the food
pathways from the particular area of Germany that they emigrated from.
It is fascinating to see the differences in food among the different
colonies. There are cultural influences at work as we read this
message. With air travel, the globe grew much smaller and influences
continue to pour in from all over. In my area since the 1960's we have
added Mexican, Italian, Asian, and other restaurants. Before that, you
ate in American style diners or restaurants or at home in this area.
Change was a much slower process in the 1700 and 1800's and the first
part of the last century. I believe that preserving some of the
traditional food is as important as preserving the history and genealogy
of my family. It's like this: "Make new friends, but keep the old; one
is silver and the other gold."

Lauren Brethauer Brantner







Carla Wills-Brandon, Ph.D.
Michael Brandon, Ph.D.
(281) 338-2992

www.carlawillsbrandon.com

"We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a forth dimension of existence of which we have not dreamed." Big Book pg 25


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