The Farmland of my Roots and its Vinegret

My farming ancestors came to Canada from Russia in the 1890s and, ever since I was a child, I dreamed of visiting their village on the Dnieper River.

That opportunity came in April. Despite the conflict between Ukraine and Russian separatists, which is unfolding east of the Dnieper, I made a trek to the little village once known as Klosterdorf.

It was also a journey into the history of wheat. Some 2,500 years ago, farmers along the Black Sea – from the Danube to the Dnieper and beyond – supplied wheat to ancient Greece and Rome, neither of which could grow enough grain to meet the essential bread demands of their populations.

The shores of the Black Sea are dotted with the ruins of Greek colonies such as Histria in Romania and Olbia in Ukraine, both of which I visited on my way to Klosterdorf. Beautiful pottery, delicate glassware and gold coins on display in the archaeology museum of Odessa paint a picture of a prosperous agricultural society on the shores of what the Greeks called the Hospitable Sea.

Fast forward to the 1770s. The Russian army captured the area from the Ottoman Empire. Czar Catherine the Great invited farmers to return to the land and they did, from all over Europe, including my German ancestors.

A century later, the port of Odessa handled 40 percent of Russian’s grain trade. No doubt, some of that grain was grown on the fields of Klosterdorf.

Today, Klosterdorf is no longer a place on the map. It has been amalgamated into a larger village called Zmiivka, Ukraine. That was my destination as I boarded a dusty bus on a sunny spring day in April along with my husband, John, and an English translator named Viktorya.  

The old bus rattled down the country road, gears grinding and shocks falling flat. Apple trees were blooming and the young wheat was green. On either side, the fields were so wide and flat and straight to the horizon it reminded me of home, where I grew up in Saskatchewan.

We had not gone far when Viktorya began chatting up the old women at the front of bus. They laughed, flashing gold teeth and peppering her with questions about our venture to the village at the end of the road.

Before long, we had been invited in for tea, given a brief history of the village and pointed in the direction of Naberezhnaya Street, which was in former times the main street of Klosterdorf.

It looked as it might have a century ago, long low cottages on tidy lots that run perpendicular to the road, hens in the yard and laundry on the line. Gardens were turned and ready for potato planting. “We love our potatoes,” one lady told us through Viktorya. “Without potatoes we would probably starve.” Hmmm, reminds me of my dad.

Another old-timer recalled a little German church at the far end of the street, but it’s gone now. Most of the German settlers left long ago. Today, Zmiivka is better known for its Swedish settlers who have maintained some ties with their former homeland.

From a high point on the street, we had a spectacular view of the Dnieper by which grain was transported in former times. The river has been dammed downstream, flooding some of the land once associated with Klosterdorf, but it presents a picture of a contented and self-sufficient village that time forgot.

We wandered back to the bus stop with time to sit and have a cool drink outside the little grocery store, where the clerk calculated our purchase on a wooden abacus. A curious gentleman sat down and asked our story, what had brought us from Canada to Zmiivka, which Viktorya related to him.

He looked at me thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said. “When I look at your face I can see your ancestors.”

This beet and potato salad is ubiquitous in Ukraine and a favourite in my kitchen back home in Canada.

Vinegret
2 potatoes
2 beets
3 carrots
2-3 dill pickles
1/4 cup onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vinegar (optional)
Salt and pepper

Boil potatoes, beets and carrots separately until cooked. Cool and peel. Chop vegetables and pickles in a small dice. Mix with onion, oil and vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.

(This article first appeared in Grainews.)

Prairie Kitchens - Vinegret

As we say farewell to the Russian Olympic Games, we can remember the welcome paid to 7,400 Russian immigrants who arrived in what would become Saskatchewan in early 1899. They were Doukhobors.

In Russia, they were persecuted for their religious beliefs – they were pacifist, vegetarian and refused to swear allegiance to any power lower than God. As the Doukhobors were packing, Canadian authorities were scrambling to welcome such a large number of immigrants at once. The answer was potatoes.

In the fall of 1898, government agents were buying up potatoes from Brandon to Regina. It was a very wet fall and many potato crops were ruined, reducing the volume and increasing the price. Potatoes purchased in the fall for 30–45 cents per bushel were $1.25 a bushel by spring. Estimates said they would need upwards of 10,000 bushels for food that winter and another 1,000 bushels for planting in Doukhobor gardens come spring.

Storage was an issue, as seen in this memo from December 1898: "Quantity potatoes stored in cellar public building here think require attention decaying smell through office very bad most unhealthy for officers and presume potatoes spoiling."

Most of the potatoes reached their destination. A year later, the Doukhobors had built fifty-seven communal villages and proved themselves to be successful farmers, particularly in potatoes. This salad of potatoes and beets came to Saskatchewan with the Doukhobors and is still popular in Russia.

Vinegret
2 potatoes
2 beets
3 carrots
2-3 pickles
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vinegar (opt)
Salt and pepper

Boil vegetables until cooked. Cool and peel. Chop vegetables and pickles. Mix with onion, oil and vinegar. Season with salt and pepper. Variation: add 1/2 cup sauerkraut.

Do you have prairie recipe with a story? Send me a comment. Follow me at twitter.com/prairiefeast.

(This article first appeared in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix.)

Ginormous Beet Soup

My garden produced an average beet crop. That is, average-sized beets. And then I pulled out this monster. Either it was raised on steroids or it got an extra shot of compost -- perhaps, to a beet, that's one in the same.

The average-sized beets found their way into beet and walnut salad. This gal, well, she deserves a place of honour in the soup pot!

To beet or not to beet - BEETNIKS

This column appeared this date in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix.
To “beet” or not to “beet,” that is the question. This is not a mere corruption of Shakespeare’s famous philosophical monologue on the merits of life or death. It is a serious philosophical question on the merits of beets.

There are those who dislike beets, and there are those for whom beets are a cultural touchstone, a symbol of gardens past and present, a connection with babas and great-babas reaching back to the Old Country. Beets are a warm bowl of borscht on a fall day, they are stuffed beet leaves in a sauce of cream and dill, they are pickled and relish, salads and side dishes. They are family dinners and fall suppers. In other words, for some folks in Saskatchewan, beets are more than just food. They are part of the family.

Growing up, beets weren’t part of my family tradition, but there were other foods that evoked a philosophical and emotional response. These include: saskatoon berries, apple pie, my mom’s homemade buns, grandma’s (and now my sister’s) kliesel and kartoffel, which is potatoes and dumplings fried up in butter, jam jams and garden peas. Since I’ve had a garden of my own, beets have come to symbolize the end of another growing season, good food in the larder and a pot of nourishing beet soup on the stove.

“Eating is one of the most fundamental ways in which we are at home in the world,” says Eric Dayton, a professor of philosophy at the University of Saskatchewan, who gave a talk recently in Saskatoon reflecting on philosophy and food. In other words, the familiarity of certain foods, and the ways in which we enjoy them, create an atmosphere of belonging and connect us to the place we call home.

It also connects us to the human family through time, since most foods we eat today have evolved through generations and generations of farming and preparation. It is amazing to reflect how the same food—be it beef, beans or beets—can evoke so many different places and cultures simply by the different methods of preparation and ways of serving it in a meal.

“Food is just as important as a cultural product as literature, art, music—it’s a gift by way of our cultural past,” says professor Dayton.

Sadly, he points out, this wonderful familiarity of food can also lead us to take it for granted, or worse, dismiss it as inconsequential. We simply stop thinking about it. We eat, but we are no longer aware of it as a gift and a good thing. We fail to respect the cook and the farmer. We consume, but not for physical or emotional nourishment. We become disconnected from the source and symbolism of the food we eat and, in the process, lose that sense of place and belonging that food can provide.

To “beet” or not to “beet”? It’s a matter of personal preference. But it doesn’t hurt to stop and philosophize about food now and then, and to remember what we love to eat, and why.
Here’s a recipe for my version of the delicacy called beetniks.

Beet Leaf Holopchi or Beetniks
A couple dozen larger beet leaves, wiped clean
Bread dough (a pound or so)
2 tbsp butter
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 cup cream
Handful of fresh dill

Pinch off a small nub of dough and roll it in your hands into an elongated shape. Place the dough on a beet leaf and roll the leaf around it (leaving the ends unwrapped). Place each roll into a buttered baking dish. Cover the dish with a clean kitchen towel and let the bread rise for an hour or so.

Heat the oven to 350°F. Bake the Beetniks for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, make the cream sauce: melt the butter in a saucepan, sauté the onion and garlic until soft, stir in the cream and fresh chopped dill. Bring to a bubbling simmer.

Remove the beetniks from the oven. Pour the cream sauce evenly over top. Return to the oven for ten minutes. Cool slightly and enjoy!

CBC Radio Calling

Beets have an affinty for goat's cheese. Perhaps feta cheese would taste great, too.

Beet and Walnut Salad
2 beets, cooked
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
1/2 tbsp fruit syrup (chokecerry, raspberry, etc.)

3 tbsp olive oil
salad greens for two (may include beet greens)
2 tbsp crumbled goat cheese
salt

Cut the beets into a bite-sized dice. Heat 1 tbsp of water in a non-stick skillet. Add the brown sugar and stir until dissolved. Add the walnuts, cooking and stirring until the water has evaporated and the sugar has caramelized on the nuts. Make the dressing by whisking together the vinegar, fruit syrup, oil and salt to taste. Toss half the dressing with the salad greens and the other half with the beets. To serve, divide the salad greens onto two plates. Scoop the beets into the middle of the greens, scatter each with half the walnuts and sprinkle on the cheese.

Tonight, I'm going to try this recipe: beet leaf holopchi

Newspaper - RED SALAD

This cloumn first appeared in the Star-Phoenix on 21 April 2006.

My friend Murray and I have a friendly competition over tomatoes. Who grows the most, who gets the first red tomato, who has the biggest bragging rights. Murray usually wins. But that doesn’t stop me from trying again summer after summer. I have a competitive spirit when it comes to food. Perhaps it dates to my childhood growing up on the farm at Craik. On fair day, dad would get us up early and head for the garden in search of the most beautiful and uniform examples of each vegetable. They were carefully washed, arranged on silver pie plates and entered in the produce competition.

Sometimes we got a carrot that looked like Pinocchio or a potato in the shape of a duck, but there was a competition for them, too. As I recall, we won a lot of ribbons. Last summer, I entered the bread-making contest at the Wheat Festival in Weyburn. I won a prize for my baguette–second place in a field of two. And a couple of weeks ago, I entered the cherry pit spitting contest at the Cherry Festival in Bruno. So tell me, why are boys such better spitters than girls? My pit spits were–well–the pits.

Murray and I both start our tomatoes from seed. But these are not always the tomatoes that go into my garden. Last year I killed all my seedlings by putting them outside to ‘harden off’ on a windy day. This year, I planted my tomatoes in the garden just before it got so cold and rainy in June. They never grew for a month and they’re still a month behind. I have supplemented them with seedlings from a greenhouse.The first ripe tomatoes I ate this year (other than those from the farmers’ market) came from my neighbour Andrea’s garden. They were delicious in a BLT.

Most years, I grow enough Roma tomatoes that we eat them all winter. I cut a slice off the stem end and freeze them whole in ziplock bags. When thawed, the pulp slips easily out of the skins. They’re terrific in soup or a quick pasta sauce made with olive oil, basil and garlic. In fact, I would never consider buying an "imported" grocery store tomato in winter. They are so pale and tasteless, starved of their nutrients and flavour, I hate to spend my hard-earned pennies on them. After all, what’s eating all about if it isn’t for nourishment and good taste?

I am a big champion of local food, especially fruits and vegetables, that are picked ripe in season and stored for short periods of time. They taste better, and I suspect they have a lot more vitamins, too. And there is no better time of year than right now to buy locally from farmers’ markets or U-picks. For one year, my husband and I made an effort to serve almost nothing but Saskatchewan foods at our dinner table in Saskatoon. Last year at this time, I was busy canning and freezing cherries, pears, rhubarb, apples and tomatoes for those long winter months. We ate well, and felt healthier for it. (You can read about it at HomeForDinner.blogspot.com.)

This year, I am modifying my local food challenge: Everyday, I want to eat something picked or grown myself. So, I’m hoping my tomatoes pick up the pace. And Murray, if your tomatoes are disappearing after dark, it certainly wasn’t me.

RED SALAD
2 beets
2 tomatoes
1 red pepper
1/4 red onion
fresh herbs such as parsley, thyme and cilantro
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. lemon juice
salt and pepper

Boil the unpeeled beets in water until they can be pierced through with a sharp knife. Drain. When they are cool enough to handle peel the beets and cut them into a half-inch (1 cm.) dice. Cut the red pepper in half, remove the stem and seeds, and drop into boiling water until the flesh is just soft, about 3 minutes. Cut the pepper and tomatoes to the same size as the beets. Finely chop the onion. Mix the vegetables together in a bowl and, while they are still warm, add the olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste and toss well. Cool. Before serving, add a tablespoon of chopped fresh herbs.

Newspaper - BEET&WALNUT SALAD

This column first appeared in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix on 17 October 2005.

I have turned into a food packrat. If someone says to me, would you like some garden carrots? I say yes without thinking. If someone offers me a handful of beets, I don’t say, No thank you, I have beets in my garden. I say emphatically yes. If friends offer me fruit of any kind from their own trees, I don’t care what it is. I just say okay.

I have become like an anxious squirrel who puts away enough food for three winters. Why? Because I am trying to eat nothing but Saskatchewan foods in my own home, and I’m a tad worried how I’ll manage through the winter months.

It has been easy up ‘til now. I began my Saskatchewan diet in April, just as the rhubarb and herbs were poking through the garden and greenhouse produce was arriving at the farmers’ market. Thanks to the market, my own garden and the generosity of friends and family, I have enjoyed plenty of fruits and vegetables up to now. But what about February? If I can’t go to the store for an apple or a carrot or a head of lettuce, how will I survive?

I take comfort in the fact that the pioneers managed to live through the winter without getting scurvy. They knew how to preserve the bounty of the harvest for the lean months. If they could do it, surely I could, too, with my freezer and canning pot and other modern kitchen conveniences.
My primary goal is not to emulate the pioneers, but to support local agriculture and the health of the environment by eating locally as much as possible for one full year – just to prove it can be done!

To that end, I have been canning and freezing just about everything I get my hands on. My preserves include pears, apples, cherries, saskatoons, strawberries, rhubarb, asparagus and even grapes grown in Saskatchewan. My freezer is full of meat and vegetables. I have buckets of beans, lentils, rolled oats and pearl barley. Should Saskatoon be cut off from the rest of the world by a freak glacier this winter, no one will starve at my house.

My last outdoor dinner party of the summer was, you might say, a real washout. There was a water main break on my street and the taps were turned off for more than a day. Since I was just starting to cook (and hadn’t even cleaned the house yet), I called my guests and we went out to eat instead. As a result, I do not have a wonderful harvest meal to write about here today.
But, had the meal proceeded, this is what we were going to have: cherry tomatoes stuffed with pesto, beet and walnut salad, pasta primavera and for dessert, Black Forest cake made with local cherries.

Just about everything in this meal is from Saskatchewan with a few exceptions, such as the walnuts in the beet salad and the chocolate in the Black Forest cake (and I’m not giving up chocolate!). For all the recipes in this fantasy dinner, go to homefordinner.blogspot.com.


Roasted Beet and Walnut Salad
2 medium beets (or 4 small)
1/3 cup walnut pieces
1T brown sugar
salad greens for two
a nob of goat’s cheese
1/2T sherry or balsamic vinegar
1/2T fruit syrup
3T canola oil
salt

Roast the beets in the oven or cook in the microwave until they can be pierced through with a paring knife. Cool and peel. Heat 1T of water and the brown sugar in a non-stick skillet. Stir in the walnuts. Cook stirring until the liquid evaporates and the nuts are glazed. Place the greens on two salad plates, top with sliced beets, sprinkle on the walnuts and dot with goat’s cheese. (You can use a different cheese such as ricotta or feta.) Combine the vinegar, the fruit syrup (I used a chokecherry syrup made by my friend Laureen) with the oil and a bit of salt. Drizzle over the salad and serve.

Week 16 - FOUR REDS SALAD

Saskatchewan Menu of the Week -- 30 July 2005

Brunch – Scrambled eggs and tomatoes
Dinner – Lentil antipasto. Four Reds Salad. BBQ pork chops.Saskatoon berry pie

FOUR RED SALAD
Four red vegetables make this a very red salad! I can only make it when fresh beets, tomatoes and red peppers are available at the Farmers' Market.

3 small beets
3 medium tomatoes
1 red pepper
1/4 cup chopped red onion
1 clove of garlic
parsley or cilantro leaves
2T olive oil
juice of one lemon
salt and pepper

Bake the beets until soft (in the oven or microwave), peel and chop into a bite-sized dice. Chop tomatoes and red peppers to the same size. Par-boil red peppers in boiling water for about 5 minutes and drain. Mix the vegetables with the chopped parsley or cilantro. Make a vinaigrettes with the oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Pour onto the salad and leave to marinate a couple of hours before serving.