Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies Volume 8 Issue 2 Gender-Focused Research in Amish and Article 6 Plain Anabaptist Studies 2020 Claiming a Piece of Tradition: Community Discourse in Russian Mennonite Community Cookbooks Amy Harris-Aber Follow this and additional works at: https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/amishstudies Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Please take a moment to share how this work helps you through this survey. Your feedback will be important as we plan further development of our repository. Recommended Citation Harris-Aber, Amy. 2020. "Claiming a Piece of Tradition: Community Discourse in Russian Mennonite Community Cookbooks." Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies 8(2):139-58. This Original Research Article is brought to you for free and open access by IdeaExchange@UAkron, the institutional repository of The University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, USA. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies by an authorized administrator of IdeaExchange@UAkron. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Claiming a Piece of Tradition: Community Discourse in Russian Mennonite Community Cookbooks AMY HARRIS-AbeR Lecturer Department of English Middle Tennessee State University Murfreesboro, TN Abstract: Russian Mennonite immigrants who settled south central Kansas in the late 19th century and their descendants naturally developed a discourse community that differentiates them from the dominant culture in which they reside. Changing regional dynamics regarding diversity along with continued acculturation impacts this ethnoreligious community in a kind of dual displacement; the descendants of these Russian Mennonites not only live in the shadow of their ancestors’ collected memories and traumas related to migration but have and are currently witnessing further shifts away from the once agricultural lifestyle they previously observed. Therefore, heritage preservation is increasingly vital for stakeholders engaged with the history of Anabaptist life in Kansas. This article elucidates aspects of the Russian Mennonite discourse community of south central Kansas by engaging with regional foodways as they appear in community cookbooks. Employing Anne Bower’s “cookbook narratives,” I explore texts that are representative of the Russian Mennonite community and assess the attitudes and assumptions each book exemplifies in regard to its intended audience. I also explore the positionality of these community cookbooks as important artifacts; community cookbooks in this region provide a history of women’s writing and exemplify how food traditions have altered throughout the decades. [Abstract by author.] Keywords: Mennonite Church; culinary; ethnic cuisine; German cuisine; verenika; peppernuts Address correspondence to: Amy Harris-Aber; [email protected] Recommended citation: Harris-Aber, Amy. 2020. “Claiming a Piece of Tradition: Community Discourse in Russian Men- nonite Community Cookbooks.” Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies 8(2):139-58. Publication type: Original article, open access (may be freely distributed). JAPAS is published by the Amish & Plain Ana- baptist Studies Association (http://amishstudies.org) and the University of Akron. 140 Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies,Volume 8, Issue 2, Autumn 2020 INTRODUCTION their beliefs, and many members of this early sect were tortured and killed. To escape persecution, Relationships almost always occupy a central the Mennonites fled to other parts of Germany, place in women’s autobiographies; and in the Switzerland, and various other regions of Europe. cookbooks too, one finds explicitly stated or In the 18th century, Tsarina Catherine the Great subtly implied links to family, friends, and offered a group of Mennonites annexed land in community…Whether the group authors of a exchange for their participation in economic de- particular fund-raising cookbook are actually velopment of the region. The Mennonites were pursuing the depicted heritage, lifestyle and val- ues, we cannot say. All we can say is that they allowed to live in their own communities, speak participated in constructing these texts, usually their own language, practice their faith, and re- appending their names to their recipes, so that main exempt from military service as per the the recipes and names remain to us as a form of requirements of their convictions as contentious self-representation. objectors. The succession of Alexander I in the early Anne Bower (1997, p. 31) 19th century ended Mennonites’ exemptions from military duty and the government demanded that There’s an impression of inevitability that has the religious group further integrate into Russian surrounded this project from its inception. While society. By the 1870s, the Russian empire devel- conducting some exploratory reading, I encoun- oped a fervent nationalism and became less toler- tered Margaret Cook’s (1997) bibliography of ant of groups who resisted being part of the whole. “charitable cookbooks,” which lists 3000 titles At the same time, American land developers were all published before the 1920s. Regarding Cook’s commissioned by railroad companies to convince text, Janice Bluestein Longone points out that large groups of Mennonites to immigrate to land charitable cookbooks, defined as texts produced in what is now considered the “heartland.” Once for their explicit fund raising powers, were often again, a country was seeking those who might assist “the first known cookbook[s] published within with economic development in yet undeveloped [a] state” (Bower and Longone 1997, p. 21). It is spaces. They sent German-speaking agents to iso- too perfect – too fitting – that The Kansas Home lated Mennonite communities throughout Europe Cookbook was the first food text produced in to convince residents to relocate to the United Kansas by residents of the now infamous prison States. The combination of worried Mennonites in town, Leavenworth. Its publication date was 1874, colonies such as Khortitza and Molotchna on the and this is the very year that Russian Mennonites Ukrainian steppes and railroad agents promising traveled on ships to the railways that would lead a new life led to mass migration from the steppes them to their farms in the south-central part of what to the similar climate and landscape of the Kansas people call the “Sunflower State.” The cookbooks plains, where the Mennonites could buy cheap that their female descendants produced a century land and apply their well-honed agricultural skills. later form the basis of the following article. Between 1874 and 1884, 5,000 German-speaking Mennonites migrated from Ukraine to Kansas, FROM THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE TO and Mennonites from Germany and Poland also KANSAS relocated to Kansas at this time. Rural life for these immigrants in Kansas The origins of Mennonite life and culture remained consistent in quality until the 1940s were established in the 16th century as a group of and 1950s, when the mechanization of agricul- people separated themselves from the Protestant ture and the rise of agribusiness displaced large church during an era known as the “radical refor- numbers of them from farming. Despite this shift, mation.” Anabaptists opposed the normative prac- Mennonite folk culture is still evident in many tices of Martin Luther’s brand of Protestantism in parts of Kansas. This is particularly apparent in Whittenburg, adhering to the belief that baptism the south central region of the state, near the city should be reserved for adults who had joined of Newton, as seen in Figure 1. The community the church of their own volition. Acolytes of cookbooks that women in this region produced in Lutheranism attacked them for being heretical in the years following the Mennonite transition off Russian Mennonite Community Cookbooks—Harris-Aber 141 FIGURE 1: MAP SHOWING THE REGION OF STUDY the farm illustrate attempts at both cultural reten- to canvass their church communities and collect tion and adaptation, and they are the centerpiece more than 5,000 recipes” for her book. The result of my analysis. is an impressive and influential tome that has been reissued many times since its first publication in COMMUNITIES, COOKBOOKS, AND 1950. Alternatively, Longacre’s More-with-Less MENNONITE CULTURE approaches the Mennonite cooking commu- nity differently, but it is no less influential than This study owes much to prominent texts such Showalter’s text. More is an inclusive text that as Mary Emma Showalter’s Mennonite Community has an international perspective; stories of mis- Cookbook (1950) and Doris Janzen Longacre’s sion work and recipes from various cultures fill More-with-Less Cookbook (1976). Showalter’s its pages. This is a wider-reaching sense of com- book is considered by many to be a foundational munity but indicates the evolving perspective of text in Mennonite cookery. Her treasury of recipes modern Mennonites in the 20th century, which exemplifies the vital role that community plays in prioritized mission work while demonstrating care the compilation of culinary traditions. According for social justice issues such as food scarcity and to a 2015 article in The Mennonite, Showalter environmental sustainability. “ultimately…was able to round up 125 women 142 Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies,Volume 8, Issue 2, Autumn 2020 Aspects of both cookbooks appear in the categorize recipes and provide information for cookbooks I have selected; both Longacre and those