Ewiger Saatz: Everlasting Yeast

The food culture of the Germans from Russia in Emmons, Logan, and McIntosh Counties, North Dakota, as told by the people who farmed and gardened in the area. Interviews, photographs, memories and recipes about surviving in a time before electricity when food was grown and eaten locally. Includes recipes from handwritten notebooks. Gardening, canning, butchering, threshing... all about local food.

Sue (Kasemen)  Balcom, editor, said, “This project brought me home again. My heart aches for my grandparents. If I had known them, what I know now about these Germans from Russia, I may have lived my life differently. This book is a lasting legacy to my heritage. One of the most rewarding projects I have ever been part of.

 

Carmen Rath-Wald, President of the Tri-County Tourism Alliance, and Logan County Extension Agent, comments, “One of my earliest memories is of standing on a chair and watching my German-Russian grandmother stirring chocolate chip cookie dough in her chipped green enamel bowl. She died when I was just four years old, but with each chocolate chip cookie I eat, I remember her, and how she made me, her ‘Mitzi’, feel as we talked in her little kitchen. It is memories like this that, “Ewiger Saatz”, recalls for me and those memories connect me to the important past. This connection to heritage and culture is the crux of the book with the food as the vehicle.”

 

Acacia Jonas Stuckle, Emmons County Extension Agent, writes, “It is the food traditions of the Germans from Russia that will keep our heritage alive. Every time I make strudels or knoephla, I am teaching my own children about their culture. They will not learn to speak their ancestor’s dialect and they may never learn to polka, but they will eat the foods their ancestors once prepared. This book is an important tribute to the past and an even more important relic for our future.”

 

"This is not, strictly speaking, a cookbook; it is a description of a way of life, with detailed attention to the handling of food, and with numerous recipes, including such German-Russian favorites as Kuchen, Fleischkeuchle, and Strudla. Lavishly illustrated with photographs and primary documents, this work is compelling to read and handy as a culinary reference.” – Dr. Tom Isern, Professor of History & Distinguished University Professor, North Dakota State University, Fargo