Of soup and my heritage

I made the text I'm cutting-and-pasting here for a couple posts I made on forum for my program at York (where all my classmates can ask about assignments, post responses to questions we've been assigned, arrange rides to conferences, etc.). We had a multicultural potluck today and it got me thinking, so I feel like sharing. You can ignore it if you're not interested in knowing about my reactions to multicultural potlucks throughout my education and about my Mennonite heritage, though. Here we go...

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I got some good feedback on the soup I made for today's multicultural potluck, so I thought I'd post a link to the recipe for those interested: Mennonite Leek Soup . If you don't know what a leek is, to me it looks kind of like a biggie-sized, thicker green onion. Oh, there is chicken stock involved (from the bouillion cubes) so though lots of vegetables are involved, it's not strictly vegetarian; if you are a vegetarian, perhaps you could experiment by using vegetable stock instead. The recipe states that it can be served hot or cold (I think it is better hot, personally). It was quite easy to make, though there's a lot of chopping involved so if you can recruit someone to spend some time with you in the kitchen helping you out then all the better (I recruited my husband). Oh, my local grocery store didn't have marjoram, so I substituted 2 parts oregano for 3 parts marjoram as per my mother-in-law's recommendations (she's got a great cookbook for info like that) and a substitution guide I found on the 'net.

While I'm talking, I'll tell you a little about my background and my experience with hertitage banquets in the past, but feel free to go about your day and ignore this ;). I just feel like sharing. I'm going to post this in the Foundations conference because I think my reflection in this post from this point forward is more appropriate there; I hope that makes some kind of sense. [Edit to blog readers: just ignore that last sentence; it makes sense in the context of our forum but not here.] (I also got kinda involved in trying to figure out this whole "where did I come from?" thing, and to help myself understand my Mennonite side I put together some writing today that summarizes for myself what I've learned about what seems to be my particular group of Mennonite ancestors from a Wikipedia article and a book my dad found while visiting family out in Manitoba earlier this year. I'll post that here, too, in a separate post, but again, feel free to ignore if you're not interested.) [Edit to blog readers: I'll actually post that material below this material rather than in a separate post here.]

I used to find it difficult to participate in any type of "heritage banquet" during my schooling (I can remember 2 such banquets from grade school, but I know there were a lot more times that we talked about culture). I didn't think we ate anything all that "cultural" at home (guess it depends on what you call cultural...is eating Swiss Chalet a lot a cultural thing?) and my parents don't recall having anything all that cultural as they were growing up, either. Finding something from my background futher back was somewhat problematic; while I am of Scottish and English descent on my mom's side, I am of Mennonite descent on my dad's. It would be only natural to try to bring something from my dad's background for a heritage banquet so as to avoid bringing the "boring, normal foods" found in my Scottish and English heritage (I don't think I feel that way any longer about Scottish and English food, though, don't worry :)), but the big problem with trying to do so is that the Mennonites didn't come from any one country. The Mennonites are pacifists, so they had to keep leaving countries in times of war and other difficulties in order to avoid being drafted or to escape other persecution. With such a heritage, what does one do when one is asked to draw the flag representing your background, as my class was in grade 1? (Answer: I think I went with Mom's background and picked out the Union Jack, which I've only recently discovered isn't the flag of England after all but of the UK as a whole.) For one of these banquets, I ended up bringing something from one of the various countries that the Mennonites had been kicked out of over the years (I brought two kinds of cheeses from the Netherlands--Gouda and Edam, I think--though I think I looked into German food possibilities as well, not realizing at the time that while my ancestors spoke German, they didn't live in Germany), but I didn't feel like that really represented me, nor did I really identify with the scones from my English roots I brought to the other banquet.

This time, for the MST banquet [Edit for blog readers: I am in the MST--or math, science and technology--B.Ed. program at York], I decided to actually try to find something that I could feel really did represent my Mennonite heritage--preferably something that could be served at room temperature so that I wouldn't have to wait if everyone else brought something requiring the microwave. I hit Google and started searching for "Mennonite recipes". I was really excited when I found this soup recipe that claimed it could be served hot or cold (though now that I've tried it, I disagree that it can be served cold, though it's definitely tasty hot). I'd never made this soup before, nor do I think I've ever had it before, but my dad said he's had it so I think I can authentically say it's part of my background. I think I enjoyed preparing for this banquet so much more than the others I've been involved in because I found something that I knew I could make (and not just buy) and that really did feature in my family at some point--my dad really might have eaten this growing up on the farm (I still have to confirm this...I did confirm he'd had it, but not whether it was when he was growing up), and my grandma really might have made it for him. I think that's cool, and it resonates with me.

You know what? I think I've discovered the joy of finally being connected to my heritage.

Pedagogical application? Um...if you are talking about culture in your class, having a multicultural potluck, or asking students to pick out the flags that represent their background, be prepared to look for the student who doesn't really know what her culture is but is still trying to figure it out.

Thanks for listening.

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[Edit for blog readers: this was in a separate post on the York forum.]

This is further to my post about my past experiences with heritage banquets (in which I mentioned that you should feel free to ignore this post if you're not interested :)). I mentioned that on my dad's side, I am of Mennonite descent, but I don't know how many of you have heard of Mennonites, so I thought I would clarify. Wikipedia has a long article about them at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mennonite , but you don't really need all that information. I will sum up what I have come to understand for myself from that article and from a book my dad found while visiting family out in Manitoba earlier this year. [Peters, Doreen Reimer (2005). One who dared: Life story of Ben D. Reimer, 1909-1994. Friesens: Altona, MB, Canada]

The Mennonites are a religious group, a denomination of Christianity that is neither Protestant nor Catholic but has its roots in something called the Radical Reformation that happened in the 16th century A.D. (Wikipedia points out that the printing press making the Bible available to a lot of people led to the possibility of a lot of people reading it and interpreting it for themselves, inevitably leading to different groups forming that believed different things, so the Mennonites aren't the only denomination that can trace their religious lineage back to this time.) One distinguishing feature of Mennonites and other related groups is that they are pacifists. Unfortunately, if you live in a country that is going to war and you are a pacifist, you are not very popular (even if you were approved of before the war came up), and at times you need to flee or be drafted. One group of Mennonites fled in the 17th century from the province of Flanders (in the Netherlands) to Prussia, where "they settled among Low German-speaking people, assimilating their language and eventually losing the Dutch language of their ancestry" (Peters, 2005). This explains why it is a variant of German you hear and not Dutch if you hear Mennonites speaking a language other than English. Anyway, these Mennonites eventually ended up in southern Ukraine in the 19th century (though they faced persecution there for various reasons in the 20th century, too, leading some groups to flee again). In 1874 or 1875, a group of over 1000 of these Mennonites (including children) immigrated to North America, with 799 of them settling in Manitoba and the rest in Nebraska. My understanding from Wikipedia and Peters is that Mennonites emigrated to North America as early as 1683, though, so this group of 1000 who came here in the 1800s was only one of several Mennonite groups who eventually emigrated here. In any case, it is among the Mennonites who ended up in Manitoba that my heritage is found. I think you can see from this brief (and very incomplete) history lesson why I don't identify myself with a particular country when it comes to my heritage on my dad's side; I have a heritage of a faith rather than of a nationality.

Today, my experience has been that a lot of people living in Ontario who have heard of Mennonites associate them with the people you see riding in buggys pulled by horses and wearing old-fashioned clothing near Elmira, Ontario. However, if these are Mennonites (they may be Amish, a related group who originally were an offshoot of the Mennonites; I'm unfortunately not sure at the moment), they are only one type. Wikipedia states, "Some groups use horse and buggies for transportation and speak German while others drive cars and speak English" and that "Mennonite congregations worldwide embody the full scope of Mennonite practice from old fashioned 'plain' people to those who are indistinguishable in dress and appearance from the general population." Do I consider myself a Mennonite? Not when it comes to my faith (and I don't think my dad does, either). However, this is my background on my dad's side, and part of me. I am glad to have been able to learn a little more about my background on this side; I feel a little more complete now as a result.

Thanks for listening.