Mennonite cuisine
Mennonite cuisine is food that is unique to and/or commonly associated with Mennonites, a Christian denomination that came out of sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation in Switzerland and the Netherlands. Because of persecution, they lived in community and fled to Prussia, Russia, North America, and Latin America. Groups like the Russian Mennonites developed a sense of ethnicity, which included cuisine adapted from the countries where they lived; thus, the term "Mennonite cuisine" does not apply to all, or even most Mennonites today, especially those outside of the traditional ethnic Mennonite groups. Nor is the food necessarily unique to Mennonites, most of the dishes being variations on recipes common to the countries where they reside or resided in the past.
Mennonites do not have any dietary restrictions as exist in some other religious groups. Some conservative Mennonites abstain from alcohol, but other Mennonites do not, with Mennonite distilleries existing as early as the late 16th century.
Types of Russian Mennonite foods
Russian Mennonite cuisine combines features of various countries due to the history of migrations and most dishes would generally fall under the umbrella of Dutch, Polish, Ukrainian and Russian cuisine. Mennonites in Latin America also adopted local dishes to their cuisine. The result of all these influences is a particular cuisine unique to Russian Mennonites and not synonymous to cuisines of any of their host countries. Common ingredients in Russian Mennonite dishes include cabbage, potatoes, sausage, and a range of dairy products.Common dishes
Common dishes for Russian Mennonites include:bubbat, a raisin quick bread that is either baked inside a chicken while the chicken is being roasted or baked alone as a side dish- chicken soup made with star anise
- dill picklesdisco/discada, a dish cooked in plow disk similar to a wok, used in Latin American Mennonite colonies, particularly Mexico fleisch perishki/perisky/perishky, a meat bunformavorscht, a smoked pork sausage, commonly called Mennonite farmer sausage
- green bean soupjreewe, pork cracklingskjiekle/kielke, pronounced cheel-chya, noodlesknackzoat, sunflower seedskomst borscht perishki/perisky/perishky, a fruit hand pieplumemoos, a cold plum soup
- rice puddingroll kuchen, a sweet fried pastry often eaten with watermelon and syrupschmaundt fat, a white cream gravysumma borscht a light cream and potato soup flavoured with formvorscht and dillvereniki, a cottage cheese pierogi
- waffles with a sweet white vanilla sauce
- yerba mate, brought by Mennonites from Paraguay to Canada.
- zwieback, a two-layered white bun, traditionally roasted and dried, which can be stored for several months and was the main food eaten during Mennonite migrations.