Our kitchen is a map of the journey: Dutch and Prussian baking, Russian and Ukrainian vegetables, and whatever the new country grew. Ask three families for one recipe and you will get four.
Zwieback
Two balls of dough, one on top of the other, baked into a double bun. Sunday bread, faspa bread, travel bread — dried, it kept for weeks on a trek.
Borscht
Mennonite borscht is usually a summer soup with cabbage, dill and tomato, often with beef; the beet version came later and is not the only true one, whatever your grandmother says.
Vereniki
Dough pockets filled with dry curd cheese, served with cream gravy and often with ham. The single most argued-about dish we have.
Faspa
Not a dish but an institution: the afternoon meal of bread, cheese, cold meat, jam and coffee, with visitors expected.
Recipes belong in the groups — bring yours.