Will Braun
Without conventional agriculture more people would starve. That is the link commonly drawn between global hunger and the dominant form of North American farming, which depends heavily on fertilizer, fuel, pesticide and genetic inputs.
As the son of Russian Mennonites who arrived in Canada in 1924 and 1926, I have a positive bias towards this book which takes the 26 letters of the alphabet and picks one event, recipe or idea from the Russian/Prussian/Dutch experience and relates part of the story.
In our home, we discovered a new favourite fusion dish. In a surprisingly tasty combination,we ate Pflinzen and Chapjae together.
Hans Goertzen of Pacific Flooring and Imports operates the specialty store that caters to the needs of Mennonite immigrants in the Abbotsford area of B. C. (Photo by Amy Dueckman)
Walk into Pacific Flooring and Imports in Abbotsford, and customers will see a seemingly unlikely combination of laminate flooring, spices, international foods and charcoal for barbecues.
Recently I stood in line-ups for two different kinds of “Mennonite” foods. In one line I waited, along with many others, for my order from the annual Laotian Mennonite spring roll sale. A week later I waited for my two dozen Russian Mennonite fleisch perishky (meat-filled buns).
Tavis Weber checks on loaves of fresh-baked whole-grain whole-wheat bread at the Golden Hearth Bakery he owns with his wife Heidi in downtown, Kitchener, Ont.
“There are some things I don’t understand,” opines Bruce Weber about his nephew, Tavis Weber. “The guy goes to school in music for four years and then he goes and buys a bakery.”
