Volga German Cuisine

I have been thinking about ordering one or more cookbooks that I have found on the internet featuring Volga German recipes.  This is my heritage on my paternal side as my great-grandparents and their children immigrated from the Volga River in Russia back in 1907.   I remember enjoying a couple of things growing up that managed to survive integration and the generations, but I want to learn more about what kinds of foods were traditional to my ancestors way back when.

Mom used to make bierocks and varenky (which is basically the same as pierogy with a different name) and these were taught to her by Dad's mother who learned from her mother-in-law, the German from Russia immigrant.   Some of the other foods that I knew were sauerkraut, of course, and German sausage or wurst, as I guess it was called, as the Germans probably didn't call it 'German' sausage!   Grandma used to buy the sausage at Renna's Meat Market in Fresno.  It is still there and still selling their famed and most secret recipe sausage.  Yes, I asked and they would not give it up to me!  As for other foods, there were noodles (spaetzle), pickles of all kinds, and as far as sweets there were the Pfefferneuse, stollen and kolacky.  One thing I was recently surprized to discover is how prominant a food watermelon was to the Volga Germans! 

Ha!  I am wondering how I will manage to blend my desire to explore my heritage with the desire to eat my way to good health?!  I may have to take up Polka to work off all the extra fat I could be consuming. At least I have ordered some cabbage seeds for the garden next spring.  I have never grown cabbage before, but if I manage to harvest any, then I will definitely make some sauerkraut which is supposed to be very healthy as a fermented food.  Well, I can in turn use the kraut to make varenky and also it can be used as an ingredient in borscht.  I also plan to grow the beets for the borscht.

Average First and Last Frost Dates

Links to the average first and last frost dates and growing seasons for the state of Illinois tell me that for my area, I should expect my last frost in the spring sometime between April 14th and 21st (according to the state climatologist office).  My average first fall frost is sometime between October 14th and 21st.  My growing season is somewhere between 185 and 190 days without season extension practices.

Dave's Garden has a page where I can enter in my zipcode and find out more specific information in regard to average frost dates.

The Weather Channel  page.  Again; enter in your zip code for current weather.  Then from that page, scroll down and click on the link to get your >HISTORICAL DATA.  I am seeing March 15th as our last average freeze!  It is interesting to note the difference in dates given by the various sources. I really need to buy a thermometer that saves the low and high temps and start keeping my own records.  Of course, the average is far earlier than the approximate last freeze.  One date or the other is taken into consideration depending upon what is being planted--the hardiness of the plant or lack thereof. 

On this Plant Maps page, I can really zoom in and see our area right down to the roads.

In addition to knowing the average frost dates as an aid to planning my garden, I have been interested in learning about gardening by the signs.    This is important to the philosophy of Biodynamic gardening or farming.   This goes beyond 'organic' and I like the idea of  growing our food and living in harmony with the earth.

Garlic is Planted!



The Samarkand has nice large cloves.  I saved the best for planting!



I first marked the rows with a board, approximately six inches apart. 



This is the dibber tool that I repurposed to make a hole for each clove.
 I think it was once used for soldering.



Plant the clove root end down.  Duh!
6 to 8 inches apart, 2 inches deep.





 
 







I have labeled each bed with the variety of garlic.
 I misspelled 'Samarkand' when painting the stakes. 
Oops!  I don't think  I will sleep at night knowing this is amiss...

 







The Inchelium Red bed-- planted, mulched and labeled.

 

Rosy Melon Rind Pickles

Here are the finished pickles.  The flavor is good, but I don't think I will use this particular recipe again.  The pickles, while they held their shape, are not crisp.  I didn't really expect them to be extrememly crisp, but I think I will go for one of the recipes that called for a lime soak instead.  I think I may have answered my own question about whether the Citron melons and watermelons are interchangeable in a recipe calling for one or the other.  I couldn't say for sure without a side by side comparison, but I'm guessing not.  I used citron melon rinds in a recipe calling for watermelon rinds.  The recipe called for 4 to 5 quarts of cubed watermelon rinds (approximately 4 pounds).  This would result in 5 pints of pickles.  I ended up with over 8 pints...  I only canned 8 and the rest went into the fridge.  So I think that it may have something to do with the amount of water in watermelon rinds versus the citron melon rinds that would account for way less shrinkage from the brine soak. 

Citron Melon

One of the heirloom melons planted in our garden this year is the citron melon.  I don't believe I have ever experienced the citron melon before.  I think all of the watermelon pickles that Grandma made were from regular watermelons.    I was surprized to find that these melons are as tough as nails!  Cutting into them, even with freshly sharpened knives was like trying to cut into an old field pumpkin.  Even the flesh is tough!  It took me two hours to cut up enough rind to make five quarts of one inch cubes.  I may try an electric carving knife for the next batch. Some of the recipes specific to citron melons mentioned that the flesh can be seeded and made into preserves also.  I may not bother with that, as our yield was over fifty melons.  I have already given some away and still have some on the vine that may go into the compost pile. 

I plan to make several batches of pickles or preserves, so we can do a comparison to see what we like best.  The recipe I am using for this first batch is called Rosy Watermelon Pickles.  I was looking for something different.  This one called for maraschino cherries for the color, and in addition to cloves, cinnamon and ginger root, also black pepper!   Sounds good to me.  The book is 'Farm Journal's Freezing and Canning Cookbook', 1978 edition.

Something I found in this book that I have found no where else is that it is better to use melons grown earlier in the season and not overripe in making preserves and pickles.  If these that I have are overripe, I would not know it considering how tough they are, but they are certainly not 'early'.

I was wondering if the recipes for watermelon rind pickles or preserves and citron melon preserves are interchangeable.  Still don't have an answer, but thought I would give it a shot and see what happens.  It seems that the recipes for citron melons that I have noticed, don't call for a brine.  I am wondering if this has something to do with the water content in citron versus a much jucier watermelon.  I went ahead and soaked them in a brine anyway, following the recipe.

While doing some searching around on the internet for recipes I came across this website WatermelonRind.com .  I may try some of the ideas found on the site.  There apparently are other ways to enjoy the rinds besides pickles and preserves!

Heirloom Cucumbers

Heirloom Cukes, etc.

I planted several varieties of cukes this year.  The hybrids look like the normal green cukes we see in the grocery store and are Straight 8 or Sweeter Yet.  Not sure which of those two the green cukes are in the photo.  The golden hued heirlooms are called Poona Kheera and have been coming off the vine as long or longer than the hybrids.  These have as good a flavor as the hybrids with maybe a slightly more gelatinous center if left too long on the vine. They have never been bitter at any stage of growth. They don't seem to keep as long, becoming slightly pithy after a couple of days on the kitchen counter.  The small pale green goose egg like cukes are called Crystal Apple and they are just now ready to come off the vine.   I like the way they look.  The skin is the same color as the flesh, but we still prefer to peel them.  These slice like butter and have a real mild flavor.  I hope they turn out to be longer keepers than the Poona Kheera... I may like to grow these again if so.  The variety of cukes makes a pretty picture.  If I peeled and sliced them, they would all look the same!

Garlic Scapes

The garlic planted last fall is looking great!  The Inchelium Red has begun to turn and they have been blown over for the most part due to strong winds out of the north.  We have had a few good thunderstorms lately.  I am going to assume that the Inchelium Red are a softneck variety that can be braided, but don't quote me on that!  The other variety that I planted are Samarkand and these are without a doubt hardneck garlic!  They are still standing and there is no way I could imagine anyone braiding them.  These developed scapes and the Inchelium Red did not.  I broke off the scapes today and thought I might try using them in stir fry.  I don't have enough to try pickling them, but maybe next year.

Strawberries and Tennis

My version of 'Bread and Circuses'... Hey, if our government can keep the common people in 'strawberries and tennis' then everyone's happy, right?  Uh,...right? 

'Wait!  These are my strawberries! What do you mean, 'redistribution of strawberries?  I paid for these when they were just little bare root starts.  I worked the soil and planted them, fertilized, then watered and weeded them regularly, covered them with straw over the winter, and then earlier this spring I rolled out the floating row cover when frost threatened, I patiently waited for an entire year, and then carefully picked each one when it was at exactly the right point of flavorful ripeness!  Wait!, STOP!   I should be able to eat all that I want and to share them with my friends and family!  What do you mean, you are going to take half of my strawberries and give them to the grasshoppers?'

First Strawberries

Today we harvested and enjoyed our first strawberries!  These are the so-called 'Strawberries as big as peaches' from Gurney's.   Actually today's berries were fairly large...about the size of a golf ball, give or take.  There are some larger-- but still green.  Flavor was decent, but not the outrageously yummy and explosive strawberry flavor that I was dreaming of!  I think that in addition to the cultivar grown, the soil that it is grown in and the weather conditions may have alot to do with the nuances of flavor.   One other fact to make note of is the narrow window of time between slightly underripe one day and slightly overripe another.  I will have to remember to check the berries every day from now on.  The big thing we love is strawberry freezer jam, so as soon as we have begun to eat our fill of fresh berries, then I can start to save them up in the freezer until I have enough for batches of jam. 

This coming Sunday:  waffles with fresh strawberries and whipped cream!

Tomatoes and Peppers sowed today

I have a dream to one day be a very good vegetable gardener (Smile).  I am learning something every year, I suppose.  Doing better about keeping some notes.  I'm slowly getting some permanent beds established.  One day I will have enough permanent garden space to have room for everything I want to grow and also to be able to rotate the crops properly.

The big step this year was finally getting that hoophouse covered.  I wish I had had it done last fall, so that I could have overwintered some things, but better late than never!  We have it in now, and have even managed to start some things early to be transplanted later.

I don't pretend to have it all figured out, but this is what I managed to get seeded so far:  Back on April 21st, I seeded some Okra, six different kinds of melon, five different cucumbers, and some old sage seeds.

Today, two and half weeks later, I have finally seeded about thirteen or fourteen different kinds of tomatoes.  Mostly heirloom, but a few hybrids.  Ten different varieties of peppers; some hot and some sweet...again mostly heirloom, a couple of hybrid varieties.

I have saved these all in an Excel file.  (Trying to do better with keeping notes)!