KENT DAVIES: You’re listening to Preserves: A Manitoba Food History Podcast. Exploring the rich, flavourful history of Manitoba food and the people who make it, sell it and eat it. From the packing table to the dinner table. From restaurant specials to grandma’s secret recipes. We consider the cultural, social, and commercial aspects of Manitoba food and what it means to us. I’m your host Kent Davies. As per usual, I’m joined by Manitoba business historian, Professor Janis Thiessen.

JANIS THIESSEN: Hey, Kent. What’s in the pantry for us today?

KENT DAVIES: Well, this episode is a bit of departure from what we normally do on Preserves which is, you know, we often focus on one subject or interview and try to do a complete long form audio documentary production and then we will talk about it. But over the course of the project, we discovered there are a lot more interesting tidbits of information and anecdotes that really didn’t fill, you know, an entire episode but were valuable nonetheless. So, we assigned one of our research assistants Michaela Hiebert to help figure how we can tell those stories but in a bite size format. And she came up with a series of conversational segments with her and myself, and we’re calling that “Crumbs.”

JANIS THIESSEN: Yes, and one of the things I really like about this is that it highlights how personal oral history is. Different things will strike different listeners on the basis of their own past experience. So, she has drawn out a couple small stories from different oral history interviews that have struck her as particularly interesting. And it’s interesting to me how even such small segments of oral histories can be used to understand much larger issues within Canadian history.

KENT DAVIES: Yeah, for sure and we’re hoping to produce more of these in the project with students and others. So, our first segment has to do with ammonia cookies. Now without giving too much away have you ever made ammonia cookies, Janis?

JANIS THIESSEN: No, never and I never will. My mother made those growing up and the memory of their production has put me off of them.

KENT DAVIES: [Laughs] We’re going to hear why that is in just a second. Let’s give it a listen.

KENT DAVIES: Hi Michaela, I see you’re baking something. What’s cooking? What’s that smell

MICHAELA HIEBERT: That Kent, is the smell of my Russian Mennonite culture! Not to be confused with those Swiss Mennonites

KENT DAVIES: I see. Um, is it supposed to smell this pungent

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Not usually. Ammonia cookies are very much the exception in Mennonite cuisine

KENT DAVIES: Wait a minute, ammonia? Like the stuff farmers spray in their fields

MICHAELA HIEBERT: It’s not that ammonia. It’s a compound called ammonium bicarbonate also known as baker’s ammonia. It’s a cousin ingredient to baking soda. 1 It’s kind of fallen off as an ingredient so it’s harder to come by. Unless you go to a specialty shop like the former Riediger’s Store here in Winnipeg. Here’s what Betty Riediger remembers:

BETTY RIEDIGER: And then they had so many things. Imports from Germany that the Mennonite ladies liked to cook with. You know? From the old country. They needed all these things. Especially when you bake cookies. I mean, where in the world would you buy baking ammonia? Because that’s not something that—and yet, quite a few of our Christmas cookies have that in them. And so, at Christmas people would come in especially for that baking ammonia. 2

KENT DAVIES: Okay, this is starting to sound a little more appetizing. But why not save yourself the chemical headache and sub in baking soda for baker’s ammonia

MICHAELA HIEBERT: It’s all about the end result. Baker’s ammonia, like all leavening agents, produces carbon dioxide gas when heated. It’s these gas bubbles that give baked goods their pillow-soft texture. 3 That said, baker’s ammonia is really good at drying out cookies by venting out the moisture via those gas bubbles. 4 The result in ammonia cookies is essentially a soft yet crispy sugar cookie. Even better, as food historian Sharon Hudgins points out these cookies hold a shape well. This makes baker’s ammonia a crucial ingredient in other Central European baking recipes like embossed Springerle cookies and lebkuchen. 5

KENT DAVIES: Okay, alright. This makes sense.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: There’s also the element of tradition. These cookie recipes are very old, and actually predate the invention of baking soda and baking powder.

KENT DAVIES: Like how old are we talking here?

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Premodern. Beginning in the Middle Ages, ammonium bicarbonate was derived by burning or dry-distilling animal keratin like antlers in lime kilns. 6 Before it was called baker’s ammonia it was called Hartshorn from this process. After burning, the ashes were collected and stored for later use. 7

KENT DAVIES: Okay, please tell me this process has evolved and that there are no charred animal by-products in these cookies

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Don’t stress Kent. Today, baker’s ammonia is synthesized by heating ammonium chloride and chalk. 8

KENT DAVIES: Well, that’s reassuring. So, how long did it take for baking soda to become the ingredient of choice?

MICHAELA HIEBERT: According to food historian Linda Civitello, American women were still using baker’s ammonia in the years before the Civil War. The company that eventually became today’s Arm and Hammer introduced their baking soda in 1846. By the mid and late 1850s, baking soda and baking powder were staple ingredients listed in cookbooks. And it’s not just that baking soda was more readily available. According to Civitello, biscuits and rolls baked with baking soda eliminate the extra labour needed to ensure the items are uniform and will bake evenly. Another problem with baker’s ammonia is that it can sometimes leave a pee-like aftertaste, presumably if too much has been used or the temperature wasn’t hot enough to boil off the ammonia gas. 9

KENT DAVIES: Yeah, that’s not too good.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: I agree with you on that one.

KENT DAVIES: So, when, and where did ammonia cookies become a Mennonite thing? This all sounds more generic European thing to me

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Well, you’re not entirely wrong Kent. Now this is the part of the pod where I give a crash course on the geography of Mennonite settlements. One of the first Anabaptist movements popped up in what we today call Switzerland. By the 1530s we see some Anabaptists moving into today’s Austria and Czech Republic according to Cornelius Dyck. 10 Hudgins does note that Springerle cookies and lebkuchen variants can be found in the food cultures around the Baltic Sea. A place where Mennonites ended up after fleeing persecution in the Low Countries beginning in the late 1500s. 11 And remember how American women were familiar with hartshorn? The first Mennonites to immigrate to America got there in the 1700s. 12 That said, it seems pretty likely that Mennonites adopted these cookie recipes from their neighbours if they didn’t bring it themselves. And of course, there’s precedent for culinary borrowing. We didn’t exactly come up with vereniki and borscht on our own, we picked it up during our stay in Ukraine.

KENT DAVIES: Okay, that’s interesting but what about a more contemporary connection between Mennonites and ammonia cookies? Like, are a lot of Mennonites still actively using this ingredient?

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Well for my second piece of evidence, I am invoking the third most sacred Mennonite text after the Bible and Martyr’s Mirror

KENT DAVIES: Which is?

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Mennonite Girls Can Cook.

KENT DAVIES: Okay, seriously?

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Hear me out! Mennonite Girls Can Cook lists at least seven cookie recipes requiring baker’s ammonia. Three of them are a peppermint flavoured sugar cookie and one is for lebkuchen. 13 The fact that these recipes are still passed around tells me Mennonites are pretty attached to these goodies. So, what do you think Kent? You up for some ammonia cookies and milk

KENT DAVIES: Okay, you won me over. I’ll have a cookie.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Hey Kent, how do you take your coffee?

KENT DAVIES: Well, Michaela, I need a cup of coffee before I start answering any questions this early.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Kent. It’s eleven a.m.

KENT DAVIES: Well, you got me there. So, I take my coffee with one milk and one sugar.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Have you ever meditated on where the sugar comes from?

KENT DAVIES: When I think of sugar, I usually think somewhere tropical where sugar cane grows.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: You’re not entirely wrong. But I was thinking something a little more vegetal and a little closer to home, like sugar beets and Fort Garry?

KENT DAVIES: Like Fort Garry, Winnipeg?

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Precisely! Once upon a time, way back in 1939 an outfit called Manitoba Sugar was established to remedy the looming sugar crisis due to wartime rationing and generally bolster the prairie sugar beet industry by taking some of the pressure off coastal refineries in Vancouver and Montreal. 15

KENT DAVIES: Could they produce a lot of sugar, though? That sounds like a pretty niche crop.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Yes and no. According to a master’s thesis by John Friesen, sugar beets first started to be cultivated on an experimental basis at the Brandon Experimental Farm in 1890. 16 From there, growing was done in fits and spurts around southern Manitoba until 1920 when the emergence of a sugar beet industry in the northern US kickstarted Canadian efforts. 17 By the mid to late 1930s sugar beet fields were a pretty common sight from Portage la Prairie to the Pembina Valley with the industry really hitting its peak between 1960 and 1990. 18

KENT DAVIES: Okay, we have the beets, but how do we get the sugar?

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Well, after harvesting, the beets would either be trucked into Winnipeg, or taken by rail depending on where the farm was. According to Friesen, any distance longer than forty miles required rail transport in order to become economically feasible. 19 Upon arrival at the Manitoba Sugar refinery, the beets were washed and then sent by conveyor to the slicer. After being sliced into French fry shaped pieces, they’re sent to the diffuser where the beet chunks are swished around in water to force the juice out and into the bottom of the tank, with the spent beet pulp floating to the top. From there, the raw sugar juice is mixed with lime and carbon dioxide gas to precipitate out any impurities. Then, the juice is boiled in under a vacuum until sugar crystals form. Finally, the crystals are separated from residual syrup by centrifuge and allowed to dry out before bagging. 20

KENT DAVIES: And how many tons of beets are we talking about during this whole process?

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Friesen states that the first year of operation saw Manitoba Sugar doing daily slicing capacity of 1500 tons of beets. At the time of writing his thesis in 1962, the capacity was roughly 2400 tons. 21 In order to maintain productivity, Manitoba Sugar contracted farmers in southern Manitoba to grow a set number of acres of sugar beets for them. 22 Here’s what John Kuhl, former president of Southern Potato in Winkler, had to say about his family’s flirtation with sugar beets.

JOHN KUHL: There was some years, I think we’d grow 700 acres of sugar beets.

SARAH STORY: And was that strictly for Manitoba Sugar, or anybody else?

JOHN KUHL: Just for Manitoba Sugar.

SARAH STORY: Just for, okay. That’s right.

JOHN KUHL: Yeah, that’s the only place you could sell. There was no other market. Manitoba Sugar was the only market that there was for our sugar beets in Manitoba. 23

KENT DAVIES: Interesting. That relationship between farmers and Manitoba doesn’t sound particularly kosher in a legal sense though.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Ah, you noticed that, too. Well, you weren’t the only one who thought so, Kent. Manitoba Sugar was bought by BC Sugar aka Roger’s Sugar already in 1956. Not long after the acquisition, the company was taken to court by the Manitoba government for monopoly-related shenanigans. Ultimately the case was dismissed, and the subsequent appeal fizzled out. 24 It’s worth noting though that BC Sugar’s luck did eventually run out. The plant in Winnipeg closed in 1997 as a result of the 1995 GATT negotiations. 25 In essence, the US gained the ability to restrict Canadian sugar product exports and implement levies on refined sugar. This is what John Kuhl remembers about the demise of Manitoba Sugar.

JOHN KUHL: The US had a sugar policy. They got paid much better for their sugar than we did. You couldn’t import. It was sort of controlled, like a marketing control. Get that in under a certain price; if you did, you had to pay the difference. And I guess the plant maybe was getting older so that they needed to spend more money on it, or something. We were not involved until the end; I think we moved out in ‘86. 26

MICHAELA HIEBERT: In the end, the Kuhls were just one of 230 sugar beet growers left high and dry. 27 Luckily for the Kuhls, getting out of sugar beets early proved to be a great idea. They pivoted to potato cultivation and they now supply chipping potatoes to our favourite chip makers, Old Dutch.

KENT DAVIES: And the rest of the growers?

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Best I can tell, they all switched to other crops. At the time of recording, only Alberta has a sugar beet for sugar products industry, and it’s the Roger’s plant in Taber. 28 That said, Alberta sugar is still pretty sweet in my opinion.

KENT DAVIES: Alright. But I’ve got to get another cup of coffee. You coming?

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Let’s go.

KENT DAVIES: And we’re back after learning a little about Manitoba sugar. So, as Michaela stated there are no more sugar beet farms left in Manitoba. Is that true?

JANIS THIESSEN: Yes, the only remaining producers of sugar beets in Canada are in Alberta and some in Ontario but most of the Ontario sugar beets are shipped to Michigan to be processed.29

KENT DAVIES: I mean, is it a thriving industry. Is there potential for it to grow in Canada?

JANIS THIESSEN: Well, that’s the hope of the Alberta Sugar Beet Growers. Canada only produces around ten percent of the sugar that is consumed within the country, something that group wants to change. They’re pushing the federal government to implement a domestic sugar policy that would increase the amount of Canadian produced sugar consumed in Canada.30

KENT DAVIES: Well, we have more beet related content coming, with our last Crumbs segment which features interviews we did in 2019 at Canada’s National Ukrainian Festival, in Dauphin Manitoba. We had a lot of fun out there.

JANIS THIESSEN: It was fantastic. The food was excellent. There was outdoor baking. There were Cossacks displays. Of course, all the music. And we managed to interview a few folks as well about their unique experiences either in agriculture or domestic Ukrainian food production or memories associate with Oseredok and their preservation efforts. It was a really good and tasty time. And we had a few folks abord the Manitoba Food History truck to share their life stories and their recipes.

KENT DAVIES: Yeah, and one of those recipes will be the main subject of our last Crumbs segment, where we will hear the voices and sounds of the National Ukrainian festival in Dauphin and learn about a delicious dish known as Beat Leaf Rolls.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Hey Kent, how do you feel about bread?

KENT DAVIES: I love bread! Easily a top ten human invention.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Now hear me out, what if we added beet leaves, dill, and cream to the bread?

KENT DAVIES: Okay.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: It’s kind of hard to describe, so I’ll let Linda Hunter from Oseredok explain.

LINDA HUNTER: The beet leaf rolls or as some folks call them ‘beatniks.’ They look like cabbage rolls but they’re beet leaves rolled up around bread dough. And so, you roll them up and let them rise. And don’t wrap the beet leaf too tight or you’ll end up with like barbells. And just put some onion and dill over them and bake them. And when you serve them, you fry up onions and whipping cream and put whipping cream over them. And that’s how you serve them.31

KENT DAVIES: Oh! Those! I love those. A friend of mine’s mother makes them. Betty Shumka is her name, and everyone knows she makes amazing beet leaf rolls.

BETTY SHUMKA: There are a lot of recipes, lot of people use—they add other things. Like they don’t want it—the rich cream, so—my mother always used farm cream, real thick. So, I usually pick the beets the night before so it’s kind of—the leaves get a little softer. You know, so it’s easier to wrap them. And then in the morning I’ll make the dough. So basically, what I do is just wrap it. You bake them until they’re just slightly golden and they’ll come out looking like this. And you’ll see they stuck together.32

KENT DAVIES: According to Shumka, sticking together is what good beet leaf rolls do. She also claims Beet Leaf rolls are unique to Manitoba.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Well, Joyce Sirski-Howell also thinks so. She’s an avid collector of Ukrainian cookbooks from across Canada.

JOYCE SIRSKI-HOWELL: And one of the things that was very unusual when I went to Alberta from Manitoba was my mom and a lot of neighbours and everybody, we made what we call beet leaf holopchi. People call them ‘doggie bones’ and various things. And when I went to Alberta people didn’t really know about them. So, whether it was just a regional thing out of necessity possibly. And like my mom for example would make bread on the day like this. I mean if we needed bread she’d bake bread, a dozen loaves on a hot day on a wood stove because that’s what we had growing up. And then she would make supper with these beet leaf holopchi because we had the cream on the farm and we would have a roaster full of these things for supper. And I think it was a necessity more than you know? You wouldn’t find that in any Ukrainian cookbook you know? In Ukraine. 33

KENT DAVIES: So, they’re only a Manitoba thing.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: I would say they’re a little more pan-prairie.

KENT DAVIES: But why is that?

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Do you want the short answer, or the long one?

KENT DAVIES: The long one please.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Let’s start with the beets themselves. They’re not native to Ukraine. Beets are believed to have their roots, pun intended, in the Mediterranean.34 The Greeks and Romans cultivated them for both the tuber/taproot part and the leaves.35 So, that’s a context clue right there. Based on a writeup by Texas A&M University’s Horticulture department, beets appear to have been a common crop across Europe roughly around the sixteenth century.36 I’m going to go out on a limb and say Ukraine counts as Europe.

As for the Canadian connection, it’s pretty straightforward. The immigrants just brought beet seeds with them. I should mention that beets are just really, really, hardy. Author Bryan Demchinsky states that his family grew beets and dill because they could withstand not only the cold of the Canadian climate, but the smelter smoke from the refinery in their Northern Saskatchewan mining town. 37

KENT DAVIES: So, the Ukrainian immigrants brought beets with them but you still haven’t mentioned the prairie connection though.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: I’m getting there. Well, the first Ukrainian immigrants to the prairie provinces by and large came from Galicia and Bukovina. 38 Today it’s the area of Western Ukraine and a small chunk of northern Romania. These immigrants tended to be family units: a husband, wife, the kids and maybe a grandparent or two. 39

KENT DAVIES: Even the grandparents?

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Yes, because leaving Baba to starve back in the old country isn’t exactly an option? The idea of having land wasn’t the only thing tempting to immigrants. Famine, according to historian Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky, was endemic in Galicia by the late nineteenth century. 40Already by 1880, the fourth famine year in fourteen years, newspapers in Galicia were reporting the uptick in immigration. 41 Famed Ukrainian activist Ivan Franko wrote a poem about how bad things were. 42

KENT DAVIES: Well, this took a very dark turn.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Hate to break it to you, but it gets worse. Surviving famine is genuinely traumatizing. It makes you loathe to throw out food. Historian Marlene Epp noticed this pattern in Mennonite refugees after the Second World War and UkrainianFest volunteer Jen Frykas suggests Ukrainians do too. 43

JEN FRYKAS : So, my baba when she makes her first borscht of the year, she uses the stems of the beets and that’s because it’s early in the season, you don’t want to waste anything. And that’s actually how beet leaf rolls, some people call them ‘beatniks,’ or beet leaf holopchi that’s kind of how that got started. Because really, you use the beets for borscht, but the leaves you don’t really want to—there is nutrition in it, you don’t want to waste it. Yeah. And so, I think—because I think through doing this workshop, I’ve met—like I’ve met people from Ukraine, and US, and across the western prairies. And really many people hadn’t heard about it. It’s not really something that was done in Ukraine. But I think it’s because there wasn’t a lot when the pioneers came. So, they really needed to make the most of what they had. 44

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Considering the historical context of the situation, beet leaf rolls just make sense. When you remember what hunger feels like and you have to feed your family with what you have because your new home is miles away from the nearest store, what are you going to do? The combination of leafy greens, complex carbs, and fat checks off three of the four food groups and so Frykas’ explanation sounds legit.

KENT DAVIES: Well, I suppose the creation of delicious dish like this is a bright spot in an otherwise grim story.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: If it makes you feel better, beet leaf rolls don’t have the taint of being a famine food anymore. If anything, they’re a vital conduit for continued transmission of Ukrainian culture as Linda Hunter argues.

LINDA HUNTER : To me, it’s a part of who I am. And so, I would like somebody else to take that on for me, as a memory. You know? That okay, you know, Baba and I did this together and hopefully they’ll do that with their kids someday. You know? That that would be a special memory that they would be able to preserve and so, a lot of that centers around food. 45

KENT DAVIES: So, today many Ukrainian-Canadians consider beet leaf rolls an important cultural recipe to pass on to a new generation?

MICHAELA HIEBERT: That’s right and not just the ones from Manitoba. In fact, in recent years beet leaf rolls have become better known across the country. They’ve been featured on national news sites and in popular Canadian cookbooks. 46

KENT DAVIES: Well, I for one, don’t care where beet leaf rolls are being served, I just want to eat them. All of them.

MICHAELA HIEBERT: Смачно́го Kent!

SOURCES

1 Jennifer McGavin, “Ammonium Carbonate in Baking,” The Spruce Eats, published April 30, 2019. Accessed August 9, 2021; Jennifer McGavin, “Ammonium Carbonate in Baking,” Hiloved, published April 30, 2019. Accessed August 9, 2021.

2 Betty Riediger, (former proprietor of Riediger’s Store in Winnipeg), interview by Janis Thiessen, April 13, 2016, in Winnipeg, MB. Digital Audio Recording. Independent Grocers Project. Oral History Centre Archive, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB. 1:23:15 - 1:23:40.

3 McGavin, “ Ammonium Carbonate .”

4 “ What is Baker’s Ammonia? ” Cooks Illustrated. Accessed Aug 9, 2021.

5 Sharon Hudgins, “ Edible Art: Springerle Cookies .” Gastronomica 4, no. 4 (Fall 2004), 66-68.

6 McGavin, “ Ammonium Carbonate .”

7 McGavin, “ Ammonium Carbonate .”

8 McGavin, “ Ammonium Carbonate .”

9 Linda Civitello, “The Liberation of Cake: Chemical Independence, 1796” in Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight that Revolutionized Cooking. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 24-27.

10 Cornelius Dyck, An Introduction to Mennonite History, (Harrisonberg; Herald Press, 1993), 70-71. Kindle.

11 Hudgins, “Edible Art,” 66.; Dyck, Mennonite History, 121-123.

12 Dyck, Mennonite History, 195-196.

13 “Recipe Index,” Mennonite Girls Can Cook. Accessed August 9, 2021.

14 Sabrina Stierwalt, “Why Do Smells Trigger Memories?” Scientific American, June 29, 2020. Accessed March 20, 2022.

15 Gordon Goldsborough, “Manitoba Business: Manitoba Sugar Company,” Manitoba Historical Society (12 June 2018), accessed 25 August 2021; “History of the Sugar Industry in Canada,” Canadian Sugar Institute, Accessed 25 August 2021.

16 John Friesen, “The Manitoba Sugar Beet Industry: A Geographical Study,” (M.A. thesis, University of Manitoba, 1962), 7.

17 Friesen, “The Manitoba Sugar Beet Industry,” 9.

18 Friesen, “The Manitoba Sugar Beet Industry,” 10-25; Goldsborough, “Manitoba Business: Manitoba Sugar Company.”

19 Friesen, “The Manitoba Sugar Beet Industry,” 102.

20 Friesen, “The Manitoba Sugar Beet Industry,” 140-141; “About Sugar,” Lantic Rogers, accessed 25 August 2021.

21 Friesen, “The Manitoba Sugar Beet Industry,” 137.

22 Friesen, “The Manitoba Sugar Beet Industry,” 112.

23 John Kuhl, former President and CEO of Southern Potato Company, interviewed by Sarah Story, 2 February 2015, in Winkler, MB, digital audio recording, 01:10:15-01:10:25, Canadian Snack Foods Project, “Old Dutch Series,” Oral History Centre Archive, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB.

24 Goldsborough, “Manitoba Business: Manitoba Sugar Company.”

25 Goldsborough, “Manitoba Business: Manitoba Sugar Company.”

26 John Kuhl interview, 01:10:30-01:11:40.

27 Goldsborough, “Manitoba Business: Manitoba Sugar Company.”

28 “About Sugar,” Lantic Rogers.

29 Lyndsey Smith, “Michigan Sugar plant improvements to benefit Ontario sugar beet growers,” Real Agriculture., August 26, 2021, accessed March 20, 2022.

30 Erik Bay, “Alberta Sugar Beet Growers pushing for federal sugar policy,” Global News, September 27, 2021. Accessed March 20, 2022.

31 Linda Hunter, interview by Janis Thiessen, Aug 2, 2019 in Dauphin, MB. Digital Audio Recording, Manitoba Food History Project. Oral History Centre Archive, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB. 00:19:52-00:20:25.

32 Betty Shumka, interview by Janis Thiessen, Aug 3, 2019 in Dauphin, MB. Digital Audio Recording, Manitoba Food History Project. Oral History Centre Archive, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB. 00:06:30-00:09:10.

33 Joyce Sirski-Howell, interview by Janis Thiessen, Aug 3, 2019 in Dauphin, MB. Digital Audio Recording, Manitoba Food History Project. Oral History Centre Archive, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB. 00:22:57-00:24:15.

34 “First Beets Yielded Only Greens,” Texas A&M University Agrilife Extension, accessed Mar 15, 2022.

35 “First Beets Yielded Only Greens”

36 “First Beets Yielded Only Greens”

37 Bryan Demchinsky, “Borscht - A Love Story,” Gastronomica 15, no. 3 (Fall 2015), 71.

38 Frances Swyripa, Wedded to the Cause: Ukrainian-Canadian Women and Ethnic Identity 1891-1991, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 21.

39 Swyripa, Wedded to the Cause, 21.

40 Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky, Essays in Modern Ukrainian History, (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1987), 336.

41 Larry Wolff, The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture, (Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2010), 255-256.

42 Wolff, The Idea of Galicia, 256.

43 Marlene Epp, “The Semiotics of Zwieback: Feast and Famine in Narratives of Mennonite Refugee Women” in Sisters or Strangers? Immigrant, Ethnic and Racialized Women in Canadian History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 331.

44 Frykas, interview with Kent Davies, Aug 2, 2019 in Dauphin, MB. Digital Audio Recording, Manitoba Food History Project. Oral History Centre Archive, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB. 00:04:05-00:04:30.

45 Jen Linda Hunter interview, 00:23:00-00:23:31.

46 Laura Brehaut, “Cook this: Beet leaf buns with onion, cream and dill sauce from The Prairie Table.” National Post, June 4 2019. Accessed April 6, 2022; Jill Harris, “Granny’s beet rolls,” CTV, Accessed April 6, 2022; Karylnn Johnston, The Prairie Table: Suppers, Potlucks & Socials: Crowd-Pleasing Recipes to Bring People Together: A Cookbook (Penguin Random House Canada, 2019); Jillian Harris and Tori Wesszer, Fraiche Food, Full Hearts: A Collection of Recipes for Every Day and Casual Celebrations (Random House, 2019).

Preserves is made possible by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and assistance from the Oral History Centre at the University of Winnipeg.

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