How do you make 20,000 pastries for Mennonite Relief Sale? With lots and lots of help
How many Mennonites does it take to make 20,000 verenika?
Roughly 400 on a busy Tuesday in Hillsboro.
Thousands of volunteers from more than 70 Mennonite, Brethren in Christ and Amish congregations will help to prepare foods, quilts, crafts, tractors and cars for the 50th annual Mennonite Relief Sale.
The sale will be Friday and Saturday at the Kansas State Fairgrounds in Hutchinson. Proceeds benefit people around the world, helping in natural disasters and with issues relating to food security and food injustices.
Thousands of people will line up Friday afternoon at Cottonwood Court for a "Feeding the Multitudes" buffet of German foods. Diners will feast on cherry moos, verenika with ham gravy, Yoder German sausage, borscht, zwieback, New Year's cookies and other delicacies.
For Kansans used to fast food dinners, this is an Old World experience.
The verenika alone is enough for the drive to Hutchinson.
"People line up all the way down the fairgrounds, the line is sometimes a half mile long or at least three blocks," said Katie Ens of Hillsboro. "You know that people love verenika if they are willing to wait that long."
Verda Deckert of Newton has volunteered with her husband the past three years to help make the verenika.
"These are the best around. And you can say that," Deckert said. "It's memories of childhood. That's what's motivated Jeff (her husband of 52 years) and me to continue the tradition. By having these foods, it raises a lot of money that Mennonite Central uses to provide relief for people around the world. But I've tried to figure out how to make them and well, mine don't turn out as well. This is about years of people knowing what they are doing and passing that on. That ... and having the right equipment to make them."
The old-timers call it "Verr-in-i-ka," rolling the r's easily across their tongues. It is steamed, then fried, pasta dumplings filled with a cottage cheese mixture and served for the purist slathered in ham gravy — although some people have been known to hold the gravy and pour on syrup. A similar dish served this weekend is the Bohne beroggi for dessert, a pastry with sweet pinto bean paste filling, served with a sweet creamy sauce.
"Us Mennonites have German, Russian and Swiss ethnic foods," said Jerry Toews of Goessel, who has helped with the sale for decades. "That's because some of us went from Germany to Russia and then America. And others went from Germany to Switzerland to America. Most of us immigrated to America in 1874."
More than 15,000 Mennonites came to the United States from Russia between 1874 and 1884; of those, 5,000 settled in Kansas. They formed communities at Goessel, Inman, Buhler, Moundridge and elsewhere in central Kansas.
The Parkview Mennonite Brethren Church in Hillsboro has made the verenika for many years. Five years ago, there was a glitch in the tradition when all the members of the committee resigned. That year, the Bread Basket in Newton made the food. The next year, Joy Dalke and Katie Ens volunteered to be on the committee.
"There was such a need for verenika," Dalke said. "There really is no secret to making it — it's just you can't do it without all the volunteers. A lot of the volunteers have done this for many years — more than I can fathom. They do it like a well-oiled machine."
It is a time-honored process.
It takes 2,000 pounds of dry cottage cheese to fill 20,000 verenika, and that cheese is not nearly dry enough when it arrives in 25-pound boxes, Toews said.
Volunteers remove the cottage cheese from the boxes and place it in 3-foot diameter wash tubs. Other volunteers armed with scoops then place the cheese in pillow cases and then in a mop bucket with a squeezer, Toews said.
"They squeeze all the whey out," Toews said. "You really have to have it really dry."
And then comes the secret recipe: 1200 pounds of flour, 40 gallons of milk, 450 dozen eggs and salt and pepper to taste.
The verenika are assembled in an area the size of a basketball court.
The dough is rolled out with pizza rollers. Volunteers armed with large tin cans slice the dough into six-inch circles. The pastry pockets are then filled with the cottage cheese mixture, placed in boxes — 108 verenika to a box — and then carried to a semi-truck where they are frozen and hauled to the state fair grounds.
Come Friday before the Feeding the Multitudes feast, the verenika will be steamed, thrown on griddles, fried on both sides and placed in warming ovens, ready to be served with ham gravy.
"I don't know what secrets we have in making the verenika," Toews said. "We are pretty open on how we make them. Now, some individual cooks might have secrets but when you do things in large quantities, people know how to do this."
For some, verenika is their most favorite German ethnic food.
"They taste good and it is something we grew up with. They are not easily made so they are not an everyday food. It was always very special when we did make them," Dalke said.
If you go
Here are some highlights of the Mennonite Relief Sale on Friday and Saturday at the Kansas State Fairgrounds. Events are free to attend.
The "Feeding the Multitudes" buffet is from 4-8 p.m. Friday in Cottonwood Court. Items are individually priced. Plan to spend between $10 and $15 on dinner.
The general auction begins at 6 p.m. Friday in the Sunflower North Building on the fairgrounds.
On Saturday, events begin at 6:30 a.m. with a breakfast. The sale of quilts and general auction items begins at 8:45 a.m. in the Meadowlark building.
Go to https://kansas.mccsale.org/home/schedule/ for a complete schedule.
This story was originally published April 11, 2018 at 6:26 PM with the headline "How do you make 20,000 pastries for Mennonite Relief Sale? With lots and lots of help."