Hutterite Kitchen

Manitoba is home to a multitude of culinary influences. For our first feature in a series on the cultural cuisines of our region, we travelled to the New Rosedale Hutterite colony, 20 minutes southwest of Portage La Prairie.

A Hutterite kitchen is just like any other kitchen, except it’s super, super clean,” says Hilda Maendel, originally principal of the colony school and now a teacher, and our guide around the 10,000-acre colony on a fall afternoon. “Everything is washed three times a day.”

What Hilda doesn’t mention is that in addition to being immaculately clean, the kitchen is industrial in nature and immense—and it would have to be in order to prepare three squares for the approximately 130 people of the colony each day. New Rosedale is an older Hutterite colony—founded in 1945—and as a result is one of the largest in the province.

Feeding such a number on a daily basis sounds chaotic, but thanks to much planning and coordination, meals are prepared, served, cleared and cleaned up in mere moments. During our noon-hour visit, a meal was eaten and the entire kitchen cleaned, literally from top to bottom, to a sparkling shine within an hour.

At New Rosedale the head cook, a position that is voted into place, and two assistant cooks are responsible for planning all the meals. Three meals–breakfast, “dinner” at noon, and “supper” at 6 o’clock– are prepared in the community kitchen with rotating help from the adult women in the colony, who make quick work of their duties.

Accompanying the head cook each week are the two assistant cooks and dishwashers, which all are assigned in groups on a rotating basis. It’s all very organized, so if it’s one woman’s cooking or baking week, she isn’t obliged to wash dishes as well. “In the kitchen, it’s like a smorgasbord; it’s much easier on the ladies,” says Maendel.

While at supper “international” fare is frequently served, including pizza and Chinese food, more traditional foods are eaten at dinner, such as beet borscht and knaedel, a potato dumpling served in a cream sauce. Like most dishes passed down from generation to generation, they are cooked to taste–recipes are rarely used.

One extraordinary aspect of the New Rosedale culinary culture is selfsufficiency. Most ingredients are fresh from their farm, including everything from fresh eggs, cheese and cream to vegetables, fruits, hogs, ducks and beef. The size of the colony allows them to be very diversified, because, as Hilda puts it, “We like having our own stuff!”

Much care is taken to use all parts of each ingredient as nothing goes to waste - chickens from their 22,000-hen farm are used entirely, including the birds’ feet for

making hearty broths. The fat from their geese is used to fry everything, including the french fries—a rich and flavourful version of the favourite.

For our mid-day meal, we sampled fresh and pillowy whole wheat rolls with a hint of sweetness, the famous goose fat french fries, fresh-pressed apple juice from the onsite orchard, coffee with fresh cream and steaming bowls of gaestle soup—a colony favourite.

“We always have soup for dinner; it’s almost unheard of to have a dinner without soup,” says Hilda. “This soup is incredibly popular. Gaestle is like a noodle, made with flour and eggs and water, with a bit of yellow food colouring. The gaestle is added to pieces of beef and cooked with sauerkraut and chicken broth. This soup is usually served with the special Sunday meal of duck with hot sauerkraut.”

Meals are generally eaten communally in a large dining room, with a separate dining room for children aged 15 and under—toddlers eat at home. As they do in church, the women sit on one side, the men on the other and both according to age group. Families preferring to dine at home use their own specially-made pots that are used to carry food from the kitchen home. These pot sets are mad by another Manitoban colony and also include a compost bin marked with the family’s initials in keeping with their waste-not philosophy. The entire community kitchen is well stocked and technically advanced. A huge canning room has shelves stocked to the ceiling with jars of pickles, sauces, vegetables and fruits at the perfect temperature, a sight sure to awe any home preserver.

Though Hutterite colonies are often lauded for their down-home fare and non-materialistic lifestyles, it’s their kind spirit that truly drives the communities. An overall sense of sharing permeates the New Rosedale colony, the residents’ work ethic exceeded only by their welcoming and giving nature.

Special thanks to Hilda Maendel, Liz Sherritt and Laura Dawn Clapham.