family baking traditions

[sophia_sol]

One of the Christmas baking traditions in my family is pfeffernüsse, but a variation that is a bit unusual in Mennonite tradition -- instead of the classic tiny little crunchy cookies that look like kibble, it's yeasty buns stuck together and with red sugar on top. The appearance and texture between the two versions may be entirely different, but the flavour profile is basically the same -- sweet and spicy.

I've always wondered why the red sugar on top is part of the experience, since I doubt 19th century Mennonite farmers in southern Ukraine would have had access to dyed-red sugar. But it is the way my Nana always made them, as she would have learned from her mother, and it is vital within my family tradition.

At some point my mother got her hands on a little cookbook of Mennonite pfeffernüsse recipes, which showcases the astonishingly wide variety of things different families have done with the basic idea. I got to see this recipe book recently. At the very end of the book is a brief section on the yeast version. And it talks about how, back in the old country, the traditional sweetener used in baking this was watermelon syrup.

Now, I have known for quite a while that watermelon syrup was a common sugar substitute for Mennonites in Ukraine, because melons grow so magnificently there -- so it was a way for farming families to get sugar that they could grow themselves, instead of shelling out money for refined sugar. 

But when I read in that recipe book that the watermelon syrup gave the pfeffernüsse a distinctive colour, I was immediately like OH MY MYSTERY IS SOLVED.

It makes so much sense! The traditional pfeffernüsse had a reddish-pink colour, because of one of the essential ingredients. But when the makers of yeast pfeffernüsse moved to North America, watermelon syrup could no longer be the ubiquitous ingredient it had once been. But the colour was traditional! So they came up with a different way to get that traditional colour on their pfeffernüsse.

And over the generations, the red sugar on top has become the correct and traditional method instead. I'm sure if I were faced with pfeffernüsse made with watermelon syrup I would find it deeply weird, because it's not what I grew up with. But I'm so pleased to figure out that my family's tradition has deeper roots than I thought!

(And now I really want to find out what pfeffernüsse made with watermelon syrup tastes like. Boiling watermelon down enough to enough of a concentrate to make it a viable sugar substitute would make your baking taste pretty strongly of watermelon, I'm guessing!)

Comments

[tei]

That’s really cool! I’ve never even heard of watermelon syrup before.

[sophia_sol]

I only know about it thanks to the delightful books Mennonite Foods and Folkways from South Russia, Vol. 1 & 2 - I've never run into it in person before!

[duskpeterson]

This is fascinating! I love food mysteries.

[sophia_sol]

Yeah, this kind of mystery is so interesting to me, and it was so satisfying to figure it out!

[genarti]

Oh gosh, that's so cool! Watermelon syrup would never have occurred to me; I had no idea it was a thing, let alone a common thing in Ukraine (and maybe elsewhere in Eastern Europe?) -- how very neat!

[sophia_sol]

I have no idea how common watermelon syrup was in Ukraine beyond Mennonite communities specifically, unfortunately - my information about its usage comes entirely from books talking specifically about Mennonite foodways. I would love to know how broadly it was used outside that!

[conuly]

This is a thing one can purchase online, unsurprisingly.

[sophia_sol]

Yeah, I found that pretty promptly by googling, but it looks like all modern watermelon syrup has significant added sugar content, which means it would not have the same ratio of sweetness-to-watermelon-flavour that my ancestors' homemade stuff would have had.

[sylvaine]

A whole book of just Mennonite Pfeffernüsse recipes! How cool is that!

And, oh, I'm delighted that you solved that mystery!

[sophia_sol]

It's an extremely tiny book of Mennonite pfeffernüsse recipes, but yes! Super cool! MOST NICHE COOKBOOK POSSIBLE? It was a fascinating read.

[pauraque]

How cool! I like watermelon a lot so watermelon-syrup baking sounds promising to me.

[sophia_sol]

I just went to look up instructions on how to make watermelon syrup in my Mennonite Foods and Folkways from South Russia book for you, and now I'm baffled! The pfeffernusse cookbook clearly said the watermelon syrup made the baked goods pink in colour, but Foods & Folkways says that (in Molotschna colony at least) the watermelons used for syrup-making were a pale creamy colour, and made an amber syrup. And these two books are by the same author! TELL ME MORE, NORMA JOST VOTH, whence comes the pink-coloured watermelon syrup??????

Anyway, here's how you make the syrup: Scoop out the flesh and seeds, strain out the juice, and boil it over an outdoor fireplace for several days or up to a week until it becomes a thick syrup, at about 1/10th to 1/13th the volume of the original juice. But the kind of watermelons you get in North America are emphatically bad at making the syrup, apparently.

[pauraque]

That's really interesting, thanks for looking it up for me! I wonder if you can do the same thing with other types of melons and have it turn out edible. (Not that I'd be personally trying it, but this is the sort of thing that finds its way into the worldbuilding for the fantasy stories I never finish writing.)

[sophia_sol]

That's a great question! It's clear that not every melon type works for this, but it's also not clear how many would. According to an anecdote related in Foods & Folkways, the juice from the sort of melon they used was already pretty sweet, like even before processing your fingers would stick together from the juice. So it seems like a higher-than-usual sugar content is an important prerequisite in the type of melon used.

[dragonyphoenix]

That is so cool!

[sophia_sol]

:D

[lokifan]

Oh, that's awesome! I love that you worked it out!

[sophia_sol]

:D thanks, me too!