Germans From Russia Just another NDSU Library weblog

Please click her to view the May 2008 In Touch with Prairie Living column.

Acacia (Jonas) Stuckle, special collections associate for the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, will deliver an informative presentation about the Dakota Memories Oral History Project on Thursday, April 24, at 12:15 p.m. at the Senior Citizen’s Center in Eureka, S.D.

“This presentation will inform the public on what the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection has to offer along with information about the Dakota Memories Oral History Project,” Stuckle said. This summer, organizers of the project will travel to Eureka to conduct interviews.

According to Stuckle, Eureka was a fundamental stopping point for German-Russian immigration in the Dakotas. “I plan on sharing sample video clips from interviews we have conducted and audio clips from our three radio series. The collection is an archival repository, and we are seeking historic photographs, textiles, cookbooks and family histories,” Stuckle said.

Sponsored by the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection located at the NDSU Library, the Dakota Memories Oral History Project is an effort to document and preserve German-Russian ethnic identity. Since 2005, organizers have traveled the Northern Plains, gathering stories and documenting family relationships and childhood memories of second- and third-generation Germans from Russia.

Coffee and cookies will be served at the presentation. For more information, contact Stuckle at 231-6596 or acacia.stuckle@ndsu.edu. Additional information about the collection is available at www.ndsu.edu/grhc.

Germans from Russia Heritage Collection (GRHC) staff members, Acacia Stuckle and Jay Gage, recently finished an exhibit for the Dakota Memories Oral History Project (DMOHP). It showcases a few of the many photographs collected through the interviews. The exhibit is located in the GRHC display cases at the NDSU Library.

DMOHP Exhibit

When the subject of foods and recipes of the Gemans from Russia is shared with subscribers at my Black Sea Mail List and the Germans from Russia heritage electronic discussion group [listserve], there is a great deal of interest.

Jolenta Fischer Masterson, a longtime colleague living in Sequim, Washington, and a native of Strasburg, North Dakota, shared this message about Dampfnudel:

“In our house, this thing was often made on the same day as the bread was being made. Little golf ball sized hunks were taken off the bread dough and put in the heavy pan with a little bit of water and then closed to steam bake. The bottoms fried crispy by the time the Dampfnudel cooked, baked steamed or what ever. Later in life I discovered that a similar item, was prepared in authentic Chinese restaurants in Seattle’s Chinatown. They called it “dim sum”. They had bits of pork inside. It is interesting to note that different cultures had similar foods and ways of cooking them.”

Share your memories and recipes regarding Dampfnudel and other German-Russian foods and recipes with a message at this BLOG.

See the GRHC website at “Recipes & Foodways” at www.ndsu.edu/grhc/history_culture/recipe.index.html.


Dampfnudel image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dampfnudel