Mennonite Girls Can Cook

Meet two of the authors of Mennonite Girls Can Cook as they are interviewed on Global BC morning news.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• mennonite
• girls
• can
• cook
• GlobalBC

[thewwwdude]

@puttincomputers

Meaning yourself I take it?

Ironic, really. I'm not a card-carrying member of ANY church, yet my family and I are as Mennonite as they come. Aside from having grown up in a town of 99.9% menno population, speaking only plautdietsch in my formative years and carrying a traditional Mennonite name (Froese), the real point is that our lineage can be traced back to the birthplace of the Mennonite culture: Friesland province in the Netherlands (Menno Simons was from Friesland).

[puttincomputers]

@thewwwdude Mennonites can claim to be mennonite simply by belonging to any type of menno church.

[puttincomputers]

@thewwwdude I am mennonite myself.

[thewwwdude]

@puttincomputers

Sorry to nitpick but PA dutch is not Mennonite - our traditional language is plautdietsch. (See earlier about "flat german".)

And to be clear, Native American is racial and not merely cultural - but if they lose their ancestral language they are the less for it. After awhile and a few such losses later, all that's left IS a label. Meaningless when the things central to a culture are gone. What is the point?

BTW @puttincomputers, what exactly makes you Mennonite? Curious

[puttincomputers]

@thewwwdude Those are some interesting points you have made there. Are you saying that the Native Americans should not be called Native Americans because most of them cannot speak their ancestors' language?

[thewwwdude]

@puttincomputers - kost du platt dietsch radjen?

A critical part of an ethnicity (such as Mennonite) is the language - nothing defines it more. Lose the accent and the nuanced pronunciations (never mind speaking it to begin with), and a BIG part of the authentic flavour of the language is gone - especially platt dietsch which is really a verbal and not a written tradition (attempts to spell it came much later).

What's the point in claiming an ethnicity if you cannot even speak its language?

[puttincomputers]

@thewwwdude an accent does not make a mennonite! I am a mennonite and only know a few PA Dutch words. What is sad is that most mennonite women actually dress like these women nowadays.

[thewwwdude]

Closer version would be verenikje.

Too bad those ladies are somewhat removed from authentic Mennonite roots (recipes notwithstanding) - no sign of accents and their pronunciations are all anglicized. plautdietsch is literally "flat" german and all the flat is gone here. It's "plahtz" not plattz, and could someone PLEASE roll an rrr...

(ach kaun gut Dietsche raden).

..

[paulelastic]

@kraponyourface No, it's actually a widely accepted pronunciation. Verenike is an alternative spelling. I don't know which one is closer to the original plautdietsch, but given that these names are anglicizations, they're not technically wrong.

[kraponyourface]

she can't even pronounce vereneki right