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We think of them as local matters, as our own affairs,
these fall feeds taking place in our churches–laboring in home and
church kitchens, gathering people together, generating a little congregational
revenue before winter sets in. We don’t stop to think that we are
part of something big, something that unites us in ritual up and down
the plains. The fall supper is too humble an observance to inspire big
pictures.
Perhaps it should, though. I grew up with this custom, specifically with
the annual Fish Fry at St. John’s Lutheran Church, Ellinwood, Kansas.
Later I greatly enjoyed the fall feeds at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church,
Olpe, Kansas–meals featuring turkey and sauerkraut, a combination
of which I will say more later.
Common on the southern plains, the fall supper ritual is even more predominant
as you go north. Every northern plains café or gas station is full
of homely autumn notices as to which church is serving what and when.
No other part of the plains can outstrip the Canadian prairies in presentation
of the fall platter.
I challenge anyone, though, to show me a better fall supper than the annual
turkey and kraut supper at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Dazey, North
Dakota. On an October night I recall I arrived late and got in with the
last sitting in the church basement, but there was still plenty of food.
(St. Mary’s follows the common practice in this part of the country
of seating people in the pews to wait, then bringing them into the dining
area in platoons.)
This, friends, is kraut the way it’s supposed to be. The women of
the Ladies Aid, along with some of their men, gather on the last Saturday
in August to cut about 350 pounds of cabbage. The women cut, and the men
crush the cabbage with their fists into big plastic garbage cans. These
are sealed with plastic bags filled with water sitting atop the cabbage.
After that, says Peggy Wieland, who was telling me about it in the church
kitchen, “We don’t touch it. And you know what, it’s never
failed.” At which point another voice sang out from the kitchen crowd,
“Tell ’em about all that German sweat that goes in it!”
I don’t know about the sweat, but on the day of the church supper,
the first Saturday in October every year, the cooks assemble again and
cook the kraut along with about 11 pounds of onions. They cut chunks of
roast pork into it, and thicken it with flour and water, so that the serving
consistency is creamy.
Norm Erber of Oriska, a renowned caterer, does the turkeys. Parish women
bring in pies and dressing. Potatoes and gravy are done at the church.
The fall supper custom at St. Mary’s, although there were certain
chronological gaps, goes back farther than current participants can remember.
Mary Wieland, who married into the parish in 1942, says it already had
been going for a long time then. She thinks it may have originated in
order to help pay for the new church, built in 1929. (A church, incidentally,
that is among the most lovely on the plains, a stunning, stucco structure.)
“Years ago the ladies each brought sauerkraut from home, along with
three chickens, a gallon or so of peeled potatoes, pies, and so on,”
Mrs. Wieland recalls.
I was diner number 562. I’ll be back. In fact, I decided I’d
like to go out and help cut kraut, if the ladies would let a Lutheran
take a turn smashing cabbage.
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