There is nothing better in a Ukrainian family than having your Baba make a mess of perogies. They never taste as good as when she made them.
My Baba would have them resting on every flat surface of the house and you could eat them till you burst and then come back for more. Cottage cheese, cheddar cheese and potato filling with bacon, fried onions and sour cream. OMG. Then next morning she would fry them up for breakfast and you ate them with cranberry sauce.
We would sneak into the kitchen as kids and eat the uncooked ones, raw dough with the filling and they were great that way too.
When I was teaching I always brought in the Babas to show my kids how to make them and afterwards we would have a feast for the whole school. Lucky I usually taught in small Catholic schools or that would have been a lot of work.
Happily this is ONE thing from my heritage that got passed down to me. I wish I had more friends to share them with. Once a month my mom's church has Perogie Supper and the place is PACKED for 4 hours as people come and go. It's insane how people will seek out a quality perogy where they can find it.
So buy your Chimo perogies and experience the sensation if you have never had them. But seek out the Baba - only the Baba has the 'good stuff' you are looking for.
This picture also reminded me of when I lived in Manitoba as a kid. This guy named Hunky Bill invented a plastic kitchen do-dad that could make perogies for you. You would lay the dough over the bottom layer, fill the pocket with your stuffings and then put another layer of dough on top. Then by closing the top and bottom pieces together you got several uniform shaped perogies with the ends already pinched. He made a FORTUNE off that stupid thing.
But still. A real lover of the perogie would not go that route. They know that only an individually hand pinched/sealed perogie is good enough for them. Perogies are as Canadian as it gets. A true delicacy from the old country.
And YES, that is a giant perogie statue in Glendon, Alberta. I told you. We LOVE them.
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10 comments:
I love perogies.
Hmm, sounds interesting..even though I've never heard of them. Hardly surprising since I'm way over here in OZ eh?
Oh my friend you have to do your research and make yourself a batch of these. I swear you will become a convert. Then you will swim the ocean to get the real Canadian stuff. Dumpling crack is what they are. See what you learn just by visiting the 'Cave of Cool'.
want oh want oh want
I have a craving for them too right now. My mind is reminding my nose what they smell like. NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM. I figured you would like them Megan. You seem to come from those same kind of immigrants that I do.
Damn, Cal.... you're making my stomach growl this morning.
My parents were both Italian, but they used to make perogies occasionaly 'cause they loved good food from everywhere. Mom would fry them in olive oil the next day and pour this sauce she used to make on top. I miss that so much.
That would be an intererting way to have them. They just always seemed so perfect the way we always had them that it never occured to me to cover them with something other than bacon, onions and sour cream.
Bacon, onion and sour cream sounds good to me.
We are Russian by way of Poland. My grandmother and my great aunt used to make perogies when we would visit. Their recipe did not get handed down. Haven't had a good one in over ten years.
But the memories you just stirred up for me....
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