You Might Be a Swiss German Mennonite If ...

The inspiration for this post came to me on Saturday night.  I had some leftover cooked chicken, and decided to make a casserole, using the white sauce recipe from the More-With-Less Cookbook.  I concocted the casserole, put buttered bread crumbs on, and baked it.  After eating the first mouthful, it seemed rather bland.  Pickles, I thought, that's what this needs.  Accordingly, I ran down to the basement, fished the last jar of bread and butter pickles off the shelf, and added them to my plate.  As I finished supper, I started thinking about how stereotypically "Mennonite" the whole episode was, from the cookbook I used, to the pickles, to the buttered bread crumbs.  This led to a whole list:


You Might Be a Swiss German Mennonite If ...

1.  You think home canned peaches or applesauce enhance almost any meal.

2.  You own the Mennonite Community Cookbook, the More-With-Less Cookbook, and/or Simply in Season.

3.  You've ever dated your fourth or fifth cousin.

4.  You can easily trace at least one side of your family back to the 1600s, usually to Switzerland.

5.  You grew up doing Buy Fresh, Buy Local.

6.  You secretly miss accapella hymn singing.

7.  At least one member of your family is still involved in farming.

8.  You have a female relative named Esther or Ethel.

9.  You always make sure to attend church when there's a fellowship meal.

10.  You grew up collecting soap for MCC at summer Bible School.

11.  You have put together an MCC relief kit.

12.  You feel vaguely guilty each time you shop at WalMart.

13.  You never admit to shopping at WalMart.

14.  Your family photo albums are an excellent record of the appearance and disappearance of plain dress in the 19th and 20th centuries.

15.  Your church library had books by Christmas Carol Kauffman.

16.  Someone in your family spends a lot of time in geneaological research, and has produced a "family book."

17.  You married someone with the same last name (see number 3).

18.  You freeze crazy amounts of corn each summer.

19.  Thrift store shopping is entertainment and a sport.

20.  You know several people who participated in VS, YES, STAT, or GO with EMM, and you immediately know what these acronyms mean.

21.  Your church library had an old copy of the Martyrs Mirror on the top shelf that no one ever looked at.

22.  You think pretzels and ice cream are a great Sunday night supper.

23.  You chuckled at this list and could easily make your own.