I was recently perusing the internet and discovered an appalling number of errors in Mennonite bread making. I know there were errors in the past – the historical record is replete with disputes over baking. Not, it is true, in the “mainstream” historical literature, but they’re there if you know how to look. They were … More Bread of Contention
A couple weeks ago, while I was wandering about in the Mennonite Twittersphere, I came across a tweet that I didn’t understand. This is unusual – Mennonite twitter is fairly predictable. And insular. We Mennotweeps form a pretty small community. A while ago, one of my twitter followers met a fellow congregant (in real life) … More Me and all the Menno-Tweeps
Note to regular readers: This is not a Drunken Mennonite blog post. I have finally struck out and written something that is not about Mennonites. Also, no cocktail recipe at the end of this post. Please feel free to go back and re-read your favorite Mennonite posts if that’s more to your taste. There’ll be … More How I spent July 1st Not Celebrating Canada Day
I have noticed a sad lack of Mennonite representation in dystopian literature and cinema. Apart from a couple of cameos in the zombie apocalypse genre, we actually seem to be entirely absent from the world’s terrifying visions of the future. Perhaps the dystopian thinkers imagine that we’ll all just die off in a plague or … More The HandMenno’s Tale
Imagine this: it’s 1941 and a Mennonite farm worker is sitting by his shortwave radio in Canada listening in rapt attention to the news coming out of Nazi Germany, contemplating immigration. Cut to Eastern Europe at approximately the same time, and see Heinrich Himmler touring the land of that farm worker’s youth and cooking up … More Was Opa a Nazi?
As I have mentioned before, I live on the outskirts of one of the largest Mennonite enclaves in Canada. I grew up there. I visit regularly as a lot of my family still lives there. And when I head to a Mennonite relief sale for the closest we get to a festival, it is the … More The Curious Case of Kitchener-Waterloo
Google doesn’t seem to understand Mennonite guilt. Matt Falk tells a joke that Mennonites are just like Catholics but with less dancing and more guilt. I don’t know if he wrote it or just repeated it. It feels like an old joke but it probably isn’t. That’s because we don’t traditionally go about comparing ourselves … More Mennoguilt
The road to hell is paved by hard-working Mennonites. I grew up without a lot of proverbs in my family. I think this was because I was part of generation sandwiched between languages – my parents grew up with Low German proverbs that didn’t translate well to English, but spoke to me in English and … More The Road to Hell
Today marks a particularly important occasion in the life of the Drunken Mennonite. Maybe you’ve been keeping track and know already. No? Well, here it is. You are reading my one hundredth blog post. Pull out the streamers and pop open a bottle of bubbly. Or just, you know, have a cocktail. In honour of … More The Drunken Mennonite Answers your Questions
I wrote this back in February of 2015 as part of a series on Mennonite literature. I’m way behind on this series and need to catch up on my Menno reading. This is, to date, the only Mennonite poet that I’ve written about/made a cocktail in honour of. For all Di Brandt’s poetry shocked particular … More Wild Mother Drinking
