Amanda Miller
Columnist
Lettuce Eat Local
When I share the baby’s due date (June 8), people with close-by birthdays are always quick to suggest I have Green Bean on their special day. While I appreciate the generosity, I’m much less concerned about a particular date than I am with getting a healthy baby out in its right time.
It is fun, however, to share a birthday with someone — or something, in Benson’s case. Not everyone gets to have the same birthday as the state in which they live, but our firstborn made it with 12 minutes to spare. While I didn’t even know January 29 was Kansas Day until after the fact, we won’t forget it now; just 160 years difference between Kansas and Benson.
It’s also pretty handy, especially while he’s still young, that one of Benson’s favorite places, the library, often throws a party for him Kansas. This year he scored storytime, a prairie dog scavenger hunt and prize, and a state sugar cookie, not to mention another bag of checked-out books. What more could a five-year-old ask for?
Well okay, ice cream and sprinkles, but that’s a given.
I appreciate how personally felicitous it is to celebrate on the same day both the state that became my home and the son who made me a mama in that home. Ever since I was his age, I knew that I wanted kids instead of a career; until marriage moved me here, I didn’t know I wanted that to be in Kansas, but I know it now.
I always explain my moving here by saying it was easier for Brian to move one wife rather than 350 cows. I suppose I could have made it more difficult, as it’s “better to live on the corner of a roof than to share a house with a nagging wife,” but fortunately for both of us, Kansas quickly endeared itself to me.
It felt like going back home: my Southern girl self belongs in a hot-climate culture. While temperatures may technically categorize our state as continental, with extremes between hot summers and cold winters, I feel that Kansans, at least in our area, have similarities with what sociologists call a hot-climate culture. These cultures are characterized by focusing on relationships more than tasks (I think of this every time Brian is late coming in because he again couldn’t stop talking to a fellow farmer), valuing community and being part of a group (the way I was so welcomed in to our church and beyond), and communicating indirectly (ope, bless our hearts). I very unscientifically classify the hot-climate culture as those who wave at people they don’t even know.
And with a place comes its traditional foods, always something I’m interested in. Bierocks came to mind when I thought of celebrating both Benson and Kansas, since my son is currently into meat, bread, and things he can dip in ketchup (far too wide of a category). I had never heard of bierocks before moving to Kansas, even though I discovered later there’s a recipe for them in my classic Alabama-church cookbook.
If you too have somehow never heard of them, no fear, they contain neither beer nor rocks; instead possibly getting their etymology from Russian or Polish “pirog,” meaning “something encased,” gaining us pierogies and bierocks. These meat-and-cabbage-filled bread pockets came to the Midwest via Volga German immigrants in the 1870s, and have remained a part of Kansas cuisine since.
Baking a batch of bierocks, made with hamburger and wheat flour from our Kansas farm, with my now-five-year-old son sneaking dough-bites and brushing on the egg wash for me, was a great way to celebrate the birthdays.
Bierocks for Benson
While these shouldn’t necessarily be saved for once a year, they are definitely not a daily project sort of situation…but they freeze well, so you can pull them out at a moment’s notice later. You can make any kind of bierocks — pizza, breakfast, barbecue, etc — but the “real” ones are always a hit. They fit any season, with their hearty, comforting nature complemented by their summertime on-the-move handiness. This batch makes about 2 dozen, which is time-consuming but worth it.
Prep tips: if you have time, the filling is much easier to work with when chilled. This was the first time I added dry oats, as per an old cookbook, and I think it helped soak up any soggy-ing juices.
1 large onion, diced
2 pounds ground hamburger
optional: ½ cup dry oats
1-2 pounds cabbage, shredded
½ pound cheese of choice, shredded
salt, pepper, and optional basil or oregano, to taste
about 3 pounds’ worth of bread dough
Brown onion and hamburger; drain if greasy. Stir in oats, cabbage, cheese, and seasonings to taste. Chill until ready to fill. To assemble, either divide dough into 2 oz portions and roll into 5-6” rounds, or roll dough out thin and cut into 5” squares. Place ⅓-½ cup hamburger into the center of each, and pull up dough, pinching shut tightly; arrange pinch-side-down on baking sheet. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with seasoned salt if desired, and bake at 350° for 15-18 minutes, until golden brown. Serve with lots of ketchup for dipping.
Lettuce Eat Local is a weekly local foods column by Amanda Miller, who lives in rural Reno County on the family dairy farm with her husband and two small children. She seeks to help build connections through food with her community, the earth, and the God who created it all. Send feedback and recipe ideas to [email protected].
