Our youngest daughter visited this weekend -- so glad for her driving 8 hours to get here -- and we had lots of fun shopping, playing games and just hanging out. Besides clothes, we actually went on a hunt for an unusual recipe ingredient, apparently to this part of the state. She had told her co-workers about the Low German food we used to eat while living in south central Kansas for 18 years. They had not heard of most of these foods, so she wanted to cook some for them. 

Most people think of German food as sausages, sauerkraut and hot potato salad. Those foods are known as "High German" foods. The Low Germans came from Russia, and their foods include all of those, but also veranika, bohne beroggi, borscht, zweibach, and cherry and pluma moos (there are many different spellings for these items).  She mainly wants to make veranika, a large dry curd cottage cheese dumpling which is boiled then fried and  served with cream ham gravy. The picture shows the veranika waiting to be boiled. 

We went to five grocery stores looking for the dry curd cottage cheese because she couldn't find it where she lives. What was a grocery store staple for many years was seemingly unknown here, even in health food chain stores. In fact, everyone we asked just looked at us like we were crazy and we didn't know what we were talking about when we asked for it! So much for the city having anything you could want!

Well, guess we have to travel three hours back sometime to get this elusive ingredient. In the meantime, she will have to settle for regular cottage cheese dried with paper towels. The veranika won't taste the same, but at least it will get her close!