By Natalie Wueppelmann
Pyrohi (peer-O-heh) are an important part of my family and our move to Canada. My great-grandma moved to Canada when she was a little girl. She lived on a wheat farm and was raised with a lot of Ukrainian culture. Part of this culture was the making of pyrohi. My great-grandma learnt how to make pyrohi through observation of her mom. They would spend all morning making the pyrohi while the men were out harvesting the wheat. After all the hard work, everyone would enjoy a meal of pyrohi. My great-grandma used to say that they would take so long to make the pyrohi, but they were all gone within five minutes.
When my grandma was a little girl, the tradition of pyrohi was continued. My grandma was taught the same way as my great-grandma: through observation. In pyrohi making, everyone helps to make them so that one person doesn’t have to do all of the work. My grandma would roll out the dough. The pyrohi were prepared without a recipe, so the dough wouldn’t be exactly the same each time. My great-grandma would tell my grandma how much flour to use depending on the conditions of the dough that day.
One of the parts of pyrohi making my grandma remembers well is delivering them to neighbours. Foreign food was not found very often in Canada when she was growing up, so neighbours would always love having pyrohi.
Nowadays, when we have pyrohi as a family, we still follow many of our original traditions. We all help to make them. We cut the dough into little balls and roll the balls out into little circles so that they make one pyrohi each, a technique that as far as my grandma knows was created by my great-grandma. The way it’s typically done is by rolling out the dough then cutting little circles, then once there’s no more room, they re-roll the dough. We also make them with onions, potato, salt, and pepper or sauerkraut, onions, salt, and pepper, the way they were made when my great-grandma was a kid.
When my grandma was a little girl, the tradition of pyrohi was continued. My grandma was taught the same way as my great-grandma: through observation. In pyrohi making, everyone helps to make them so that one person doesn’t have to do all of the work. My grandma would roll out the dough. The pyrohi were prepared without a recipe, so the dough wouldn’t be exactly the same each time. My great-grandma would tell my grandma how much flour to use depending on the conditions of the dough that day.
One of the parts of pyrohi making my grandma remembers well is delivering them to neighbours. Foreign food was not found very often in Canada when she was growing up, so neighbours would always love having pyrohi.
Nowadays, when we have pyrohi as a family, we still follow many of our original traditions. We all help to make them. We cut the dough into little balls and roll the balls out into little circles so that they make one pyrohi each, a technique that as far as my grandma knows was created by my great-grandma. The way it’s typically done is by rolling out the dough then cutting little circles, then once there’s no more room, they re-roll the dough. We also make them with onions, potato, salt, and pepper or sauerkraut, onions, salt, and pepper, the way they were made when my great-grandma was a kid.
The Recipe
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Ingredients
Filling: 1 onion 3 potatoes Salt Pepper Dough: 6 cups of flour Salt to taste 1 egg Roughly 1/4 cup of oil Roughly 1 1/2 cup of water |
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