Traditions

 After church, almost like magic a green papaya appears out of nowhere. Sometimes I think they grow in the rafters of the roughly framed old houses. Within minutes I hear the thumping noise of the mortar and pestle. The papaya salad will soon be ready.

Making Papaya Salad

Meanwhile, if there are any chairs around they are stacked and set to the side. Thin mats are placed on the floor. Bowls of sticky rice are brought out along with various side dishes. The smell of fish sauce and other things familiar and unfamiliar fills the air. The bowls are placed on the mats in clusters around the room. The papaya salad is scooped onto plates to join the other fragrant dishes. Soon, people sit in circles around the clusters of bowls. There may or may not be plates and utensils for everyone.

People grab a wad of sticky rice with their left hand. With their right hand, they grab a smaller mass and massage it into a smooth ball. This is used to help grab food from the dishes in the middle. If there is some kind of soup, Asian-style spoons will be available for use. Welcome to a traditional Mennonite meal in Isaan, Thailand.

After-church Lunch in Isaan

I did not know much about Mennonites growing up—I'm not even sure I knew the term. I think the first Mennonite I met was my first girlfriend. She was normal enough, except that her last name was not one I had ever heard of before, though it turns out that it, along with many other last names that were unusual to me, were quite common in Mennonite communities (when I visited her home, I checked out the phone book and there was column after column of names that before that time had been unknown to me). 

Mennonites get their name from Menno Simons, one of the leaders of the Radical Reformation in the 16th century. There were several other leaders of these Anabaptist groups that faced much persecution. Because of this persecution, many of them fled from various places to West Prussia where a dialect of Low German became their common language. In the last half of the 18th century, Catherine the Great opened parts of Russia (now Ukraine) to European immigrants and many of the Mennonites relocated there.

Eventually, many of these Mennonites relocated, either by choice or because of further persecution, to places in the western hemisphere where they formed colonies and retained their language and culture. By this time the term Mennonite had as much, if not more, to do with their culture than their religious faith. In the late 1800's, there was a revival among some of the Mennonites in the Ukraine that gave birth to a branch of the Mennonites known as the Mennonite Brethren (MB). Many of these relocated to North America where they tended to stay together in various communities, hence the phone books packed with "Mennonite" names that were not so common elsewhere.

I broke up with that girlfriend and did not think much more about Mennonites until we moved to Fresno in 2001 and eventually ended up joining an MB church. It is there that we discovered that Mennonite was as much a culture as a religion. Fairly early on after joining Butler MB church, we were hosting a small group at our home. Some the members of the group would get to talking about who is related to who and how. They found out they had common relatives in a place called Corn, Oklahoma. Corn. Is that really a place? Later we discovered that this name game of discovering common relatives was frequent occurrence at Mennonite gatherings. This was a bit of challenge for us, as we were Mennonite by choice, not by birth.

We also learned that there are some Mennonite traditional foods. When I first heard the term Verenika, I thought it was someone's name. Turns out its a kind of stuffed dumpling, a Ukrainian ravioli, if you will (I may get ostracized for saying that, but I grew up among Italians, not Ukrainians). Verenika (or varenyky) is a Ukrainian name, but they also go by their Polish name pierogi. Like ravioli, verenika can have different kinds of stuffings. When I first had verenika, it was served with gravy and Mennonite sausage. This sausage was not a smoked sausage, but the Mennonites have that, too. If you are ever in Abbotsford, British Columbia, I recommend going by Rempel Meats to pick some up.

Verenika at a restaurant catering to Russian tourists in Phuket, Thailand

Another Mennonite food/tradition is fritters aka portzelky. These are deep fried dough akin to donuts, except they are not shaped like donuts. By tradition, they are served on New Years day hence they are also known as New Years Cookies. Even though we are not ethnic Mennonite, we rather like this tradition.

Making New Years Cookies in November in Phon Phisai, Thailand
Couldn't wait for New Years day

The third traditional food I'll mention is zwieback. I had heard of zwieback as a youth and I knew it is a crispy toasted bread. The name comes from German zwei ("two") or zwie ("twi-"), and backen, meaning "to bake", in other words, "twice-baked". After joining a Mennonite group, we heard people getting excited that zwieback was going to be served on a special occasion and we were wondering why people feel that way about overcooked toast. We learned that Russian-Mennonite zwieback is altogether different—it is neither crispy nor flat. The "two" in this zwieback comes from how they are double-buns, so to speak, with one stuck on top of the other. Getting them to stay that way during baking takes special skill, and in our own attempts at baking them, we have ended up with a significant number of einback.

Our first attempt at Zwieback (and einback)
in Kalasin, Thailand

There are other Mennonite foods and traditions, but I am getting off-topic.

One of the characteristics of the Mennonite Brethren is their desire to share the good news of Jesus with others. To this end, the North American MBs began sending missionaries to other countries not long after arriving in the US and Canada. These missionaries saw great fruit to the point that at present both DR Congo and India have more people worshiping in MB churches than North America.

One of the challenges of missionary work is not confusing our cultural forms of religious expression with that which is essential to the gospel. To put it somewhat amusingly, does one have to embrace fritters, zwieback, verenika and sausage as an essential part of being a Mennonite Christian? I have visited MB churches in both DR Congo and India and saw no "traditional" Mennonite foods. But if you consider that the MB conferences in those countries are larger than the countries of origin of Mennonites, we see that traditional Mennonite foods are, in fact, minority Mennonite foods. There are probably more Mennonites living where there is a rice-based diet than a bread and potatoes diet, but even they are not all consuming the same kind of rice. (In the Isaan region of Thailand they prefer sticky rice, while in central Thailand jasmine is the rice of choice and both of these differ from the various types of rice I ate while visiting India.)

After-Church lunch in Shamsabad, India
No zwieback for this faspa

Khanom Thian - a treat for Thai New Years day (April 15)
Made with tapioca flour

The separation of tradition and religious belief is not always straightforward and there isn't always agreement, even in one's own culture. For example, what style of music do we use? It seems like it wasn't all that long ago when guitars and drum kits came in alongside and later replaced the organ in churches. Then we see churches in Thailand that don't consider themselves a real church unless they have a building, a guitar and a drum kit. None of which are required by scripture. I remember our first trip to Thailand and we were visiting Khmu church in the North of the country. I was excited to be in a place where I could hear some ethnic church music. But all they had were translated contemporary Christian songs accompanied by drums and electric guitar. On the other hand, when worshiping with older believers in Isaan, I hear them come alive when we sing songs of traditional style and instrumentation.

Worship at a Khmu church in Northern Thailand
with electric guitar and drums

Worship Isaan style with phin and kaen
They use an 8-tone scale instead of 12-tone

Another example of religious tradition is how we serve communion. We once visited a church in Thailand where they used sticky rice instead of bread or crackers for communion. I thought that it was a nice cultural adaptation, but it turns out that they did this especially for visiting foreigners. For themselves, they normally used western style communion cups and crackers because it was associated with higher status—something that was culturally important for them.

Communion with communion cups and crackers
Phon Phisai, Thailand

While traditions are nice, there can be a problem when the traditions outlast the faith that they are supposed to represent. People end up considering themselves to right with God because they follow traditions rather than actually believing in God. Or sometimes the traditions may conflict with God's will, but we give them priority over following God's word. This was certainly a problem in Jesus' day. On one occasion, some Pharisees we complaining that Jesus and his disciples did not follow the traditional handwashing ceremony before eating. Jesus replied.

⁶ And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

    ‘This people honors me with their lips,
  but their heart is far from me;
   “ ⁷ in vain do they worship me,
  teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

⁸ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

(Mark 7:6–8 ESV)

The Pharisees were giving greater priority to following their traditions than to obeying God's word.

This is kind of behavior is not that unusual. For example, a person may consider themseleves Christian because they observe certain traditions (going to church on Sundays (or maybe just Christmas and Easter) but not really living according to the teachings of the Bible the rest of the week. Or the Buddhist who participates in some Buddhist rituals but who also regularly shows disdain for one or more of the 5 precepts. We humans have a tendency to hold onto the forms of religion long after we have forgotten the meaning behind the form, like Christmas without Christ.

So if I eat fritters on New Years, cook up a mean pot of verenika, and play the Mennonite name game at social gatherings, but refuse to forgive those who offend me or love my enemies—Biblical teachings of Jesus emphasized by Menno Simons and other Radical Reformers—am I really Mennonite?

Though it is not my heritage, I like some of the traditions that the Mennonites carried over from Russian and the Ukraine. But what attracted me to the Mennonites were those who, like Menno Simons, believed that Jesus meant what he said and felt that Jesus' life was a model of how Christians ought to live. But whether I'm seated around a table sharing borscht and zwieback or seated on the floor around a bowl of bamboo curry and sticky rice, I'm happy to be together with like-minded believers. Because if we are to try to live the kind of life that the Bible teaches us to live, we will need the help of these other believers as well as the power that comes from the Holy Spirit in order to do so.

Though I did not plan it this way, I'm publishing this blog in the same month we celebrate the 500th anniversary of the birth of the Anabaptist movement. It was on January 21, 1525 that a small group of people defied the state church by participating in a believer's baptism that marked the beginning of that movement.

Street Food

In a blog last month I wrote about a gastronomic quest to find some mille feuille. Today, I will write about another seach for elusive food.

In 2014, we moved to Chiang Rai in province in Northern Thailand. Sortly after we moved there, we were visiting friends in Chiang Mai and they introduced us to a Northern Thai dish known as Khao Soi. Khao Soi, which translates "street food," is a noodle soup with a yellow coconut curry-based broth. It typically has chicken (usually a drumstick) and is served with garnishings: pickles, cut up shallots or red onions, and a piece of lime. The soup is topped with crispy-fried noodles. Sometimes they will also serve garlic. It is typically mildly to moderately spicy. We enjoyed the Khao Soi, and decided we needed to find some place closer to home that served it.

Khao Soi in Chiang Mai, 2014

Eventually, we found a place about a kilometer from where we lived. This was a small, unassuming restaurant that served two dishes: khao soi and another kind of soup. It ended up being our go-to place to each lunch after church on Sundays if we didn't have other plans. The price was right, too. At the time it was about $1 US. (When we went back in 2023, the price had gone up to $1.50.) Good food at a good price.

Khao Soi Restaurant in Wiang Kaen

Khao Soi Restaurant in Wiang Kaen

When we lived in Northern Thailand, we typically traveled to Chiang Rai city, which was a 2-hour drive away, about once every two weeks or so. We did find a very rustic place along the way that served only khao soi. What was unique about this place was the big cauldron of soup on the wood-burning "stove."

Rustic Khao Soi Restaurant in Chiang Rai

In January, 2015, a friend of ours gave us a tour of some places he was doing ministry across the river in Laos. He was excited one day to take us to a khao soi restaurant. We were excited, too, until we saw it. Apparently there are different styles of Khao Soi. The Lao version was okay, but it was not what we were expecting.

Khao Soi, Lao Style, topped with fried pork rind

In 2017 we moved to Nong Khai province in Northeast Thailand (Isaan). Northeast Thailand is culturally different than Northen Thailand—it is more Lao than Thai. We sought out a place to find khao soi, but we could not find any in our district—it was easier to find a good hamburger or decent pizza and those were not easy to come by. I tried searching the internet, but to no avail. One day we were in the provincial capital, about a 45-minute drive from where we lived. We were looking for a particular business, but it was on a busy street, so we had to park some distance away. Just a few steps from where were we parked was a small, dark shop. "Wait...does that sign say khao soi?" We weren't ready for lunch yet, but we went back at a later date. The proprietor was a woman from Northern Thailand who had married someone from Nong Khai. She opened up a restaurant that served Kuai Tiao (a noodle soup found all over Thailand and is common in many places in the US as a Vietnamese variant called pho) along with khao soi.

Khao Soi in Nong Khai

In 2021, we moved to Kalasin province in the central part of Isaan. Like where we had previously lived, there were no khao soi restaurants in our district. One day, we were in the mood for some khao soi and I scoured the internet and eventually found a place. It was at the end of a small alley off a street that barely qualified as such. But it was popular—not so much as a sit-down restaurant, but with people ordering by various motorcycle delivery services. They ended up expanding but, for some reason, ended up closing about a year before we left Thailand. Now where to go?

Khao Soi in Kalasin

One day were were on our way back from Roi Et, the provice south of where we lived, and we stopped a a service station complex to try to find some food. These complexes typically have a Seven-Eleven or other convenience store, some kind of restaurant, a coffee shop, and various other small shops. This was our first time stopping at this service station for a meal (we had stopped there previously to get gas and/or coffee.) We walked into the restaurant and noticed that they had khao soi on the menu. It was good, but it was Isaan style—much spicier than we were used to.

Khao Soi in Roi Et

In 2023, we moved back to the USA—now where are we going to find Khao Soi? If you think it is hard to find in Isaan, what must it be like here? There are actually a lot of Thai restaurants that have sprung up in the US and Canada, but few of them serve khao soi.

One time, after we had returned to North America for our home ministry in 2017, we were traveling south on I-5 from Canada. We randomly pulled off the freeway somewhere in or near Tacoma and saw a Thai restaurant. We thought we would try it, not necessarily looking for khao soi, but it was on the menu—though at ten times the price of Thailand.

Khao Soi in Tacoma

Just after we returned to the US for home ministry in 2020, we took a few days to relax on the coast in Morro Bay. One night, we went out to eat at Thai Bounty. This was an interesting place in that it served both Cuban and Thai food (the owner was a Cuban fellow married to a Thai woman). The khao soi there was good, but unfortunately, the restaurant is no longer open.

Khao Soi at Thai Bounty in Morro Bay

But now have have moved back to the US permanently. Shortly after we returned to Fresno, we read an article that says there are 27 Thai restaurants in Fresno. But what constitutes Thai is another matter. Fresno has a large SE Asian population, the majority of which are ethnic Hmong from Laos. There are also Khmu (from Laos), ethnic Lao, Cambodian, Thai and other. We have been to several Thai restaurants, some of which have khao soi on the menu. But NOT the northern Thai version.

Today is my birthday. I had already decided a couple of weeks ago that I would like Thai food for the occasion. Yesterday evening, I was scrounging through Google maps, Yelp, and general web searches looking up Thai restaurants. Then I decided that maybe I should try to find places that had khao soi. Some places I already knew had the Lao version. A reviewer of one restaurant said they had a Mien version. When I could pull up menus, I would look at the descriptions and end up disapponted.

Then—there it was—a description of Northern Thai style khao soi—only it wasn't in Fresno. It was in Madera...close enough.

This morning we were up early to help out with the monthly food distribution at Butler Church. We finished up just before 11 am. Then off we were to Madera. Thai Basil is located not far off the 99 freeway on the north side of Madera. The proprietors set up shop there 2 years ago after running a Thai restaurant in Sacramento for 15 years. They wanted to move to a quieter community and find a place where it was more affordable for their daughter to practice golf. Victor is from Udon Thani in Isaan. His wife is from Trat in Eastern Thailand but went to school at Burapha University in Bang Saen, the town were a team of MB missionaries did a church plant in the early 2000's and to which we have been to many times. So it was surprising that they had the Northern Thai version of Khao Soi on the menu. Victor said that they try to have Thai food and not the variants from nearby places like Laos.

We we happy with the khao soi, and we will probably go back—though we will probably try some of the other dishes. We were drooling as we watched them bring food out to the other diners. It was like going home to Thailand. Happy Birthday me!

Khao Soi at Thai Basil in Madera, CA

Bookends 2024

Bookends: when I look at change through the year through a photo at the beginning and the end.

I began the year with COVID. Between that and the cool weather, it was a good time to stay home and assemble jigsaw puzzles. So this photo becomes the first bookend. Otherwise, we probably would have made a day trip on New Year's day and posted a photo from that.

I suppose this was a fitting way to begin the new year. Like putting together a jigsaw, we had to figure out a lot of things in our lives as we moved from being employed to not being employed. In the United States that also means, among other things, figuring out the health care system with the various parts of Medicare. Then there is the issue of how to make ends meet when you no longer have employment income. We decided to work with a financial planner to help us navigate through this period of our lives, and that has helped a lot.

Health issues were a dominant theme for the year. Beginning with a broken toe and surgery, which affected mobility for a while. Then there was lots of dental work, including surgical removal of a tooth and resulting implant (still waiting for the crown for that). On top of that was cataract surgery, in my right eye—for the first time since 4th grade, my uncorrected vision is better in my right eye than my left.

Another part of our retirement and settling back into Fresno is getting the house and yard back in order after being gone for so long. Exterior painting with all the prep involved has taken and will yet take a lot of time. Fixing broken sprinkler systems. Removing trees for various reasons. Planting more fruit trees. Reinstalling a vegetable garden. Converting the front yard to a xeriscape. All these things are ongoing. So, I'm not really retired, I'm just not getting paid for my work (but I'm also not having to pay someone else to do it—at least not most of it).

Amidst all that, we managed to do some traveling. A road trip to Canada to visit family. Another road trip to Arizona to visit friends and family, but also check out the Grand Canyon. Then, a quick trip to Los Cabos, Mexico, to use up some airline credits before they expired.

There are ministry activities. The main things we are doing is helping with the food distribution at our church once a month. Added to this, we began English tutoring at a local school our church partners with. We do this one morning a week.

Then, all of a sudden the year is over. On the last day of the year, I went to check out our garden. And I saw that some of our marigolds were still blooming.

I bought the marigolds at the Spring Plant Sale of the UCSC Farm and Garden back in April. And they are still blooming! While I enjoy the flowers, they are a reminder of how mild the temperatures have been this fall. We have not had a good frost, or even many days below 40F (5C). While our bodies appreciate the warmth, it is keeping some of our plants from going dormant, which may affect fruit production next year. (Our nectarine tree and grape vine have yet to drop all their leaves.) It also means that our citrus have not sweetened up yet. So, our oranges and Oro Blanco are looking ready to pick, but we're still waiting on some cooler weather so they'll be sweeter.

Maybe this uncertainty in our garden is also a picture of our lives. I still don't feel that I've completely adapted to our new lives. Just like the weather can confuse the plants, so also events that have happened in our lives can leave us uncertain as to which direction to take with our lives. I still don't feel like I've settled on what role I should have in church (our church also is going through times of uncertainty). I'm not bored—there is a lot to do. I'm content to be an introvert at home staying busy with things that need doing there. But I'm not sure this is the best use of my time and talent.

I asked my wife this morning if she had any goals for this year. Like me, she says she doesn't. Should we have one? Do we need one? I did tell her after that I have at least one goal: to stay married to her all year. Other than that, we'll see where life takes us. We did complete 4 500-piece jigsaw puzzles this past week. Maybe that's a sign that the pieces are starting to come together.