The Best Way to Eat Food
Gary Dyck, Blog Coordinator Livery Barn Restaurant managers Gil Drolet and Randy Berg working in the kitchen.
With the advent of fast and easy food we have lost the art of preparing and eating food. What was meant to be restful and nourishing to our bodies and souls has become merely utilitarian.
I recently sat down with Mennonite Heritage Village’s (MHV) new Food Services Manager Gil Drolet and Assistant Manager Randy Berg. During the interview it became clear that their love of cooking and arranging food for others came at a young age when their mothers increasingly engaged them in supper preparation. For Gil it started at age 8. Within a few years he could do the whole meal complete with roast and the trimmings by himself.
Mennonite Heritage Village s (MHV) upcoming exhibit "Mennonites at War" explores various responses Mennonites have had toward war and violence over their five-hundred-year history.
To Build a Village – The Reimer Store
Gary Dyck, Blog Coordinator H.W. Reimer Store in Steinbach. (Photo: Laszlo Markovics)
Stores were unusual in the early Manitoba Mennonite villages and yet it was Steinbach’s first store that became the Mennonite Heritage Village’s (MHV) first building. Mennonites were almost exclusively farmers and believed that making a living from the soil was most desirable since it required little contact with the outside world. Small general stores, however, began to make their appearance and often became flourishing businesses. They were just big enough to fit a family out for a visit, a group of boys buying candy or a group of men needing a place to converse.
Money Makes the Village Go Round
Gary Dyck, Blog Coordinator
Executive Director, MHV
There is a lot happening at the Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV). Besides the busyness of preparing for a new season of events, exhibits and welcoming guests on our grounds in a safe way, we have also received several grants. These grants not only allow us to maintain the museum and our 30 heritage buildings/monuments, but they also allow us to develop new initiatives.
Here is a sample of grants from the past month:
New Horizons federal grant for $10,000 to do the landscaping our new Dirk Willems Peace Garden
Museums, Mennonites, and Human Rights
Gary Dyck, Blog Coordinator
Executive Director, MHV
The Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV) is excited to be collaborating with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in April, which is Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Prevention month in Canada. Mennonites have talked a lot about peace, non-violence, valuing the “other,” reconciliation, and forgiveness, but we have not talked a lot about human rights. Museums for that matter have not either. Museums and Mennonites have been mostly ambivalent about human rights issues in their world, but that is changing. As novelist and social activist Alice Walker said, “activism is my rent for living on the planet.” When we see great wrong being done to fellow humans, we must carefully consider what our role is.