‘The dumpling in my soup was lonely just like me’: food in the memories of Mennonite women refugees

Abstract

This article analyzes food memories as expressed in the oral and written memory sources of Mennonite women refugees who migrated from the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1940s to Canada and (less so) South America. The specific case study is informed by theoretical models brought to the study of memory by historian Luisa Passerini. In particular, her work on the psychological and emotional meaning inherent in memory is evident here, as Mennonite women associate food with past experience both traumatic and life saving. As such, Passerini's notion of memory's double character fits the pattern of food memory that aligns with polar times of deprivation and abundance.