In the 1960s, Edna Staebler moved in with an Old Order Mennonite family to absorb their oral history and learn about Mennonite culture and cooking. From this fieldwork came the cookbook Food That Really Schmecks. Originally published in 1968, Schmecks instantly became a classic, selling tens of thousands of copies. Interspersed with practical and memorable recipes are Staebler’s stories and anecdotes about cooking, Mennonites, her family, and Waterloo Region. Described by Edith Fowke as folklore literature, Staebler’s cookbooks have earned her national acclaim. Including this long-anticipated reprint of Food That Really Schmecks in our Life Writing series recognizes the cultural value of its narratives, positing it as a groundbreaking book in the food writing genre. This edition includes a foreword by award-winning author Wayson Choy and a new introduction by the well-known food writer Rose Murray.

Have you ever had food that really schmecks? Cookbook author Edna Staebler is back with More Food That Really Schmecks, more recipes collected from the Mennonite community in Waterloo County, Ont. You won't find dishes like Smoked Sausage Soup, Schnippled Bean Casserole, and Mrs. Addison Eby's Sour Cream Elderberry Pie anywhere else. Written in Staebler's warm and witty style, she includes amusing stories about the origins of the recipes. It's all part of the Mennonite tradition of preparing delicious food with ingredients that are usually in your cupboard and refrigerator.

A satirical cocktail book featuring seventy-seven cocktail recipes accompanied by arcane trivia on Mennonite history, faith, and cultural practices. At last, you think, a book of cocktails that pairs punny drinks with Mennonite history! Yes, cocktail enthusiast and author of the popular Drunken Mennonite blog Sherri Klassen is here to bring some Low German love to your bar cart. Drinks like Brandy Anabaptist, Migratarita, Thrift Store Sour, and Pimm’s Cape Dress are served up with arcane trivia on Mennonite history, faith, and cultural practices. Arranged by theme, the book opens with drinks inspired by the Anabaptists of sixteenth-century Europe (Bloody Martyr, anyone?), before moving on to religious beliefs and practices (a little like going to a bar after class in Seminary, but without actually going to class). The third chapter toasts the Mennonite history of migration (Old Piña Colony), and the fourth is all about the trappings of Mennonite cultural identity (Singalong Sling). With seventy-seven recipes, ripping satire, comical illustrations, a cocktails-to-mocktails chapter for the teetotallers, and instructions on scaling up for barn-raisings and funerals, it’s just the thing for the Mennonite, Menno-adjacent, or merely Menno-curious home mixologist.

Life in her traditional Mennonite community is peaceful, if a little dull, for twelve-year-old Beth who dreams of being an artist. She goes to school, helps with the cooking and cleaning at home, and works with her parents at the local farmer’s market. One Saturday, however, excitement shows up in the form of a determined lawyer from New York City who insists she needs a family cookie recipe to win a multi-million-dollar lawsuit. Beth’s parents are bemused, but her grandmother is equally determined that the recipe will not leave her kitchen. As she tries to balance her love for her family and her faith with the promises of adventure New York could bring to her future, Beth learns that she is stronger than she believes. And sometimes, adventures happen close to home.

This “grandmother of all Mennonite cookbooks” brings a touch of Mennonite culture and hospitality to any home that relishes great cooking. Mary Emma Showalter compiled favorite recipes from hundreds of Mennonite women across the United States and Canada noted for their excellent cooking into this book of more than 1,100 recipes. These tantalizing dishes came to this country directly from Dutch, German, Swiss, and Russian kitchens. Old-fashioned cooking and traditional Mennonite values are woven throughout. Original directions like “a dab of cinnamon” or “ten blubs of molasses” have been standardized to help you get the same wonderful individuality and flavor. Showalter introduces each chapter with her own nostalgic recollection of cookery in grandma’s day—the pie shelf in the springhouse, outdoor bake ovens, the summer kitchen. First published in 1950, Mennonite Community Cookbook has become a treasured part of many family kitchens. Parents who received the cookbook when they were first married make sure to purchase it for their own sons and daughters when they wed. This 65th anniversary edition adds all new color photography and a brief history while retaining all of the original recipes and traditional Fraktur drawings. Check out the cookbook blog at mennonitecommunitycookbook.com

Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award In this stunning coming-of-age novel, the award-winning author of Women Talking balances grief and hope in the voice of a witty, beleaguered teenager whose family is shattered by fundamentalist Christianity "Half of our family, the better–looking half, is missing," Nomi Nickel tells us at the beginning of A Complicated Kindness. Left alone with her sad, peculiar father, her days are spent piecing together why her mother and sister have disappeared and contemplating her inevitable career at Happy Family Farms, a chicken slaughterhouse on the outskirts of East Village. Not the East Village in New York City where Nomi would prefer to live, but an oppressive town founded by Mennonites on the cold, flat plains of Manitoba, Canada. This darkly funny novel is the world according to the unforgettable Nomi, a bewildered and wry sixteen–year–old trapped in a town governed by fundamentalist religion and in the shattered remains of a family it destroyed. In Nomi's droll, refreshing voice, we're told the story of an eccentric, loving family that falls apart as each member lands on a collision course with the only community any of them have ever known. A work of fierce humor and tragedy by a writer who has taken the American market by storm, this searing, tender, comic testament to family love will break your heart. “Brilliant.” —New York Times Book Review “A darkly funny and provocative novel.” —O, the Oprah Magazine

Failure and Nerve in the Academic Study of Religion presents a provocative critique of the unwillingness of modern scholars to publically distinguish research into comparative religion from confessional studies written within denominationally-affiliated institutions. The book offers the 19th Century founders of the study of religion as a bracing corrective to contemporary timidity. The issue was analysed and documented by Wiebe a quarter of a century ago. Here, marking Wiebe's work, a wide range of contributors reassess the methodology and ambition of contemporary religious research. The book argues that conceptualizing religion as part of the world of human action and experience is the first requirement of the study of religion.