Cabbage rolls ready for fest

Odessa's preparations for the upcoming Deutsches Fest, September 19, 20 and 21, are moving forward, as the groups providing homemade German food get together to assemble the dishes for which they have become famous.

Tuesday, members of Heritage Church, along with other volunteers, spent the morning rolling a mixture of hamburger, rice and tomato sauce into freshly harvested cabbage leaves. They began their task at 8 a.m. and by 10:30 a.m. had assembled 2,100 cabbage rolls.

This effort brings a return to all locally produced food for the Fest. For a couple of years, Heritage Church found itself short of volunteers and had to resort to buying its cabbage rolls from another vendor. Some customers at Fest were fine with the situation, but others refused to buy the "non-Odessa-made" version of the cabbage rolls. Happily, a younger generation of volunteers has come forward to take up the challenge of preparing this very popular dish.

Due to some incorrect informatioin supplied to The Record last week, we reported that the cabbage rolls would not be made until later in the month of August. But fortunately, the 15 or more volunteers who arrived ready to work on Tuesday morning were better informed and got the job done.

The cabbage was grown by the Stahl Hutterian colony near Odessa, and, according to those who worked Tuesday, it was perfect for the task at hand. On Monday, a smaller crew consisting of mainly the co-chairs of the cabbage roll committee, Carmen Weishaar and Lindsy Starkel, met in the commercial kitchen at the community center to cook up the rice and hamburger mixture that fills the cabbage leaves. They also cooked the cabbage and separated the leaves in preparation for the job of creating the finished product on Tuesday.

With all of that preparation on Monday, Tuesday's job went very quickly. By the time The Record got to the kitchen to take pictures, the job was all done and only a few crew members were left doing the final cleanup. Fortunately for all concerned, others took the pictures that accompany this article.

Weishaar and Starkel told The Record that besides the local cabbage, the meat was purchased through Voise Sausage in Odessa, and the bread and butter that accompany the cabbage rolls will be obtained through Odessa Foods. So other local businesses are also invested in the preparations for Fest.