By Kelly Leonard
Pregnant and desperate to provide a better life for her unborn child, my great-great grandmother, Monica Adomenas, boarded a ship in Lithuania in the early 1900s. Like many immigrants at that time, she was headed for the shores of America that beckoned with the opportunity of a chance for a life that was free from oppression. She brought with her a rich cultural heritage including recipes that had been passed down through generations of Lithuanian women – not written in a book but conveyed by word of mouth. Yet many of those dishes did not survive to become a part of my diet less than one hundred years later. How did my Lithuanian heritage almost completely disappear in just four generations?
The loss of many of these recipes started gradually, beginning with my great-great grandmother’s daughter, Genevieve Kernagis, who was born on the ship coming to America. She grew up in Chicago where there is a large Lithuanian community. When she had her own family, she still made many of the Lithuanian dishes that her mother had made; however, there were some differences. She used mostly canned vegetables because of the limited availability of quality fresh vegetables in inner city Chicago. Also, she did not use much meat because she was raising a large family of ten children during the Great Depression. The Lithuanian dishes that she cooked included such hearty fare as Kuldunai meat dumplings with bacon sauce, cheap potatoes, Lithuanian sausage and plenty of cabbage.
No time for teaching
When it was time for her daughter Dolores Winchell, my grandmother, to make meals for her family, more of the Lithuanian heritage was lost. Due to the large number of children she had, Genevieve was not able to take the time to teach many of the recipes to her daughter. Also the Lithuanian dishes were unacceptably foreign to Dolores’ husband who grew up on a farm and whose heritage was English and Irish. As a result, she primarily learned how to make her signature dishes such as cherry pie and meatloaf from a Good Housekeeping cookbook.
One Lithuanian dish that survived the transition to America was Lithuanian bacon buns which have become a staple of family gatherings. Our family knows them as “La Shanuki Bonduki” but upon researching traditional Lithuanian recipes, I discovered that the proper name of the bacon buns is “Lasineciai.” Perhaps a family member couldn’t pronounce the title due to losing the Lithuanian language and so Americanized the pronunciation.
Although my family background of English, Irish, Welsh, Lithuanian and Mexican would lead one to think that my family had interesting, ethnic meals growing up, the truth of the matter is the “heritage” that most described my diet was American processed food. My mother was a working mother so she needed convenient meals that would feed her family quickly and corporations were there to fill that need. Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, hot dogs, American versions of tacos and spaghetti and plenty of McDonald’s composed the large majority of my diet.
Modernizing the lasineciai
My mother still made “La Shanuki Bondukis;” however, she didn’t make the dough by hand as my grandma had done and instead used frozen Rhodes dinner rolls, again reflecting the increasing need for convenience.
Now that I have a husband of my own to take care of, I have completely rejected the unhealthy diet of my youth and overhauled it in order to cook more nutritious meals. With the connectivity enabled by the internet, I have also incorporated cuisines from cultures that are not a part of my heritage such as stir-fries from Asia and curries from India.
My story is not unique as there are many families in America that have lost their cultural heritage through assimilation and the increasing takeover by corporations of America’s food supply. But some of my Lithuanian heritage has survived: I still enjoy “La Shanuki Bondukis” at holiday gatherings.
Lasineciai or “La Shanuki Bonduki”
From Monica Adomenas
Makes about 2 ½ dozen rolls
Filling ingredients
1 lb. bacon, chopped and then cooked and drained
1/2 cup butter
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1pound ham slices, chopped in about 1/2 ” squares
Dough ingredients
2 cups milk
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4-ounce package yeast
5 eggs
6 cups flour, sifted
Yolk of 1 egg (for basting)
1/4 cup butter, melted (for basting)
To make filling, melt butter in saucepan. Add onions to pan and sauté until translucent. Add ham to pan and brown. Add cooked bacon to pan. Cook and stir for about a minute. Save filling in refrigerator until dough is ready.
To make dough, in a 2 quart saucepan, heat milk, butter, sugar and salt until butter is fully melted. Use 1/2 cup of mixture to dissolve yeast. Beat eggs and add to remaining milk mixture. Add dissolved yeast. Stir in sifted flour and beat vigorously. Cover the dough with a towel and let it rise in a warm place for about two hours. Punch down the risen dough and refrigerate it overnight.
The next day, roll out the dough to a thickness of about 3/8 inch. Using a biscuit cutter, cut rolled dough into rounds about 3 inches in diameter. Put about a tablespoon of the filling on the dough and seal. A good way to seal it is to fold it like a taco, crimp it, and fold the ends up and attach to the top of the taco shape. Place on greased cookie sheets. Let the dough rise again for about 45 minutes.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Mix egg yolk with 2 tablespoons water and brush the top of each roll. Place rolls in oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes until lightly browned. After you remove buns from oven, baste with butter and move to wire racks to cool.