North
Dakota State University -- NDSU Agriculture
Communication7 Morrill Hall, Fargo ND, 58105-5655, Tel: 701-231-7881, Fax: 701-231-7044
agcomm@ndsuext.nodak.edu
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North
Dakota State University -- NDSU Agriculture
Communication 7 Morrill Hall, Fargo ND, 58105-5655, Tel: 701-231-7881, Fax: 701-231-7044 agcomm@ndsuext.nodak.edu |
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Plains Folk: Calico’sTom Isern, Professor of History
I always read the bulletin boards in Cenex gas stations. The one in Eureka, S.D. carried notice that Sunday night was German night at Calico's in Mound City. Reason enough to put Mound City on the route during a recent junket to Pierre. Here's the deal with Calico's. It occupies one of the old false-front store buildings on the main drag. Lorrie and George feed lodge hunters, fishers, and other hardy travelers and the public--most nights with standard steak-house fare. The Sunday evening buffet is anchored by "George's Cheese Buttons," which are more like bags than buttons. Each is a right triangle with a 7-inch hypotenuse. If you're wondering what a cheese button is, it's pretty much like a perogie, except nobody ever saw a perogie this big. If you happen to have some dead pheasants in your trunk, George will clean them. He dressed about 300 last year. Other than that, and the cheese buttons, I'm uncertain as to his responsibilities. Lorrie seems to be the point guard for the establishment, and also something of a South Dakota celebrity. The regional press made much of a recent incident when one of her neighbors, a nurse, was injured in an auto accident. Lorrie, who happens to be a Scientologist, was first on the accident scene and used the techniques of her faith to sustain the injured woman. We happened to stop in when cabbage rolls were on the buffet. There was Knoepfla soup (and no, I don't want to hear from you about the proper spelling of that) too, but my bowl didn't have any Knoepfla in it. A guy named Herman in a red flannel shirt got them all before me, I think. The creamy cucumber salad was just dreamy. Peach Kuchen for dessert. Other nights feature sausage and kraut, meatballs and gravy, or ham and Knoepfla. This is for $4.95. Filet mignon is $5.95. Evidently Mound City has some different currency exchange rate than the rest of America. The place is homey, too. The wood tables are round or square, painted or not. The artwork is eclectic, succumbing neither to the oppressively feminine impulse toward country crafts nor to the sadly masculine inclination toward dead animals. The wood floor has been patched with this and that. There are basil plants as table centerpieces. They look like they need more light, but this time of year, don't we all? Our fellow customers were all local patrons, mostly regulars. George grew up around here; Lorrie married him and moved from Minneapolis. It confirms my belief that our best strategy for regional development on the northern plains is to go to the cities east and west, marry bright and energetic partners, and bring them here. Calico's combines local patronage with a niche market of sportsmen. More generally, places like this are exactly the ticket as the basis for regional tourism in the coming generation. Travelers these days want real things. Cheese buttons are real things. So I've added Calico's to my website, "Oases of the Great American Desert" (go to www.plainsfolk.com/oases/). If you feel the need to rustle up some German-Russian cuisine at home, let me draw your attention to a new service offered by the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection at North Dakota State University. It's an amazing recipe index providing references to the nineteen cookbooks offered for sale by the collection (go to http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc/history_culture/recipe/). Just enter the name of the food you want, and out come the page-specific citations. A search for Kuchen produces 191 matches. Kristi Krebs Brink compiled the index for Mike Miller, Germans from Russia bibliographer. ### Source: Tom Isern, (701) 799-2941, isern@plainsfolk.com
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