Secrets of a Hutterite Kitchen

Book excerpt: The highly anticipated follow-up to the award-winning national bestseller, I Am Hutterite In I Am Hutterite, Kirkby took her readers on a fascinating journey inside a Hutterite colony in Manitoba, where she grew up. Known as Canada’s forgotten people, Hutterites live in higher numbers in Canada than anywhere else in the world. Drawing back the curtains on this mysterious and extraordinary way of life, Kirkby enchanted the public with a vivid portrait of her people, rich in detail and memorable characters. Could you go back? was the enduring request from her readers, hungry for more. Now in Secrets of a Hutterite Kitchen, Kirkby returns to her roots and into the heart of the community and the life she was born into. She traveled from colony to colony for more than two years, working with the women in their kitchens: cooking, baking, plucking ducks, and gossiping. Kirkby reveals intimate details of the community and experiences what her life would have been like if her family hadn’t left the colony when she was a young girl. Secrets of a Hutterite Kitchen is a candid snapshot of present-day Hutterite life, unraveling the inner workings of this closed society and unveiling the rituals, traditions, and food of her culture through the lens of the community kitchen. Kirkby witnesses the rites of passage from cradle to grave: births, romantic entanglements, marriage ceremonies, sacred holidays, and other celebrations. Through it all, she rediscovers what she has always known—that it is the Hutterite women who are the soul of their community.