Media Release
February 15, 2000

Prairie Public TV "Plains Talk" program to feature NDSU's Germans from Russia Bibliographer Michael M. Miller

Matt Olien, host of Prairie Public Television's weekly program, "Plains Talk," will interview Michael M. Miller, Germans from Russia Bibliographer, NDSU Libraries, and Bob Dambach, director of productions at PPTV, on February 24, at 7:30 pm (CT), re-broadcast on February 27 at 6 pm. Miller and Dambach are exective producers of another documentary, "Schmeckfest: Food Traditions of the Germans from Russia." Ronald J. Vossler, UND, is writer and host for this documentary. Brief segments from the documentary will be shown.

The documentary premieres on PPTV on March 5 at 8 pm (CT) and will be re-broadcast on March 15 at 7 pm. Dambach and Miller are producers of the 1999 award-winning program, "The Germans from Russia: Children of the Steppe, Children of the Prairie," shown on PBS stations throughout the USA.

Over the course of two centuries, wherever fate has swept them, the Germans from Russia have adapted and endured. They have survived famine, wars, drought, prairie fires, and poverty of frontier life.

From the Russian steppe to the grasslands of Argentina, from the American prairie to the tundra of Siberia, this ethnic group's resourceful self-sufficiency, particularly in the growing and preparation of food for their large families, remains a rich legacy passed through generations.

In German Russian life, "food was love," and prairie mothers who left no records of their lives are remembered daily in the recipes and rituals of food preparation.

"Schmeckfest: Food Traditions of the Germans from Russia" preserves these memories with vignettes that feed the soul and warms the heart. Share the festivities of the Schmeckfest in Eureka, SD, experience the famous Knoepfla Soup at Kroll's Kitchens in North Dakota, and savor the hearty Schachlika Supper in Richardton, ND.

Major funding for the production was provided by the North Dakota Humanities Council, North Dakota State University Libraries, and the Members of Prairie Public.

For more detailed information about the new documentary including photographs, review the website page: http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/projects.html.

For further information, contact Michael M. Miller (Tel: 701-231-8416; E-mail: Michael.Miller@ndsu.edu).