My informant’s grandmother is Russian, and what was a common food in her country became a family tradition for holidays and other get togethers once they moved to the United States and settled in New Orleans. Her memories associated with that side of the family always involve making pelmeni together, giving it a lot of sentimental value. It’s interesting how the tradition is passed down and each person has their own role that they fill, including the younger children being given something to do so that they also feel included.

“Whenever we’re all together, we always make pelmeni, a Russian dumpling. My great grandma would sit down and make everything by hand (dough, meat, etc) and would pound out hundreds of absolutely perfect and soft pelmeni, the most amazing you will have in your entire life. She had 5 kids, the oldest is my grandma and youngest is my Aunt Tanya (a 24 year difference between them). As a little kid, would go to grandma’s house and get little wrappers and sit around the table and make the dumplings. My grandma would give my little sister one tiny piece of dough and meat, and my sister would fix it and say “okay that’s good but I think you could do a little better” with same piece. She would play with same piece of dough and meat for hours while the older kids and adults made the actual pelmeni. My great grandma’s five kids each have several kids who have several kids, so I have tons of super close cousins all living in new Orleans. The torch was passed down from my grandma and my mom is now the honorary one in charge of making them, and it will probably be passed on to my sister later on, since she has the knack for it.”