Manual labour of love The Kirk family tried using a blender for the sweet-cheese Easter treat only once. ‘Everyone was unhappy’ Homemade
By: Eva Wasney Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Thursday, Apr. 6, 2023

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This article was published 06/04/2023 (885 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Glumz is not for the faint of heart.

Intrepid cooks can expect hand cramps, blisters and a sweaty brow while making the sweet cheese spread — plus a healthy dose of ribbing if you’re a member of the Kirk family. Cooking together and heckling one another are equal acts of love within the small clan.

“They have fun together,” matriarch Elvera says of her son Lee and grandson Chris. “And they don’t leave me out of it,” she adds, with a hint of motherly exasperation.

Glumz is a family recipe that dates back at least five generations to Elvera’s Ukrainian grandmother. Growing up, the rich spread, slathered onto slices of homemade paska (Ukrainian-style brioche), was the highlight of Easter weekend.

“We always had the Easter egg hunt later in the day, but we looked forward to paska with glumz on it,” says Elvera, who is the second eldest of five siblings. “I think we all liked the taste, but we really liked the tradition, even as kids.”

Though there have been attempts to modernize the process, the labour-intensive tradition hasn’t changed much. In order to achieve the desired creamy-but-granular texture, dry cottage cheese is pressed through a fine sieve with the back of a spoon. It’s a step that can take upwards of 20 minutes for a big batch.

One time — and one time only — a blender was used to speed things up.

“Everybody was unhappy,” Elvera says.

The resulting spread was entirely too smooth for the family’s liking. And so, the sieve remains.

Lee has been making glumz for as long as he can remember.

“I was young enough to think that it probably took me an hour to push all that cottage cheese through the strainer,” he says with a laugh. “Complaining, having blisters — that’s what I remember.

“But then you make it a couple times and it’s now your tradition and it becomes fun.”

As the only child of a single mother, Lee spent a lot of time helping Elvera in the kitchen. He still does much of the cooking at home and made a point of getting his son involved in meal prep.

For Chris, cooking is more of a necessity than a passion, but he enjoys the family time it affords.

“There are certain foods that are a reason to get together,” he says.

Plum jam-filled cookies, “purple perogies” — sweet dumplings stuffed with Bing cherries — and glumz are a few special recipes. The father-son duo have been making the latter together for the last 20 years.

Every Good Friday, the Kirk family gathers in Elvera’s cozy retirement suite to make glumz and hunt for Easter eggs — she’s a master of concealment and, despite the small space, there’s at least a few treats that go unfound each year.

The cooking process starts with Elvera, a former nurse, asking if everyone has washed their hands. She passed the torch decades ago and now looks forward to observing from afar and enjoying a glass of wine with her daughter-in-law.

Lee gathers the ingredients and necessary implements, including the giant green Tupperware bowl reserved for glumz. He’s quick to delegate the cottage cheese straining.

Chris picks up the sieve and ladle with a sigh, “It’s a fine line between wanting to do more than him and not wanting to do the whole thing,” he explains.

Competition is the norm and the pair exchange playful barbs about age and technique while they work.

There’s a dog-eared, handwritten recipe on the table, but neither need the reference. The index card is little more than a memento now; a reminder of subtle changes to the original dish, such as a switch to metric measurements and the addition of lemon juice. On the back is a tally of Weight Watchers points — “56 per recipe!”

Glumz is not for the diet-conscious.

Lee takes over straining after Chris develops an honest-to-goodness blister on his finger. They add the custard to the cheese and let the mixture chill in the fridge for a few hours. Glumz is best eaten cold. The finished product tastes like a distant, less refined cousin of cream cheese icing.

“It tastes great, getting used to the texture takes a little bit of time,” Chris says. “But once you’re making it and seeing the effort that goes into it… it tastes that much better.”

The Good Friday afternoon is spent gathered around the green Tupperware bowl, enjoying the company and the fruits of their labour. At the end of the visit, the tight-knight family packs up portions of glumz to freeze or share with others, “If there’s any left,” Lee adds.

For Elvera, the annual event brings about fond memories of her late mother, Margaret, and gratitude for the kin who are keeping her legacy alive.

“She’d love the fact that somebody’s carrying on with this recipe because tradition was very important to her — and the food tradition especially because she was a fabulous cook,” Elvera says. “(And) these are my two favourite men in the world… anything that I get to do together with them, I feel blessed and privileged.”

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @evawasney

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Grandma’s Glumz

Submitted by Elvera Kirk

2 (600 g) containers dry cottage cheese
7 large eggs, separated and at room temperature. (You will only need the yolks. We keep the whites for an angel food cake another day.)
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp lemon juice

With a big spoon, push the cottage cheese through a sieve into a large bowl. This takes some time and considerable elbow grease. It should make about 7 cups of fine cottage cheese.

In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, egg yolks, vanilla and lemon juice and let sit.

Scald the cream, but do not boil. Melt the butter. While still hot, add the cream and butter to the sugar and egg mixture and stir with a whisk. Pour the mixture into the cottage cheese and mix together thoroughly.

Divide the glumz into 4 or 5 small containers to share and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Once it’s chilled, spread it like jam on plain or buttered and toasted paska.

Note: If homemade paska isn’t available, Safeway-brand Easter raisin bread is a recommended substitute.

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Babka (Ukrainian Easter Bread)

Submitted by Shirley Kalyniuk

12 egg yolks
1 cup white sugar
4 cups milk
1 cup butter
2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp Fleischmann’s traditional (active dry) yeast
Pinch saffron, for added yellow colour
1 cup warm water
2 tsp sugar
10 to 12 cups flour
2 cups raisins, washed and dried
1 egg beaten with a bit of water

Beat yolks until light and fluffy. Add 1 cup sugar and saffron. Boil milk, add 1 cup butter and salt. Dissolve yeast and 2 tsp sugar in 1 cup warm water. Add yeast and yolk mixture to cooled milk.

Knead in flour and add raisins before the dough is stiff. Keep adding flour until dough is soft and no longer sticky. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk. Knead down and let rise again.

Make into loaves or balls. Put into well-greased pans and let rise. Be sure to grease the pans well so it will be easy to take loaves out when baked. Brush each loaf with egg and water mixture.

Bake in a 350 F oven for 40 minutes to one hour (depending on the size of the tins/pans you use). Tap top of loaf, if it sounds hollow the bread is baked. Remove from pans while still warm.

“This bread is taken to church, in a basket, to be blessed along with many other delicious foods that we enjoy at Easter time. When my five children were small, I always baked the bread in small soup tins, one for each child. Now I bake these for my grandchildren to enjoy.”

Note: This recipe appears in Homemade: Recipes and Stories from Winnipeg and Beyond, which is available as an ebook here.

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The Best Ham Sauce

Submitted by Ann Marie Lisney

1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 heaping tbsp dry mustard powder
1/4 to 1/3 cup of apple or orange juice

Mix brown sugar and dry mustard powder together in a small bowl. Add apple or orange juice gradually to the sugar mix. Stir until a thick syrup forms.

Drain water from ham. Pour over baked ham during the last 30 minutes of cooking. It will form a nice sauce to serve with the ham.

“My mother was born in Winnipeg and has always made this sauce with ham at every Easter. She’s 85 now and I’ve taken over the holiday meals.

Last Easter I couldn’t be with my family. I was admitted to St. Boniface Hospital just before Easter. There was no way I could be home to have dinner. I felt trapped and helpless as an in-patient over a holiday. At one point I just wanted to rip all my lines out and just go home and make a meal for my family.

I encouraged my kids to have an Easter meal together anyway. I had already bought the ham and they all needed to eat. They each organized a dish potluck style and got everyone fed. Of course they did the ham with the sauce and everyone enjoyed it. I was proud that they were all able to pull together. My husband (their dad) had good leftovers to feed him after his visits with me.”