Do you know what a Kermis is? Me neither until we arrived here. We kept seeing these signs advertising a kermis at this church, at kermis at this park, and our first, a kermis at the Belgian Heritage Center. This area of Southern Door County is home to the largest Belgian population in America.
A kermis, defined as a summer fair held in the Netherlands, performs a great service as a fundraiser for local churches and the heritage center. Sort of a mash-up of cultures, plus you get to eat strange food, drink beer, and see fun stuff! The fairs included an antique farm equipment show, a car show, a silent auction, and live music for dancing.
First, of course, the food. We had the traditional foods of the area, booyah, trippe, jutt, and Belgian pie. Here, booyah, a mispronunciation of "bullion," is a chicken stew with all the traditional vegetables/chicken, but no corn. Not remarkable for me. Trippe is not tripe, which was what I thought. Trippe is a traditional Belgian sausage, like a bratwurst, with the addition of sauerkraut. This I could eat. It was lighter than bratwurst, probably because of the sauerkraut. Next, we explore jutt, another Belgian dish made by cooking cabbage with some type of pork product (side meat, cracklings, etc) and onions. Oh, my gosh, this was good, if you like cooked cabbage and pork! Finally, Belgian pie, instead of a traditional crust, is made with a raised dough crust, filled with fruit with a cottage cheese topping. Again, it was pie, but different with the yeasty, dough crust. The cottage cheese topping was very, very different.
Scroll through the pictures below.
Growing up on a farm for me and a dairy for Leo, the antique farm equipment was a draw. With the major area crop being corn, there was a corn husker, a corn sheller, and a corn mill, all run with a tractor drive wheel. I had never seen a hay bale press. There was even a tractor making ice cream!
We were surprised to see this in one of the silent auction baskets.
We had to ogle the cars. They had quite a variety and it was fun to talk to the owners.
Now for the Belgians come to America history lesson. Belgian immigration started in the 1850s and continued through the 1870s. Why Wisconsin? The reason that all immigrants move, for the opportunity for a better life coming from fertile and cheap land. What they found was a heavily forested land and to say the least, a challenging climate. And did they persevere! I mentioned the fields of corn, soybeans, and alfalfa. Those fields used to be forests. The Belgians who came were from southern Belgium and brought their own language, called Walloon, to the area.
The houses in the area show their European heritage. The house on the left stands in Brussels while the other is near our "house." It, too, was bricked but has been stripped of the brick for renovation. Surprised that the house is brick in the middle of a forest? There is a reason for that.
The Peshtigo fire occurred the same day as the Chicago Fire and killed more people. The Peshtigo fire burned in northeastern Wisconsin and much of the southern half of the Door Peninsula. The fire spread around the end of Green Bay, stretching up to Sturgeon Bay. We visited Tornado Memorial Park, thinking that a tornado had gone through the area. However, the tornado was actually a firestorm that destroyed the village of Williamson. Of the 76 inhabitants, only 19 survived. Many died in a field across the road from the memorial and five survived by scaling down a well. The town was never rebuilt. After the fire, the area Belgians rebuilt with brick.
This little roadside memorial was the first county park in Door County.
Remember the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, the site of the Marian apparition seen by Sister Adele? During the fire, people and their farm animals came to the church for safety. The group prayed and rains came, saving the convent, school, chapel, and five acres of land surrounding the chapel compound.
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