December 21, 2008

• Ingenuity of Manning

  Where Barns Cross Oceans & Fish Come Down from the Hill Top

  If geology was grand opera, standing ovations would interrupt the arias on Iowa Highway 141. The state’s familiar flat terrain ends abruptly near Coon Rapids. West of there, the headwaters of the once awesome Nishnabotna rivers have carved a show stopping consecution of hills and dales. In the southwest corner of Carroll County, the landscape is further dramatized by the creative genius of farmers who terrace their crops around the hills in contoured strips. In this idyllic part of the state, Manning’s voice rises above the chorus like a Wagnerian tenor‘s.

  Founded by Schleswig-Holstein immigrants in 1881, the town is a brick-paved charmer, confidently adapting to modern times with Teutonic ingenuity. The regional health care center includes a hospital, clinic, nursing home and substance abuse facility. It shares downtown with tourist-catching German architecture. Manning’s entire school district is housed in one new building. A liquor store is also a tanning parlor and video shop.

  Clearly, Manning flourishes in contrast to many Iowa towns with populations under 1500. The newly renovated downtown includes three local banks and retail sales grew by five times the state average last year. There’s a home here for troubled teens, a recreation center, a technical support call center, an indoor-outdoor pool and a fur shop. City owned utilities include a phone company with high speed internet, cable, plus gas and electric service, providing 50 jobs that didn‘t exist before it was formed in the late 1990‘s.

  Manning has a long history of foresight. When just a student at Iowa State, Henry Brunnier designed the town’s then unique stand-pipe water tower. He went on to develop earthquake tolerant architecture, including the Oakland Bay Bridge. Today’s residents include Dr. Rexanne Struve, a world leader in swine genetics, vaccine testing and transplant research; Ben Puck, who invented a state of the art hog confinement filtration unit; and the Kusel company, which innovated riparian buffer strip designs that support no till and pesticide free farming.

  So, after you get to know Manning, the sight of a 17^th century, reed roof bauernhaus southeast of town no longer makes you blink. Originally constructed in 1660 in Offenseth, Germany, the huge building was given to the town in 1991. It was then diagrammed, dismantled and reassembled in Manning, with master carpenters from Germany leading local volunteers.

  “This was a community project. Our centennial in 1981 generated some good vibrations and, wanting to keep that civic esteem alive, people talked about creating a tourist project on the lines of Elk Horn and Kimballton’s Danish villages. Luckily, they discovered a German landlord, of an old bauernhaus, who was tired of his tenants’ demands,” explained Joelle Puck, a volunteer docent.

  The fifteen year project cost $500,000, a small fraction of what it would require in a less volunteer-oriented, or less ingenious town. The bricks in the building’s floor, for instance, were recycled from Manning’s downtown, when those streets were repaved.

  Renamed the Hausbarn, an Americanized word, it was rebuilt adjacent to the American Bungalow homestead of the Leet/Hassler Farms. An early 20^th century playboy, William Leet blew his family fortune before selling his property to Frederick Hassler, who had worked in Leet’s carriage house and saved his money wisely. Hassler then developed famous Poland-China hogs, including a national grand champion that sold for $20,000 in 1920. Each year on the first weekend of October, Heritage Park, which includes the Hausbarn and Leet/Hassler Farms, hosts an intimate Octoberfest, among a series of events that show off Manning’s Germanic spirit.

  Having enticed Chef Dan Grove away from his legendary Skean Block restaurant in Albia, the Hausbarn Restaurant and Conference Center lures foodies to town regularly. Grove recreates northern German favorites while also catering to less adventurous tastes of conventioneers and tourists. Among his specialties, beer battered lobster with wood-smoked angus prime rib sells out on weekends.

  It shares a menu with rouladen, weiner schnitzel, pfeffer steak and sauerbraten. Kale and dumplings are as popular here as potatoes. All sausages are hand made and include northern German pinkelwurst. Grove braises pork shanks and serves tenderloins in both German (Marsala cream sauce) and American styles (dusted in red pepper and sautéed). Chef Dan bakes wondrous rye breads and supplies his kitchen from its own herb garden and from the local vegetable gardens of Mary Saylor. Desserts include Black Forest tortes, apple almond strudel and burnt custards.

  However, what truly sets the Hausbarn apart is its fish, which are locally raised in the “nation’s best tasting drinking water.” That too is a story of ingenuity. In 1998, Manning entered their municipal tap water in the Great American Water Taste Test and won, first the state championship, and then the national title. Iowa fish lack market-appeal because concentrated livestock facilities have polluted the state’s rivers, so much that the Des Moines Water Works needs the world’s largest nitrate filtering system to cope. Manning farmer Chuck Ehlers reasoned that if people avoid fish that come out of bad water, the converse must also be true — they would love fish that come out of good water.

  Southwest of town, Ehlers lives on a century farm that swims over two gorgeous hills, planted equally with beans and corn. The day we visited, he was raising 5100 head of hogs, from feeder to finish, on one hill top, and 24,700 fish on the other.

  “I started looking into fish in 1996 as an alternative to crop and hog farming. I realized that I had three daughters, I was getting older and my wife was tired of riding hogs. No one in the family was going to take over the farm, so I needed to find something different, or get divorced,” he laughed.

  No longer wanting to raise pigs from birth, Ehlers sold his sows and began looking for an alternative use for his farrowing shed. Fish farming had an environmentally friendly appeal, but Iowa pride also influenced his decision.

  “Aquaculture is the fastest growing segment of agriculture and Iowa isn’t even on the map. Yet, we have people here who know how to raise livestock. So why should we depend on newcomer farmers from the two coasts to build this industry?”

  Ehlers wanted an environmentally friendly system.

  “What we do here involves recycling ninety-seven percent of the water and replacing just three percent each day. The recycled water is filtered and cleaned. Solids settle in the tank and get pumped out, then they are air dried into fertilizer. I sell all mine to a guy who uses it on his orchid farm in Arkansas. He loves the stuff,” Ehlers told us.

  One of the by-products of fish farming involves the least desirable parts of the fish, at least to American tastes. The offal and the heads have produced highly successful test results as anerobic digesters in sewage treatment. An Iowa State University study believes they could replace expensive chemicals in that industry.

  Ehlers began his fish farm with yellow perch which fetch $12 pound, but only in a small area around Duluth. Walleye’s market is much broader, so he quickly switched.

  “Then I sold all my walleye to one buyer and I had to move immediately because the tanks can’t live if they are empty. Trout were available , so I got into trout. I started striped bass later,” he explained.

  There have been lessons to learn. Large mouth bass have a great market and grow fast, but they didn’t take to intensive culture. The walleye eat fish meal, the bass are vegetarians.

  “I put some of the predators on a vegetarian diet and they are growing, but not nearly as fast. So, we’ll see what happens. I think they develop a cleaner flavor on veggie diets, and there is less chance of contamination, so it might be worthwhile,” he said.

  Ten thousand gallon water tanks are small enough that fish develop girth. At feeding time, smooth water turned frothy with turbulence. Striped bass particularly were energetic about eating.

  Aquaculture constantly challenges one’s ingenuity. At first, Ehlers netted fish, but small stripers were killed by the spines of larger fish. So he invented a fish pump and filter system that reduced his death rate dramatically. When the price of liquid oxygen rose from $200 to $800 a tank, he installed an oxygen generating system. Steve Sommerfelt designed Chuck’s three stage, sloped filtration system that requires pumping only once, the rest is done by gravity.

  Heartland Fish is a six member co-operative. Besides Ehlers, Jim Ferneding of Templeton is already in production. Their business plan calls for ten more producers in three years. Their best customer is Joe Tess Place, an Omaha restaurant that specializes in fresh Midwest fish. Ehlers also sells his fish at One Stop Meat shops in Sioux City and Des Moines, to Simone’s Plain and Simple in Cedar Rapids, and to Dale’s Evergreen, which stocks them in a hunting preserve for ice fishing in eastern Iowa.

  There’s no better place to eat them though than at the Hausbarn, as Dan Grove explains.

  “We are so lucky to have this fish right here. Other purveyors have a totally liberal idea of what fresh fish means. To them five days out of the water is ‘fresh.’ With Heartland, we get a firmer texture and the flavor is so fresh and pure that I don’t like to mess much with that, just pan sautee it with a traditional meuniere, ” he said.

  “It’s just too good to cover up the taste.”

  Dan Grove’s Trout Meuniere

  Ingredients

  4 trout, in filets

  Half cup water

  2 eggs
  one third cup flour
  salt and pepper
  half stick butter
  juice of half a lemon
  2 teaspoons chopped parsley
  lemon twists to garnish

   

  Soak the trout filets in egg wash of eggs beaten into water. Spread the flour in a shallow bowl and add salt and pepper to taste. Add the fish and coat well on all sides.
  Melt the butter in a large frying pan. When it foams, add the trout. Fry gently for about 4 minutes on each side, until the skin is golden and crisp.
  Transfer the fish to a warm serving dish with a slotted spoon. Season the butter remaining in the pan with salt and pepper and heat until it is nut-brown. Add the lemon juice and chopped parsley and pour this over the trout. Garnish with lemon twists and serve immediately.
  

  Manning’s Heritage Events

  Kinderfest each Fathers’ Day weekend, is a 120 year old tradition of games, rides, fireworks and other children’s activities.

  German Heritage Day is in July.

  Harmony in the Field, in August is music festival with jazz, bluegrass, country and folk artists from across Iowa. Camping encouraged.

  Octoberfest, October 1 this year includes crafts, demonstrations, polka bands, pumpkin picking and decorating, horseback rides, dancing, singers and food.

  Weihnachtsfest, November 25 – December 11 includes fireworks on opening night, the mass lighting of Main Street, a parade, music and ceremony. Ends with a Christmas cantata at Zion Lutheran Church.

  Information: 800-292-0252, www.manningia.com, heritage@pioneer.net

  Hausbarn Restaurant 712 655-3095

  Lunch: Monday – Saturday 11 – 2

  Dinner: Monday – Thursday 5 – 9;

  Friday and Saturday 5 – 10

  Sunday Brunch: 10 – 1

  • 3:44 pm
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