By EDNA EBY HELLER
_Pennsylvania Dutch food columnist and lecturer._
Lancaster County cookery definitely reflects the way of life of the
Pennsylvania Dutch. They are a people who are hard working, creative and
thrifty. A great many dishes common in today’s Dutch Cookery were
created when a housewife felt compelled to utilize rather than discard.
She wastes nothing in the garden, neither in the kitchen. That favorite
little Milk Pie, she makes from left over pastry!
Generally speaking, Pennsylvania Dutch cooking is simple. There are few
salads, but quantities of cookies, cakes and pies. With only a few
exceptions, salads are limited to greens, served with a sweet sour
sauce. Although not many daughters bake bread today, the grandmothers
still set their dough to rise twice weekly. With her bread she will
probably bake Cinnamon Sticky Buns or Moravian Sugar Cake. The latter is
one of the yeast bread delicacies that is slightly fancy and extremely
rich. Butter is the extravagance of Lancaster County cooks, and they
themselves recognize this. One woman told her daughter-in-law: “You
better close your eyes while I add the butter to the vegetables.”
You may have heard of the Sweets and Sours of the Pennsylvania Dutch.
These include the spiced fruits, pickled vegetables, jellies and
preserves. Because the Dutchman craves sours with every meal, the
women-folk not only can many pickles, but pickle eggs, red beets,
bologna and other meats. Dutch farmers make great quantities of cider
vinegar for their own use and would not want to have to do without it.
Molasses, too, is indispensable. Twenty-five years ago each grocer had a
molasses barrel or two, but there are only a few left. Barrel molasses
is the table molasses that is spread on butter bread, fried mush,
scrapple, egg cheese, fritters, doughnuts and many other deep-fat-fried
foods. For cookies, cakes and pies, baking molasses is used. In the pie
category alone there are many uses. We use molasses for Shoo-fly Pies,
Molasses Crumb Pies, Molasses Custards, Funny Cake Pies, Montgomery,
McKinley, Quakertown, Union, Lemon Strip Pies, Shellbark Custards and
Vanilla Pies. Yes, we like our molasses! Perhaps, for this craving, we
are indebted to our great-grandmothers who religiously gave their
children molasses and sulphur for a “necessary spring tonic.”
It might be noted that we like boiled dinners. Vegetables are frequently
cooked in the same kettle with the meat and potatoes. The favorite
combinations are: cabbage and beef, sauerkraut and pork, green beans and
ham, turnips and beef. More unusual, though, and favorites of any
season, are our Boiled Pot Pies. Squares of dough are dropped into
boiling broth to cook with either chicken, veal, pork, or beef. And
again, potatoes are in the same kettle. Some cooks choose to use both
Sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes in the same Pot Pie. You will find
baked meat pies, but they are outnumbered by boiled ones of which the
Chicken Pot Pie is the most popular.
There is a chicken specialty in Lancaster County that attracts great
crowds. Every August and September when the Ladies of the Fire Company
Auxiliaries serve Chicken Corn Soup suppers they make gallons and
gallons. Plenty of chicken and plenty of corn in a rich chicken broth is
tops on our list of soups.
Have you heard about our Funeral Pie? It is none other than a Raisin
Pie. It may be Raisin Crumb or a two-crust Raisin Pie; either is called
Funeral Pie. For as many years as our grandmothers can remember, this
pie was made for the meal that was served to relatives and friends who
had gathered for a funeral. Today, in this age of travel, there are few
of these suppers served excepting among the Amish who still travel by
horse and buggy.
The Shoo-Fly Pie is a common subject of inquiries. Everyone wants to
know the translation of its name, but there is none. The discussion of
whether the name actually came from an occasion when flies were chased
from this molasses pie or whether its rough textured topping gave it a
name similar to the French _choufleur_ meaning cauliflower, has not yet
been reconciled. There are many varieties of Shoo-Fly Pies. The Dutchman
who likes to dunk wants his “dry as punk” and others like them “gooey as
can be.” The latter is often referred to as the “wet-bottom shoo-fly.”
Basically, this pie is made in an unbaked crust that is partially filled
with a molasses mixture and covered with a thick topping of crumbs,
which may or may not be spicy.
On the menu of the restaurant that serves Pennsylvania Dutch meals you
are quite likely to see “Schnitz un Knepp.” Literally this means apples
and dumplings. Specifically, “schnitz” are dried apple slices that are
cooked with the dumplings in ham broth and then served with ham. Dried
apple slices can be purchased in many stores, but on the farm each cook
dries her own, just as she dries her own corn and beans, in the oven, on
top of the coal stove or in the sun. Schnitz are also put into pies or
served alone as stewed fruit.
Probably more apples go into Apple Butter which in the Pennsylvania
Dutch dialect is called Lottwaerick. Hand in hand with Lottwaerick goes
Smiercase, the Dutchman’s version of cottage cheese, but much creamier
than the commercial cottage cheese. Wherever Lottwaerick is served,
there will be Smiercase. They were made to go together, we think. A
thick slice of homemade bread when spread with Lottwaerick and then a
layer of Smiercase is a joy to man, woman or child in the Dutch country.
Lancaster countians enjoy the flavor and color of saffron. This is the
dried stigmata of the crocus-like flowers that bloom from a saffron
bulb. Although it is almost extinct in our own cultivation of herbs, we
now purchase the imported saffron and use it in breads, potato or noodle
dishes, and always with chicken. This is one of the items that is
regional within this region. Natives of Lancaster and Lebanon Counties
delight in the flavor of saffron as well as its butter color, but no
other Dutch cooks seem to appreciate it as we do.
[Illustration: Photo by Charles Rice]
Throughout all of the Pennsylvania Dutch territory, there is much
deep-fat frying. On Shrove Tuesday everyone eats doughnuts called
Fasnachts, around which hang many folklore tales. But, apart from this
day, there is much frying of doughs and batters. In Lancaster County
there is a dough that is rolled to one-eighth inch thickness and cut
into strips which are fried in deep fat. They are called Plow-lines,
Streivlin, or Snavely Sticks. A generation ago these were made for the
mid morning “nine o’clock piece” that was carried to the farmer in the
fields. In recent years, however, this indulgence is almost a thing of
the past, and so are the Streivlins. What a shame!
The visitor will notice that our food is abundant and our appetites are
hearty. Traditional cooking that is really an art has been passed from
mother to daughter by word of mouth for generations. Each cook uses “a
pinch of this and a handful of that”; “sugar, to sweeten,” “butter, the
size of a walnut,” and “flour, to stiffen.” Only recently have many of
these recipes been written and standardized. More must be done, but
there has been some progress made for the preservation of this
“wonderful good” cookery.