Pennsylvania Dutch and German Cooking w/photos & links

November 2012 Did a blog post entitled : 

The Harmonists I - 18th & 19th century German cooking. The link is below (about German and Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking in the USA).

http://internationalfoodblog.blogspot.com/search?q=economy#.UO7e5W9QWSo

Did another blogpost in 2012 about Octoberfest:  
German Oktoberfest caught me off guard!!

Link:  http://internationalfoodblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/german-oktoberfest-caught-me-off-guard.html#.UO7gvW9QWSo

Also did a 3rd blogpost in 2012 entitled: (Alsace in France is French and German)

French food 1975 Part A - Alsace with photos

Link:  http://internationalfoodblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/french-food-1975-part-alsace-with-photos.html

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I am of German descent, lived in Germany for a year, held an ORIGINAL German dinner for 9 guests on November 25, 2011 with a menu of (these are my notes from 11/25/2012)

• For appetizers we had pickled asparagus, butterkase (German butter cheese), cream cheese mix and 12 grain pumpernickel and rye breads.
• Beverages were German wine (like a liebfraumilch), a German red (like a merlot) and German beers (light and dark). 
• For dessert we had German desserts:  (purchased items)

1. Kitchen Meister Liqueur Cake
2. Kitchen Meister Edel-Marzipan Stollen (Stollen with pudding in the middle)
3. Pfeffernuse (German cookies with powdered sugar)

Our German dinner on 12/25/2011  for 9 people. I am German & have lived in Germany.  Would like to share a few tips from my sauerbraten recipe which comes from a German family I knew well from a family sauerbraten recipe. 

1.  For the marinade I use red wine vinegar, sliced onions, peppercorns, juniper berries, bay leaves, cloves.  

2.  The marinade is cooked over medium heat until unions are semi-soft. 

3.  I brown the meat in a regular frying pan & place in a glass container, add the marinade & place in the fridge for 7-10 days.  (Alton Brown does 3 days and that is not enough.) 

Turn meat at least once a day.  DO NOT STICK A FORK IN IT or the vinegar will get into the meat.  Either use your hands or wooden spoons.  No metal, please. 

4.  Cook roast & marinade in an electric fry pan (stainless) & cook at 265-275 degrees for 3 hours min.  

5.  Remove meat to serving dish & keep warm. 

6.  Strain marinade, add the crushed gingersnaps & cook till thickened.  Serve with meat, sweet-sour red cabbage & little red potatoes.

  

  

  

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The Pennsylvania Germans were:

• Moravians from Bohemia and Moravia
• Mennonites from Switzerland and Holland
• Amish (offshoot of the Mennonites)
• German Brethren called "dunkards"
• Schwenkfelders from Silesia
• French Huguenots from Alsace-Lorraine

They were the Pennsylvania Deutsch but for over 250 years have been called Pennsylvania Dutch.

They merged their homeland cooking with ingredients available in this new country.

PIES

Potpie:     rich doodle dough cooked in chicken or meat broth

 

Shoo-fly pie:  which is a crumb pie (molasses attracts flies and you have to shoo them away).  When I moved to NC I thought it was a Southern pie but it really is a pie from the Mennonites that emigrated from PA to NC.  Just learned another food fact this month!!

Funeral pie:  a combination of raisins and lemon

 

CABBAGE

• PEPPER RELISH
• COLE SLAW
• HOT SLAW
• SAUERKRAUT

  

Ponnhaws or scrapple, schnitz and knepp (ham, dried apples and dumplings)

 

Other

• vegetables sweet and sour
• smoked sausage
• dandelion salad
• chicken corn soup
• red beet eggs
• chow chow 
• (we make every year but not the sweet PA kind but the southern non-sweet kind; again I thought this was a NC recipe but it isn't; came from  
• WIKI QUOTE:  Chow-chow found its way to the Southern United States during the expulsion of the Acadian (French-German) people from Nova Scotia and their settlement in Louisiana. It is eaten by itself or as a condiment on fish cakes, mashed potatoes, biscuits and gravy, pinto beans, hot dogs, hamburgers and other foods.
• WIKI QUOTE: Chow-chow is regionally associated with the Southern United States, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, the Appalachian Mountains, and soul food. The recipes vary greatly; some varieties are sweeter than others. Pennsylvania chow-chow, known by the Wos-Wit brand, is generally much sweeter than the southern varieties.)
• pretzels

  

 

Link to PAGENERALSTORE

http://www.pageneralstore.com/category/PennsylvaniaDutchFoods

From Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking cookbook circa 1960 Meat and Main Dishes section:

"A woman can throw out as much with a spoon as a man can bring in with a shovel."

TO SEE THE ATTACHED SCANNED JPEG OF RECIPES CLICK ON IMAGE TO MAKE LARGER:

Glückliches Essen

Blue Ridge Parkway Annual Apple and Cabbage Trip

All photos on this post were taken by this blogger on 

October 19 2012!! (Click on them to make larger)

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” 

― Marcel Proust

“I don’t have a photograph, but you can have my footprints. They’re upstairs in my socks.” 

― Groucho Marx

“It shocks me how I wish for...what is lost and cannot come back.” 

― Sue Monk Kidd, Traveling With Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story

“The past is for learning from and letting go. You can't revisit it. It vanishes.” 

― Adele Parks, Young Wives' Tales

Scenic photos below (and below those food photos):

     

   

 

 

  

• Every year since sometime in the early 1990's we drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway for the scenery:  Lover's Leap etc. 
• Every year we stop at stands and buy cabbage, apples, jams, honey, tomatoes, pumpkins, etc. 
• Every year we are in awe of the leaf colors changing and the views.
• Every year we see another vendor close. Two of our favorite cabbage vendors are gone. One of the favorite apple, jam and more vendors closed down last year!!
• We will continue to go to Mountain Man in Cana, Virginia as long as we continue to make those trips.