Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking

Paper Summary:

This paper covers some of the influences on the foods and cooking of the Pennsylvania Dutch and discusses some of the region's most popular dishes and specialties. It explains that the Pennsylvania Dutch inhabit rural areas of southeastern Pennsylvania. Their cooking is a unique blend of their lifestyle, history, culture, and local influences. It shows how the Pennsylvania Dutch are not Dutch at all; they are really German immigrants who brought many food traditions with them when they immigrated to America.

From the Paper:

"While there are Amish and Mennonite settlements in several U.S. states, the heaviest concentration is located in southeastern Pennsylvania, hence the term Pennsylvania Dutch, which includes all people of the area. This area of Pennsylvania is covered with gently rolling hills and rich earth, and it is the perfect place for farmers, which the Pennsylvania Dutch are. Cookbook author Betty Groff wrote of the farms of the area, "Their vegetable and flower gardens are so lush and immaculate that they could be mistaken for a horticultural college's test plots" (Groff 2). This lush farmland led to the development of a rich agricultural heritage, and many of the items grown end up on the family table for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Another expert on the Dutch writes, "In 1799 Thomas Hill described the Pennsylvania Dutch farmers as 'the most early rising, hard working people I ever saw.' Many of them, especially the 'plain people,' are still that. They have never been afraid of hard work or of getting their hands dirty" (Klees 192)."

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