Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbooks List for Homestyle Cooking

The Art of Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking: A Delectable Collection of Recipes Featuring the Wonderful Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking and Its Fascinating History (1968) by Edna Eby Heller

No images here but there are excellent illustrations. The dust jacket alone is wonderful. Wait until you see inside.

Chapters inside “The Art of Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking” include:

• Preface
• Introduction
• Breadstuffs
• Soups
• Meat and Cheese
• Potatoes
• Vegetables
• Sweets and Sours
• Salads and Salad Dressing
• Fritters, Fillings, Potpie, Et Cetera
• Desserts
• Pies
• Cakes, Plain and Fancy
• Cookies
• Candy
• Beverages
• Pennsylvania Dutch Menus
• Where to Get It
• Sources of References

Will you make Old Shoes (Potato Dumplings) or Potato Pie? Beef Noodle Soup or Chicken Noodle Soup?

Yes, you can finally learn how to pickle your hard boiled eggs wi

Betty Groff’s Country Goodness Cookbook (1981) by Betty Groff

You’ll love the illustrations in this classic 321-page Betty Groff cookbook. Betty opens this cookbook with a poem titled “The Mennonite Heritage.” Remember that not all PA Dutch are Amish.

The Mennonite Heritage

These are the gentle people,
And theirs is a gentle land
Of loving, and of sharing,
Where God is close at hand.

Where daily tasks are learned
At a patient mother’s side;
While father’s hand guides the plow
Through rich earth, with quiet pride.

Family ties are strong and lasting;
Children laugh and play, secure.
Age and youth go hand in hand —
Their gentle way will endure.

Charlotte Meredith, Betty Groff’s Country Goodness Cookbook (1981) by Betty Groff.

You’ll love the illustrations in this classic 321-page Betty Groff cookbook. Betty opens this cookbook with a poem titled “The Mennonite Heritage.” Remember that not all PA Dutch are Amish.

Chapters include:

• Introduction
• Appetizers
• Soups and “Goodies”
• Meats
• Poultry and Stuffing
• Fish and Shellfish
• Eggs, Cheese, Rice, and Noodles
• Vegetables
• Salads and Salad Dressings
• Sauces and Butters
• Breads
• Pickles and Relishes
• Desserts
• Menus for All Seasons and Occasions
• Index
• A Tribute to John Herr Groff

Caramel Pie tops my list of things to bake. But then again, Charles-Louis’ Blueberry Cheese Pie, Coconut Molasses Custard Pie, and Ruth Clark’s Amish Vanilla Pie may compete for “make first” status.

Expect illustrations, no images. Family stories abound above many recipes and share interesting details and background about some of the recipes (I love that).

It’s another “must-have” Betty Groff cookbook. Spoiler alert: all of her cookbooks are “must-haves.”

Betty Groff’s Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook (1990) by Betty Groff

I enjoy Betty Groff cookbooks so incredibly much. This time, Betty collected more than 300 recipes from Mennonite, Amish, Moravian, Brethren, and Quaker friends and relatives. Oh — the recipes.

This is a book for cookbook readers and cooks. Betty includes lengthy introductory text with her recipes (and some are long paragraph descriptions). It’s a fun 228-page read (including the index).

Chapters inside “Betty Groff’s Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook” include:

• The Seasons of the Pennsylvania Dutch
• Appetizers and Beverages
• Soups and Salads
• Cheeses, Doughs, and Batters
• Vegetables and Side Dishes
• Poultry and Wild Game
• Meats
• Seafood
• Sauces, Dressings, and Stuffings
• Breads, Biscuits, Buns, and Muffins
• Cobblers, Pies, Cakes, and Icings
• Puddings, Cookies, Candies, and Other Pennsylvania Dutch Treats
• Preserves, Relishes, Pickles, and Vinegars

Make Mulled Cider, Glazed Onions, Carrot Souffle, Cornbread Bacon Stuffing, Salmon Croquettes, Trout Cameron Estate Style, Lemon Meringue Pie, or Apple Pie.

As Betty writes, “We enjoy deep-dish apple pie with milk as a summer meal, but who could refuse a piece of apple pie with coffee in the morning? It sure beats eating filled doughnuts for breakfast.”

It makes sense since those Pennsylvania Dutch also relish a slice of Shoofly Pie for breakfast.

Betty Groff’s Up-Home Down-Home Cookbook (1987) by Betty Groff

It’s another winner of a Betty Groff cookbook. This 204-page, 8 x 0.5 x 9.5-inch book will have you humming and stirring and almost dancing in the kitchen.

Chapters include:

• Appetizers and Breads
• Cheese, Eggs, and Noodles
• Soups and Simmers
• Fish and Seafood
• Poultry and Stuffings
• Meats 101
• Vegetables and Salads
• Desserts

The Kitchen, I call it the International Gathering Place. I don’t think you really know someone until you’ve eaten around their table.

Fresh, colorful vegetables, plump poultry, grain-fed beef and smoked meats were foods I took for granted while growing up.

Sure, we used lots more sugar, salt, and butter than we use today, but those wonderful down-home flavors can still be enjoyed by using herbs and peppers to give us the old-fashioned goodness with less calories.

I’ve researched recipes from our ten generations here in Lancaster County.

In the tradition of the Herr women from the days when Hans Herr crossed the Atlantic to settle in “Penn’s Woods” in the early 1700s, Up-Home, Down-Home represents the cultural development of recipes from the most intimate, formal setting to the easy-going, spur-of-the-moment family dinner.

We all have the same ingredients, but it is up to us to interpret their use and presentation.

I enjoy sharing my family and friends favorites, and through these pages, you will understand more deeply my love for this abundant land called “America.”

Quick, easy-to-prepare dishes include many favorites from our Chefs at the Groff’s Farm Restaurant and Cameron Estate Inn.

Try these in your home, then visit us anytime in Mount Joy.

Book Flap, Betty Groff’s Up-Home Down-Home Cookbook (1987).

It’s another fine title to add to your Pennsylvania Dutch cookbook collection. Whether you cook from your cookbooks or read them, Betty Groff makes it simple (and pleasurable) to do both.

Classic Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking (2010) by Betty Groff

Read the intro for a brief backstory on Betty’s family (who settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1710), and Pennsylvania Dutch traditions.

Comb through 277 pages of Pennsylvania Dutch cookery. Illustrations abound. Some recipes include variations. Most offer a brief write-up regarding the recipe.

Chapters include:

• Introduction: The Seasons of the Pennsylvania Dutch
• Appetizers and Beverages
• Soups and Salads
• Cheeses, Doughs, and Batters
• Vegetables and Side Dishes
• Poultry and Wild Game
• Meats
• Seafood
• Sauces, Dressings, and Stuffings
• Breads, Biscuits, Buns, and Muffins
• Cobblers, Pies, Cakes, and Icings
• Puddings, Cookies, Candies, and Other Pennsylvania Dutch Treats
• Preserves, Relishes, Pickles, and Vinegars

I like the layout of the index. Category subjects are in bold, with the recipes below each category indented and italicized. It’s a clean approach.

Make the Vanilla Cream Pudding, Betty Groff’s Chicken Stoltfus (it appears in all of her books because it’s her signature dish), Beef Pie with Potato Crust, or Egg Noodles.

Check out Potato Filling for a stick-to-your-ribs Pennsylvania Dutch side dish.

Dig into the desserts, such as Blueberry Cake, Candied Apples, Maple Fudge, and Peppernuts or Soft Sugar Cakes. The PA Dutch love their sweets, and so will you.

Commemorative Walp’s Family Restaurant: Over 225 Favorites: A Lehigh Valley Pennsylvania Dutch Tradition (1998) Walp’s Family Restaurant

Spiral cookbooks drive me up the wall. It’s so hard to find them in my cookbook collection. But they also hold such great recipes (and typically are of the community cookbook variety).

Walp’s Family Restaurant served Allentown, Pennsylvania, from 1936-1998, but its memory lives on in this cookbook. Personal and private recipes from Frank, Sr., Judy, David, and Wendy Nikischer abound.

Chapters inside “Walp’s Family Restaurant Cookbook” include:

• Soups
• Salads and Salad Dressings
• Meats
  • Beef and Veal
  • Pork and Ham
• Poultry
• Seafood
• Pastas and Miscellaneous Main Dishes
• Vegetables and Potatoes
• Cookies
• Pies and Pastries
• Breads
• Puddings
• Cakes and Frostings
• Sauces and Gravies

The front of the book offers a taste of what’s inside, including: Apple Butter, Rhubarb Custard Pie, Kiffles, Corn Fritters, Tzitterle, Baked Corn Pie, Raisin Pie, Hot Bacon Dressing, Walp’s Dinner Rolls, Scrapple, Boovashenkle, and Apple Strudel.

Lyonnaise Potatoes, Dandelion Wine, PA Dutch Pretzels, and more recipes for sauerkraut. Can you ever have enough recipes for sauerkraut?

Dutch Treats: Heirloom Recipes from Farmhouse Kitchens (2016) by William Woys Weaver

The author believes there are more than 1600 unique Pennsylvania Dutch dishes not found in other cookbooks or restaurants and has chosen roughly 100 recipes to represent the best of what the PA Dutch have to offer.

These recipes were obtained through backstories and folk tales and interviews with PA Dutch folks. You’ll find a mix of food and commentary in this 208-page, 8.25 x 1 x 8.25-inch book.

Chapters include:

• Introduction
• Festive Breads (Feschtbrode)
• Cakes (Kuche)
• Cookies and Small Pastries (Kichelche un Gleenegebeck)
• Datsch Cakes (Datschkuche)
• Pies and Tarts (Die Boie un Kuche)
• Schluppers and Puddings (Die Schlupper un Die Budding)

Bake up a storm. Try Chocolate Gribble Pudding or Sour Cherry Schlupper. Make Buttermilk Crumb Pie or Jolly Molly’s Saffron Pie. Whip up Oserburg Easter Cake or Honey Loaf with Walnuts.

Crack open this book, get in the kitchen, and see if you agree.

Good Earth & Country Cooking (1974) by Betty Groff with José Wilson

Betty opens with a nice acknowledgment page:

To my parents, who believed in me,
my husband, Abe, who backed me up all the way,
and my children, Charlie and Johnny,
who cheerfully tolerated a part-time mother.

Without their unfailing encouragement, support,
and help, Groff’s Farm restaurant, and this book
would never have been.

Betty Groff, Good Earth and Country Cooking (1974), Page 7.

I’m a fan of this 253-page cookbook. It’s where I found a recipe I can’t stop thinking about. Betty Groff’s Shoofly Pie recipe is fantastic (when you pair it with the pie crust recipe I’ve also included at the link).

Chapters inside “Good Earth & Country Cooking” include:

• Acknowledgments
• Photo Credits
• I Cook Because I Love People
• For Every Food There is a Season
  • Menus for Two Spring Luncheons
  • Menus for Four Spring Dinners
  • Menu for a Spring Wedding Dinner
  • Menus for Four Summer Luncheons
  • Menus for Three Summer Dinners
  • Menus for Two Fall Luncheons or Suppers
  • Menus for Three Fall Dinners
  • Menu for a Fall Company Dinner
  • Menu for a Fall Wedding Dinner
  • Menu for Thanksgiving Dinner
  • Menus for Two Winter Suppers
  • Menu for a Winter Luncheon
  • Menus for Five Winter Dinners
• Food Makes Friends
  • Dinner Menus at Groff’s Farm
  • Breads
• Memory Foods
  • Lemonade and Sugar Cookies
  • Raspberry Shrub
  • Egg Cheese
  • Salsify Casserole
  • Potato Chips
  • Puffed Potatoes
  • Candy
• Keeping Foods
  • Freezing
  • Canning, Pickling, and Preserving
• Wine Makes the Heart Merry
  • What You Need to Make Wine at Home
  • Methods of Making Wine
  • Equipment Suppliers for Home Winemakers

Here’s an example of the menus. For “Dinner at Groff’s Farm,” you could have expected to have been served the following items:

• Cracker Pudding
• Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake with Caramel Icing
• Fresh Fruit Cup or Ham and Bean Soup
• Roast Prime Ribs of Beef
• Baked Country Ham
• Chicken Stoltzfus
• Mashed Potatoes with Browned Butter
• Bread Filling
• Happy Beets
• Green Beans in Ham Broth
• Pepper Relish
• Chow Chow
• Spiced Cantaloupe
• Spiced Watermelon Rind
• Shoofly Pie or Blueberry Crumb Pie or Cherry Crumb Pie
• Choice of Ice Cream, Sherbets, or Chocolate Sundae

Betty was browning butter before it was trendy. The book lists recipes for many items. The page number is in parenthesis after each menu item if it doesn’t appear in the same chapter.

I love the mix of illustrations and images. Pages 16-17 are a neat arrangement of recipes. My dust jacket is a little battered, but I like to think it’s a sign of a great cookbook — one I appreciate for the great reading and classic recipes. 

To Great Grandmother’s House We Go: American Comfort Food From the 1970s, 60s, and Before (2020) by Tom Kelchner

This is a self-published, 266-page, 8.5 x 1.13 x 11-inch cookbook. I don’t typically include self-published works on Little Indiana Bakes, however, I like the story behind this one. I decided to give it a place on the list.

From the book:

Joan Knechel, pictured on the cover at age 18, collected, cooked, and documented over 1400 recipes in her cooking lifetimes — roughly between the 1950s and her passing in 2014.

She wanted to write a cookbook, but never got beyond the collecting and cooking stages.

Her collection of recipes, in 14 notebooks, numerous community and premium cookbooks, and three file card boxes — one inherited from her mother — is a remarkably detailed record of the cooking of four generations of a working Pennsylvania Dutch family in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania in the 20th century.

The recipes came from her grandmother, mother, aunts, her daughter Linda, other relatives, and friends.

They also came from newspapers, magazines, packaging, community cookbooks, and a few from television.

Preface, To Great Grandmother’s House We Go (2020).

The structure of this PA Dutch food-themed cookbook offers an image of the dish, the handwritten recipe, and intro text for each recipe. There are many pages due to the recipe arrangement.

Tom R. Kelchner and his wife are descended from Pennsylvania Dutch families (mostly from northern Pennsylvania and Lehigh Valley).

Chapters include:

• Rescuing Family Recipes
• Appendix One: The Notebooks and File Boxes
• Appendix Two: Charity and Premium Cookbooks
• Appendix Three: Other Historic Family Recipes

Choose among Ham Loaf (a great way to use leftover ham), Filled Cabbage Rolls, Salisbury Steak, German Potato Filling, and White Sausage Gravy (or Brown Sausage Gravy).

The New Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook: From Weiner Schnitzel to Apple Dumplings, 200 Years of Fabulous Secrets from the Kitchens of America’s Finest Cooks. Simple, Savory, Satisfying Cooking from the Region where Food Reigns Supreme! (1958) by Ruth Hutchinson

This is another standout book featuring Pennsylvania cooking. The 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.9 inch cookbook begins with a little history and dives into the recipes. Each recipe includes the name of the recipe submitter (I love that).

“Yes, the word had gone out. After the war, there was an inevitable borrowing of recipes — and even cooks! This, I like also to think, was the start of basic American cookery. And the word has been going out ever since.

For of Pennsylvania cookery this is no end. That I know.

Ten years ago, when the first edition of this book was published, I thought, in my ignorance, that I had told all I could of Pennsylvania cookery. I had — then — but there was more to learn and I kept on learning.

You see, once a recipe collector, always a hoarder of bits and scraps of paper with “cups of” this and “teaspoons of” that scrawled all over them.

Before I knew it my file was building again. There were recipes that hadn’t been in the first book and some that seemed even better than those I’d had.

I had a hankering to do it all over again. This new book is the result.

Ruth Hutchinson, The New Pennsylvania Dutch Book (1958), Page 8.

For a mix of unique and down-home Pennsylvania Dutch recipes (and a superb cookie chapter), check this one out.

Chapters inside “The New Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook” include:

• Preface
• Introduction
• Soups
• Bread and Breadstuffs
• Meats
• Poultry
• Eggs
• Cheese
• Fish and Seafood
• Of Hexel and Mummix
• Vegetables
• Sweets and Sours
• Pies and Pastries
• Cake
• Cookies
• Other Desserts
• Candies

The soup chapter ladles out the Pennsylvania Dutch food you expect: tomato soup, chicken corn soup, oyster stew, and Brown Flour Potato Soup. But, given the age of the cookbook, there are other dishes you may not expect, such as Noodle and Prune Mummix (page 124).

It involves cooked prunes, a little salt and lemon juice, mixed with noodles. Then, it’s covered with buttered bread crumbs, topped with brown sugar, and baked.

Will you make Holland House Baked Beans or Corn Pie? Pearl Cake or Mrs. Keck’s Glory Cake? The list of recipes here is a wonderful thing. You won’t regret this buy.

Pennsylvania Dutch Cook Book (1971) by J. George Frederick

This PA Dutch cookbook is 5.39 x 0.43 x 7.96 inch and 208 pages. Although online sources may state that this book has 208 pages, it’s 186 pages. A significant portion of the back of the book devotes itself to a catalog of Dover books.

This is an unabridged republication of Book Two: The Pennsylvania Dutch and Their Cookery (1935). From the back cover:

Mr. George Frederick, one-time president of the Gourmet Society of New York, was in an unmatched position to record the delights of Dutch cookery.

Himself a native Pennsylvania Dutchman, with access to countless kitchens and family cooking secrets, he was also a gourmet of international stature.

He has gathered together 358 recipes that show the Dutch tradition at its strongest, all dishes with the unique savor that distinguishes them from their occasional counterparts in other cooking systems.

His book is so good that it, in turn, has been taken over by many Pennsylvania resorts as the official cookbook.

To list only a few of the mouthwatering recipes that Mr. Frederick gives in clear, accurate recipes that you can prepare: Dutch spiced cucumbers, raspberry sago soup, pretzel soup, squab with dumplings Nazareth, shrimp wiggle, Dutch beer eel, sherry sauerkraut, cheese custard, currant cakes, and many fine dumplings, pancakes, and soups.

All types of food are covered.

Back Cover, Pennsylvania Dutch Cook Book (1971) by J. George Frederick.

Chapters include:

• Regional Cookery and the Pennsylvania Dutch
• Pennsylvania Dutch Soups
• Various Dutch Oddities
• Dutch Meat Dishes
• Dutch Ways with Eggs and Custards
• Dutch Vegetable Dishes
• Ways with Philadelphia Scrapple
• The Dutch and Sea Food
• Dutch Salads
• Pennsylvania Dutch Pies
• Dutch Dumplings, Fritters, Pacakes, Etc.
• The Dutch “Seven Sweets and Seven Sours”
• Dutch Puddings and Desserts
• Dutch Cakes, Cookies, Etc.
• Around the Food Season with My Grandmother at the Farm

As you can see, it is the same as the 1935 version, but without the whole first section. Please refer to the original above for more info.

If you only care about recipes, then go with this version. It will suit your needs best.

The Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook (1970) by Gerald Lestz

Gerald Lantz received recipes from many sources (some anonymously), which means cookbook reading in this case. The recipe authors occasionally included a family origin story.

Although this book appears to be divided into three parts, the recipes begin on page 27 and continue to the end of the book. If your eyes appreciate a larger, clearer font, this cookbook is a great choice. Most pages include up to one or two recipes.

Chapters include:

• An Informal History of the Pennsylvania Dutch
• The Amish Today
• Recipes

We’ve already covered that Pennsylvania Dutch and Amish aren’t the same thing (but we’ll forgive Gerald). My cookbook has an “x” by the recipes for Baked Chicken Pie, Old-Fashioned Baked Beans, and Potato Slices. I sure wish I knew what that meant.

As you know, I write in my cookbooks. But at least I’m clear about the purpose and how a recipe turned out.

Thumb through Knee Patches, a long-ago popular wedding treat, Mama’s Fudge Cake, Hard Ginger Cookies (a 200-year-old recipe at the time of this cookbook’s publication), Grandma’s Chocolate Crackers, and Black Joe Cake.

Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking: A Mennonite Community Cookbook (2000) by Mary Emma Showalter

Note: Originally published as: Mennonite community cookbook. Philadelphia: Winston, 1950.

More than 1,100 Mennonite family recipes made their way into this 494-page, 6.44 x 1.49 x 9.54-inch book — out of over 5,000 submitted recipes from all over the United States and Canada. How? Thanks to the 125 women in Mennonite communities who asked for and collected recipes from Pennsylvania Dutch friends and neighbors.

Among the cookbooks on the pantry shelf at home, there has always been the little hand-written notebook of recipes.

As a child, I learned that this blue notebook, which contained a collection of my mother’s favorite recipes, was her favorite cookbook.

Not only were all the pages of this notebook filled with recipes, but inserted between the pages were loose sheets of paper on which were written other favorites.

These were copied by friends and relatives whom Mother had visited at some time and whose specialty she had admired.

The recipes were usually named for the donor, and thus, the book contained many queer names, such as “Grandmother’s Ginger Cakes,” and “Aunt Emma’s Fat Cakes.”

As a child, I occasionally visited my grandmother and aunt in an adjoining county. They always had such delicious things to eat, and I noticed that they too frequently referred to quaint little hand-written notebooks similar to my mother’s.

Mary Emma Showalter, Introduction, Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking: A Mennonite Community Cookbook (2000) by Mary Emma Showalter.

I do that, too. But I also use my cookbooks. It’s why I write in my cookbooks. One day, my kids or whatever stranger finds my book in their hands will see what I liked or didn’t like and why.

Chapters include:

• Introduction
• General Information
• Definitions of Common Cooking Terms
• Breads
• Soups
• Meat and Meat Dishes
• Poultry and Fish
• Cheese, Egg, and Casserole Dishes
• Vegetables and Vegetable Side Dishes
• Salads and Salad Dressings
• Cakes and Frostings
• Cookies
• Desserts
• Pastry, Pies, and Tarts
• Beverages
• Pickles and Relishes
• Jellies, Jams, Preserves
• Candies and Confections
• Miscellaneous

Chapters open with a couple of paragraphs and an illustration. Then, it dives right into the recipes. Each recipe includes the name and location of the recipe submitter.

I found a recipe for Gingerbread Waffles from Spring City, Pennsylvania, a town right near my own.

Chocolate Graham Fudge, Coconut Cream Pie, Apple Oatmeal Bars (those sound amazing), Scottish Tea Cookies, Ragged Robins, Pineapple Sponge Cake, Tiptop Cake … I could keep going

The Pennsylvania Dutch and Their Cookery (1935) by J. George Frederick

I can’t rave enough about the work of Pennsylvania Dutch author J. George Frederick — and his New York gourmet status. Read stories of the PA Dutch and comb through recipes in this 276-page book.

“But since he is a famous New York gourmet, Mr. Frederick has been at much pains to make this book perhaps primarily an assembly of Pennsylvania Dutch cookery recipes.

Dutch cookery delighted Washington, Lincoln, and others for hundreds of years.

This part of the book alone is a notable service and of great practical usefulness.”

Front flap, The Pennsylvania Dutch and their Cookery (1935).

You’ll adore the Pennsylvania Dutch illustrations, The chapter head decorations and the book cover came from Dutch pie plate designs, drawn from actual antique pie plates (antique at the time of the book’s publishing — in 1935).

The New York Times review began:

Mr. Frederick devotes two-thirds of his space in this book to description of Pennsylvania Dutch cookery and a really remarkable collection of its distinctive recipes, while into the remaining third he has crowded the story of the European origin of this colonial factor, an account of the settling of the Pennsylvania Dutch in this country, their share in the Revolution, their accomplishments and traits of character and their art.

The New York Times, Sept. 22, 1935.

Chapters in “The Pennsylvania Dutch and Their Cookery” cookbook include:

• Book 1 Background and Character
  • The Old-World Background of the Pennsylvania Dutch
  • The Story of the Settling of the Pennsylvania Dutch in America
  • The Vital Revolutionary War Record of the Pennsylvania Dutch
  • The Character and Accomplishments of the Pennsylvania Dutch
  • Pennsylvania Dutch Art
• Book 2 Cookery
  • Regional Cookery and the Pennsylvania Dutch
  • Pennsylvania Dutch Soups
  • Various Dutch Oddities
  • Dutch Meat Dishes
  • Dutch Ways with Eggs and Custards
  • Dutch Vegetable Dishes
  • Ways with Philadelphia Scrapple
  • The Dutch and Sea Food
  • Dutch Salads
  • Pennsylvania Dutch Pies
  • Dutch Dumplings, Fritters, Pancakes, Etc.
  • The Dutch “Seven Sweets and Seven Sours”
  • Dutch Puddings and Desserts
  • Dutch Cakes, Cookies, Etc.
  • Around the Food Season with My Grandmother at the Farm

“For years, I have realized that the Pennsylvania Dutch arts, history, traditions, and cookery were in danger of being swallowed in the broad maw of modern hectic American life — to the national distinct practical loss, as well as to the loss of our sense of fine traditions.”

The Pennsylvania Dutch and Their Cookery (1935) by J. George Frederick, Page 7.

Chapter introductions provide plenty of reading, even if the recipes lack summary text.

Choose among Philadelphia Sherry Sauerkraut, Dutch Chicken Chowder, Dutch Rice Onion Soup (interesting). Get the recipe for Sour Cream Salad Dressing, Singmaster, a “Favorite Dutch recipe of Elsie Singmaster, novelist,” or the Dutch Hot Potato Salad the author considered a triumph.

Sink your teeth into Cream Raspberry Pie, Peach Custard Pie from Pottstown, or Dutch Cabbage Pork Pie. Try Oat Meal Cakes from Drexel, Popcorn Cake Mennonite, Lady Lancaster Cake, or Dutch Black Walnut Christmas Cake.

Pennsylvania Dutch Country Cooking (1993) by Williams Woys Weaver

What a unique book! Chapters begin with introductions regarding the way food was handled and great vintage images. At 203 pages, it’s fantastic.

Chapters inside “Pennsylvania Dutch Country Cooking” include:

• Cooking Pennsylvania Dutch Style
• Soup and Noodle Cookery
• Rustic Breads and Bakeoven Cakes
• Taste the Harvest
• The Pig and His Parts
• The Masks of Midwinter: Foods for Holiday Feasting
• Glossary of Pennsylvania Dutch Food Terms
• Cook’s Guide to Regional Shopping and Local Ingredients

Limburger Dumplings (made with Limburger cheese, cream, eggs, and a few other things), Turnip Casserole, Saffron Noodles with Yellow Tomato Sauce, and Chicken Corn Soup (minus the optional chicken feet) sound great.

Not only are there recipes galore, but you’ll squeal with happiness when you see the paragraphs to read above the recipes. These paragraphs provide more info, plus all the history and general food facts. It’s a must-have for cookbook readers and those who cook the book.

Flip to the back of the book for recipes arranged by category. You know, “Fruit Dishes,” “Cakes and Pies,” and that kind of thing.

Speaking of desserts, try Apple Butter Pie, Nut Sticks, Kutztown Jumbles, or Plum Fritters. Mmm mmm good!

Pennsylvania Dutch People’s Cookbook: More than 250 Fine Old Recipes: With Illustrated Material Related to the Pennsylvania Dutch and Their Historical Background, Culture, Arts, Crafts, Folklore, and Folkways (1978) Edited by Claire S. Davidow — Ann Goodman

Different versions published in 1968, 1974, and this one in 1978 have different editors and different page counts. What an amazing mix of illustrations, photography, and text.

If you delight in reading cookbooks, this 96-page Pennsylvania Dutch cookbook will keep you busy with interesting features and short paragraphs above some recipes to provide a little insight or share a helpful hint or related Pennsylvania Dutch adage.

Mondel Schnits (Almond Slices), Aunt Hannah’s Wine Cake, Ginger Cupcakes, Fried Pies, and Berks County Potato Custard Pie appear in the Pies chapter. Look at all the good things you can dig into — and that’s such a small sampling.

Chapters include:

• Appetizers
• Soups
• Breads
• Salads
• Meats and Other Main Dishes
• Poultry
• Vegetables
• Sauces
• Cakes
• Cookies
• Pies
• Puddings
• Candies
• Dunks
• Beverages
• Sweets and Sours

Special Features:

• The Pennsylvania Dutch Can Cook
• Hex Signs
• Meals Served Country Style
• “Dinner” Time and Study Time
• Who are the Pennsylvania Dutch?
• Painted Chests
• Stove Plates
• I Speak English Yet
• Interesting Antiques
• Furniture in the Time of the Lily
• Farm Sales
• Plain People Offer
• Decorated Glasses

Did the chapter entitled “Dunks” throw you off? I thought so. Here’s what the chapter introduction shares:

“The Pennsylvania Dutch “dunke,” to dip, is traceable to the German word funken.

It is one of the few dialect words to be accepted by English dictionaries.

Here are a few of the coffee cakes, doughnuts, and dry shoo-fly pies (more cake than pie) that lend themselves to the pleasant custom of dunking.

Dunks, Pennsylvania Dutch People’s Cookbook, Page 64.

Spicy Shoo-Fly Pie (Molasses Crumb Cake), Butter Semmels (Moravian Love-Feast Buns), Dutch Apies Cakes, and Dutch Schnecken (“for when the schnecken beckons” — if you’ve ever watched “The Birdcage.”) form a chunk of this small chapter.