Painting: Grandma’s Kitchen
Jeff Marks, Collection of the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center
A Culinary Journey
Helping historic recipes travel to today’s tables
Pennsylvania German food is well-loved by those who grew up in its culture—and many others who have been fortunate to taste it. From chicken pot pie to scrapple to apple dumplings, many love to eat it—or, in the case of scapple, love to hate it. It creates conversation and good times wherever it is served or discussed.
As part of the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center’s mission to preserve the history of Pennsylvania German settlement in the Upper Perkiomen Valley, we often have programs and exhibits that revolve around food. In 2023/2024, the Heritage Center staged an exhibition A Culinary Journey from Germany to Pennsylvania that shared a history of Pennsylvania German food coupled with explanations of food in Germany provided by the German American Heritage Center of Iowa. As part of that exhibit, we investigated historic recipes in our archives that had come to us from Nancy Roan and others. Nancy Roan also worked closely with Alan Keyser. The Heritage Center is proud to announce that we will be publishing his seminal work How We Ate later in 2024. Check back for information on when and how to get your copy.
Recipes for you to try
Here you can find links to some of these recipes, which previously were posted on Facebook. We also used the recipes to create with Doug Madenford a “Pennsylvania German 12 Days of Christmas.” (below) Note that the recipes of the past often did not provide measurements and oven cooking times such as we are accustomed to today. A few of us trialed some of them--and many of us of taste-tested them—which you can tell from the instructions. Whichever recipes you try, enjoy!
More on Nancy Roan (1932–2023)
Nancy Roan’s research into Pennsylvania German foodways began in the late 1950s when she was working as a cook at the Frederick Mennonite Community. She interviewed residents whose memories reached back to the late 1800s and recorded their stories about food and traditions in handwritten notebooks. Her interest grew over the years as she continued to investigate open hearth and bake oven cooking, recording the results. She searched out and hand-copied old manuscripts and recipes, generously sharing her knowledge in many publications and presentations. Before her passing in 2023, she donated her archives of notebooks, recipes, and files to the Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center where volunteer Alice Wolfgang inventoried and transcribed them. We are working towards making that inventory and other items from her collection available online in the near future.
Celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas with Pennsylvania German traditional foods
Enjoy this old tune with new lyrics thanks to the talented Douglas Madenford. Each day features an old-time favorite food from the Nancy Roan Archive based upon how many recipes exist in the archive for that food. For example, there are ten versions of Apeas Cake—and so the idea of a “12 Days of Christmas” was born! Much thanks to Alice Wolfgang for her inspiration and time as she transcribed the recipes, and thanks to Doug Madenford for setting it to music for us. Click below for the recipes that accompany the song in the video.
