"Pennsylvania Dutch," and other essays

by Phebe Earle Gibbons

There are, of course, many garments to make in a large family, but there is not much work put upon them. We do not yet patronize the sewing-machine very extensively, but a seamstress or tailoress is sometimes called in. At the spring cleaning the labors of the women folk are increased by whitewashing the picket-fences.

In March we make soap, before the labors of the garden are great. The forests are being obliterated from this fertile tract, and many use what some call consecrated lye; formerly, the ash-hopper was filled, and a good lot of egg-bearing lye run off to begin the soap with, while the weaker filled the soft-soap kettle, after the soap had “come.” The chemical operation of soap-making often proved difficult, and, of course, much was said about luck. “We had bad luck making soap.” A sassafras stick was preferred for stirring, and the soap was stirred always in one direction. In regard to this, and that other chemical operation, making and keeping vinegar, there are certain ideas about the temporary incapacity of some persons,—ideas only to be alluded to here. If the farmer’s wife never “has luck” in making soap, she employs some skilful woman to come in and help her. It is not a long operation, for the “Dutch” rush this work speedily. If the lye is well run off, two tubs of hard soap and a barrel of soft can be made in a day. A smart housekeeper can make a barrel of soap in the morning, and go visiting in the afternoon.

Great are the household labors in harvest; but the cooking and baking in the hot weather are cheerfully done for the men, who are toiling in hot suns and stifling barns. Four meals are common at this season, for “a piece” is sent out at nine o’clock. I heard of one “Dutch” girl’s making some fifty pies a week in harvest; for if you have four meals a day, and pie at each, many are required. We have great faith in pie.

I have been told of an inexperienced Quaker housewife in the neighboring county of York, who was left in charge of the farm, and during harvest these important labors were performed by John Stein, John Stump, and John Stinger. She also had guests, welcome perhaps as “rain in harvest.” To conciliate the Johns was very important, and she waited on them first. “What will thee have, John Stein?” “What shall I give thee, John Stump?” “And thee, John Stinger?” On one memorable occasion there was mutiny in the field, for John Stein declared that he never worked where there were not “kickelin” cakes in harvest, nor would he now. Küchlein proved to be cakes fried in fat; and the housewife was ready to appease “Achilles’ wrath,” as soon as she made this discovery.

We made in one season six barrels of cider into apple-butter, three at a time. Two large copper kettles were hung under the beech-trees, down between the spring-house and smoke-house, and the cider was boiled down the evening before, great stumps of trees being in demand. One hand watched the cider, and the rest of the family gathered in the kitchen and labored diligently in preparing the cut apples, so that in the morning the “schnits” might be ready to go in. (Schneiden, to cut, geschnitten.)

One bushel and a half of cut apples are said to be enough for a barrel of cider. In a few hours the apples will all be in, and then you will stir, and stir, and stir, for you do not want to have the apple-butter burn at the bottom, and be obliged to dip it out into tubs and scour the kettle. Some time in the afternoon, you will take out a little on a dish, and when you find that the cider no longer “weeps out” round the edges, but all forms a simple heap, you will dip it up into earthen vessels, and when cold take it “on” to the garret to keep company with the hard soap and the bags of dried apples and cherries, perhaps with the hams and shoulders. Soap and apple-butter are usually made in an open fireplace, where hangs the kettle. At one time (about the year 1828) I have heard that there was apple-butter in the Lancaster Museum which dated from Revolutionary times; for we do not expect it to ferment in the summer. It dries away; but water is stirred in to prepare it for the table. Sometimes peach-butter is made, with cider, molasses, or sugar, and, in the present scarcity of apples, cut pumpkin is often put into the apple-butter.

Soon after apple-butter-making comes butchering, for we like an early pig in the fall, when the store of smoked meat has run out. Pork is the staple, and we smoke the flitches, not preserving them in brine like the Yankees. We ourselves use much beef, and do not like smoked flitch, but I speak for the majority. Sausage is a great dish with us, as in Germany.

Butchering is one of the many occasions for the display of friendly feeling, when brother or father steps in to help hang the hogs, or a sister to assist in rendering lard, or in preparing a plentiful meal. An active farmer will have two or three porkers killed, scalded, and hung up by sunrise, and by night the whole operation of sausage and “pudding” making, and lard rendering, will be finished, and the house set in order. The friends who have assisted receive a portion of the sausage, etc., which portion is called the “metzel-sup” (or soop). The metzel-sup is very often sent to poor widows and others.

We make scrapple from the skin, a part of the livers, and heads, with the addition of corn-meal; but, instead, our “Dutch” neighbors make liverwurst (“woorsht”), or meat pudding, omitting the meal, and this compound, stuffed into the larger entrails, is very popular in Lancaster market. Some make pawn-haus from the liquor in which the pudding-meat was boiled, adding thereto corn-meal. The name is properly pann-haas, and signifies, perhaps, panned-rabbit. It is sometimes made of richer material.