PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH TREAT

The Annual Publication of the Pennsylvania German Society

 

Stand in front of the books on the shelf. The spine label reads 974.8 P413Gp. The volumes number 1 through 47. Choose one and riffle through the pages. Now stop. What do you see?

 

•A photograph of a stone, slate-roofed summer kitchen near Germansville, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania

•A sample of penmanship from the year 1802

•A colorful cutwork Valentine, hand-drawn and lettered, c. 1803

•Church records from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania – 1730-1744

•A recipe for Machadunki Fettkuche from Emma L. Yoder’s (1873 – 1961) grandmother, of Hegins, in the Mahantongo Valley, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania

 

These are the wonderful things I saw when I looked through the Annual Volume Series published by the Pennsylvania German Society of Ephrata, Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania German Society was founded in 1891. The Society is a non-profit, educational institution dedicated to the preservation and study of the Pennsylvania German people, their culture and their long history in America.

 

Here is a sample of titles in the series:

s Farming Always Farming:  A Photographic Essay of Rural Pennsylvania German Land and Life by H. Winslow Fegley.

s Plain Women: Gender and Ritual in the Old Order River Brethren by Margaret C. Reynolds.

s PA German Broadsides by Don Yoder.

s Die Pennsylvaanisch Deitsche / The Pennsylvania Germans by Earl Haag.

s Pennsylvania Dutch Country Cooking by William Woys Weaver.

 

The Annual Volume Series has been published regularly since 1891 and covers an enormous array of information about the Pennsylvania Germans. It is an invaluable resource for the historian, genealogist, folklorist and general reader.  It’s also just plain fun to read if you have any interest in the Pennsylvania Germans or “The Pennsylvania Dutch” as we say around here.

 

Did you wonder what the recipe for Machadunki Fettkuche was for?  That translates to Mahantongo Diamond Doughnuts and you can find that recipe in Volume 27 of the series, Pennsylvania Dutch Country Cooking!

 

For more information about the Pennsylvania German Society go to: www.pgs.org