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There has been much
pleasantry about the “seven sweets and seven sours” of
Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. Their spicy flavors and their endless
variety are so tempting that the only calm review they ever earn is
at the county fair. There, if you must count them, you can wander
through the array of blue-ribboned exhibits and add away! But the
immediate result will be cooking nuisance!
At the Martinsburg or the Reading
Fair, you can obtain a good idea of the whole year’s farm
activity, for it is all spread out before you. You can admire the
prize cattle and swine, poultry and grain, pumpkins and apples. You
can see the handsome results of the long winter evenings on the
farm: quilts, hooked rugs, and crocheted tablecloths. And you can
see some fascinating old furniture: stenciled chairs, water benches,
dough troughs-even an old cradle that winds up and rocks itself for
fifteen minutes. The practical objects of Grandfather's day are, of
course, antiques now. The farmer knows this, for he has shown the
same heirlooms at the fair year after year, just as his wife has
gone on exhibiting her grandmother's “show towels” and woven
counterpanes. It is all part of the fair routine.
After the farmer has made his
careful assessment in the exhibition building, inspected the new
farm machinery, satisfied himself that his year's appraisal of crops
and progress is a good one, he collects his family and enjoy the
balance of their annual holiday. He finds them pausing to listen to
the barkers along the midway, grinning at the heckling going on in
broad Pennsylvania German. Pushing and jostling good-naturedly,
along with everyone else, they make their way to the nearest stand
to buy the hot dogs smothered in sauerkraut.
The youngsters beg for huge blobs
of pink spun sugar on sticks and get them. The races are as exciting
as ever, and tense crowds pack the grandstands. True, the sideshows
are the same old frauds they've always been but that is as it should
be, part of the fun. The beer stand does a rushing business; with
constant reunions of old friends come from far and near. It's been a
heartening day, and when at last the family turns homeward, the
exhausted children fall asleep in the back seat, Mother steals a
quick look at the prize ribbons in her purse, and Father, gazing
fixedly at the highway ahead, quietly plans his next year's
triumphs.
But “the morning hours have gold
in hand,” his grandsire used to say, so next day the farmer is up
before sunrise. He is going to give back to the farm the day he has
stolen. His wife, however, is not ready to settle down to the
year-long routine. She is still in a gregarious, if not talkative
mood. It is a fine, bright day. She begins to think about apple
butter.
With a little persuasion, the
farmer loads his battered truck with apples and goes off to the
cider mill, just as his grandfather loaded the old two-horse wagon
before him. He balances his empty barrels for the cider on top of
the apples, and he rumbles down the road in pleasant anticipation of
the spicy odors that soon will be filling the fall air.
While he is gone, the neighbors
gather and the women and girls set to work peeling and cutting the
huge quantity of apples that they need. The boys keep bringing
apples and more apples in baskets and find time to gather wood for
the fire. The great apple-butter kettle is brought out and set up in
the yard. By the time the farmer comes back with the cider, the fire
is burning brightly under the kettle and in goes the cider. A penny
or a peach pit is dropped on the bottom to prevent burning, the
cider is brought to a boil, and the apples are poured in. Then the
stirring begins, for apple butter must be stirred constantly, even
if there is a penny in the kettle. But stirring can be an agreeable
occasion, especially if the right young people stir in combination.
It can be distracting too-and burned apple butter is a dead
giveaway!
So another day wears pleasantly
into evening. The fair is gone over thoroughly, crops are
catalogued, and neighborhood news is' brought up to date. The young
people stir the apple butter, and the “old folks” with the sweet
smell of apples filling the air decide that yes, smokehouse apples
do make the best applesauce, that pound sweets are best for
dumplings, and Paradise apples make the finest Schnitz. Cider,
they agree, can be made from almost any kind of apple-but here there
is an interruption: the apple butter is finished!
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Sweet &
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