Amish and Mennonite Cooking

"From Amish and Mennonite Kitchens" by Phillis Pellman Good and Rachel Thomas Pellman   Good Books, Intercouorse, PA   420 pages   $11.95

Disclosure:  I have an interest in Mennonite cooking as my mother's family were Mennonites.  I grew up eating such as Bombuski or Nollesnicki on wintery Sunday evenings.  (Both recipes previously given.)

The two groups are similar in their faiths.  The Mennonites came first, a product of the 1525 Reformation.  Menno Simons was one of the founders.  From the Mennonites came the Amish who had splintered off in dissatisfaction in 1693, led by Jacob Amman.

The one trait that they share and do to this day was a strong belief in hard work.  They were largely farmers with  ancillary jobs such as shop keepers, mill keepers that were necessary to their communities.

Because they worked hard from sun up to sun down, they ate well.  In looking through the book, I noted that they relied heavily on dairy protein, found in the butter, cream and cheeses that they made themselves.  Meat seems to have been used rather more sparingly than not.  They were also lavish with eggs in their recipes.  Diced hard-boiled eggs were frequently a dish addition.

They were also good at eking out recipes to feed more people.  

Rivels - used in soups
1 cup flour
1 egg
1/4 cup milk.

Combine the flour and the egg, add the milk.  Mix by cutting with two forks to make crumbles the size of cherry stones.  Drop them in the boiling broth (chicken, beef or vegetable) and stir to keep them from sticking together.  This seems like a cousin of spaetzl where you push the dough through the holes of a colander.

Knepp - a type of dumpling
2 cups flour
3 teas. baking powder
1/2 teas. salt
1 egg, beaten
2 T melted butter
1/3 to 1/2 cup milk

Mix the flour, salt and baking powder.  Add the beaten egg and milk.  Use enough milk that the dough will be sticky but will still slide off of the spoon into the boiling broth.  Put the lid back on quickly and don't peek for 15 minutes.  (I can still hear my mother shouting to me from another room into the kitchen, "Leave that pot alone!")

The other thing that I noticed is that they ate an extremely bland diet.  Spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, molasses, lemon  seem to have been saved for pies, cakes and cookies.