German American Food: The Formation of Pennsylvania Dutch Food

Germans were the largest minority in the New Netherland colony after 1650, but the group is usually dated from the arrival in 1681 of fourteen Mennonite families to found Germantown, Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Dutch came from many parts of the German-speaking world and belonged to many Protestant sects as well as mainstream Lutheran and Reformed churches. They moved into inland valley farms up and down the Appalachians and across the mountains to Ohio and Indiana. They were joined by Moravians settling around Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and by ten thousand Hessian deserters during the American Revolution. The Germans were regarded by other colonists and early Americans as thrifty and wise farmers and sometimes were caricatured for stinginess, backwardness, and their mixture of Low German and accented English speech. German food was noted for the quality of the farm produce, dairy products, and baked goods before the American Revolution and continues to be so noted in the early twenty-first century.