Dummes

Dummes (“DOO-miss”) is prepared in a skillet. It is a variation of the omelet in which ingredients such as diced bread or potatoes are fried, chopped, and stirred continuously with beaten eggs until the dish has set. Other Pennsylfaanisch terms for it are Schtarrumpel and Huddelstraa. Dummes derives from Pfälzer dialect nouns created from the verb stampfen, “to stamp or chop.”13

Dummes is a Pennsylfaanisch term first recorded in Carbon County, where a large variety of Dummes recipes has been preserved.14 While Dummes, like Schaumkuche, has no precise English equivalent, both the Quakers and the Welsh Baptists who settled among the Germans made a Welsh dish similar to Dummes called stanch. In English, the term is written as stunch and pronounced “stoonch.” The special wooden stick used to stir and chop the dish was called a stuncher, or in Pennsylfaanisch a Dummesscheifle (Dummes paddle). A small spatula will serve the same purpose.