Flavors from the Hearthside

In the 1857 summer and fall issues of the Allentown Bauern-Journal, a Pennsylvania German agricultural monthly, there is a delightful series of articles beginning with “What Every Farmer Should Have at Home.” The series, actually written for the farmer’s wife, is full of important culinary hints such as where to find juniper berries, how to prepare trout in saffron sauce, and how to avoid bread-baking errors in the brick oven, as well as a call to female readers to establish a recipe exchange. It is source material like this that brings many of the basic flavors in Pennsylvania Dutch cookery into focus, for the cook’s hand is not always obvious in printed recipes.