Apple Butter and Cottage Cheese?

[lhommedieu]

Anyone grow up eating this? It was one of my Dad's favorite snacks and he passed it on to me. We have a local orchard and I think that I would like to try making some apple butter next weekend.

Not sure if this is a German meal or not; definitely Pennsylvania Dutch, though...

[Brandon]

We make apple butter (and apple sauce) every year, about a bushel or so of apples, ending up with a bunch of jars...several gallons I'm sure. I think my mom eats apple sauce or butter with cottage cheese (she's from Lancaster County, PA). It sounds tasty to me.

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[lhommedieu]

One of my Dad's favorite late-night snacks; he would mix them together in a bowl, and eat with a spoon. I've always enjoyed it as well. His family was German but not Pennsylvania Dutch. I did a little research and found that it was typically eaten on rye bread in Pennsylvania Dutch areas. Some sources state that the combination was country fare for Germans who emigrated to the United States, and could be found in regions with a culinary tradition of soft cheeses and mashed fruit. Fruit jams, compotes, etc were also believed to have medicinal properties, a tradition that still exists in some Pennsylvania Dutch communities.

There is a local orchard that will have 6 gallons of unpasteurized cider for me this weekend for hard cider. I'll probably pick up a bushel of apples, as well, to make apple sauce and apple butter this weekend.

[Brandon]

[lhommedieu]

Thank you. This link is to a Google Book that describes some links between German and German-American food; it's interesting to note that the Yiddish for a thin spread of cream cheese here in New York is "shmear," lol.

https://books.google.com/books?id=rbDzA ... g=GBS.PA82

[lhommedieu]

Plum jam on bread spread with butter, or possibly cream cheese. The recipe is from Pfalz: not too far from where my German ancestors settled in the 16th century (see below).

http://madam-rote-ruebe.blogspot.de/201 ... ewurz.html

Below is a link to an interesting article if you're into this kind of thing. HIs argument that Pennsylvania Dutch cooking was intentionally dumbed-down and confused with what was purported to be "Amish" cooking is persuasive. His assertion that Pennsylvania-Dutch cuisine is closely patterned after Alsatian dishes pricked up my ears. My Amazon wish list now includes about a dozen new books about Pennsylvania-Dutch cooking, as well as cookbooks from the Alsace-Lorraine region and Germany's Black Forest, as I'd like to compare/contrast dishes from all three regions. Of course, Asatian cuisine and that of the Black Forrest has influences from France and Italy, and in the modern era it is probably more refined than Pennsylvania-Dutch. Still it will be interesting to see some broad influences remain - for example, treatment of wild game and roasts during the colder months of the year. There are probably similarities in all three cuisines, as well as regional aspects that set them apart.

On a personal note: Family lore has it that our family were originally Huguenots chased out of France after the St. Bartholomew massacre (1572); they moved from Strasbourg to Heidelberg and eventually settled close to Baden-Baden, where they were known as church builders. The French "Lhommedieu" was eventually Germanized to "Lamade." In the mid-19th century they emmigrated to the United States and settled in a German-American community in Williamsport, PA. Meals that my Dad grew up with were thus "German" in this regard, as family traditions remained tight through the generations.

http://cooks.aadl.org/files/cooks/repas ... Winter.pdf