A FOOD TRADITION
Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine
Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine is the food tradition of German-speaking settlers and their descendants in southeastern and central Pennsylvania, including communities with Amish and Mennonite affiliations. It emphasizes pork, poultry, cabbage, potatoes, corn, apples, dairy, noodles, and preserved vegetables. Characteristic techniques include pickling, baking, pot roasting, sausage making, canning, and slow cooking. Representative foods include scrapple, shoofly pie, and chicken pot pie in the regional sense of a stew served with thick noodles. The tradition has adapted over time but remains recognizable through its German American heritage, farm-based ingredients, and distinctive Pennsylvania vocabulary.
Dishes linked to this cuisine
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Lancaster whoopie pie
Two small cake-like chocolate rounds sandwiched around a sweet, creamy buttercream-style filling.
Pennsylvania Dutch chow-chow
A sweet-and-sour Pennsylvania German relish preserving a changing mixture of late-season vegetables.
Pennsylvania Dutch fasnacht
A dense Shrove Tuesday pastry made from potato dough and fried until crisp and deep golden outside.
Pennsylvania Dutch scrapple
A seasoned breakfast loaf of finely cooked pork pieces and grain, cooled in a mould before being sliced and fried.
Pennsylvania Dutch shoofly pie
A molasses pie made in wet-bottom and dry styles, with a sweet crumb topping over the filling.
Schnitz un knepp
A Pennsylvania Dutch sweet-savoury dish of dried apples roasted with ham and flour dumplings.
Catalogue preview Cuisine connections may be unreviewed. Regional comparisons include their food references and do not establish the ingredients of a particular meal.