The Farm Barn and Its Environs: Strength and Gentleness
I have been told that the barn that we had when I was growing up was the largest in that area of Montour County, Pennsylvania. I cannot attest to this fact, but the L-shaped...
Tagged: sauerkraut
Let’s Party Like It’s January 1, 1897!
I possess this imagination that can take me back to past times and places and wonder what may have transpired. I am not a science fiction/futurist type of fellow. Since a child I have...
Does Food Define Heritage?
On New Year’s Day, Linda and I were supposed to have friends of ours over for the traditional Pennsylvania Dutch meal of sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, and pork. However, since it was just to be...
The Sauerkraut Diaries
On January 2, 2018, I wrote an article about New Year’s Day memories from the early 1900s. Some of these remembrances were gleaned from the diary entries of my mother, Irene (Faus) Hagenbuch. Of...
A Visit to the Hagenbuch Homestead
Several weeks ago, I visited the Hagenbuch homestead in Berks County, Pennsylvania along with my father, mother, and wife. The purpose of our visit was to explore the buildings at the homestead, as well...
New Year’s “Back in the Day”
New Year’s Day is celebrated in many ways. In our family on the Montour County farm, it was a day of traditional foods: pork and sauerkraut accompanied by fresh baked bread smothered in butter...
1789 Essay on the Pennsylvania Deitsch, Part 1
The Hagenbuch family arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1737 and were part of one of the earliest waves of German immigrants to the colony. By the late 18th century, Pennsylvania’s German or “Deitsch” residents...
Making Sauerkraut: A Pennsylvania Deitsch Tradition
It was hardly a surprise when, this past summer, my parents told me that they were going to start making their own sauerkraut. My family does, after all, have a reputation for tackling some...
