Pennsylvania Dutch Food: Shoofly Pie and Chow-Chow

Pennsylvania Dutch food is the cooking of the Pennsylvania Germans, who settled the southeast of the state in the 1700s, along with the Amish and Mennonite families who kept many of the old ways. The word Dutch comes from Deutsch, meaning German. The cooking is hearty, sweet and sour in turns, built for farm labor and sharing.

It is farmhouse cooking: smoked and cured meats, preserved vegetables, noodles, dumplings and pies, shaped by winters and farm labor. Look for family-style dining rooms and bakeries in Lancaster County.

What is Pennsylvania Dutch food?

It is farmhouse cooking: smoked and cured meats, preserved vegetables, noodles, dumplings, pies and cakes. Meals have traditionally included many dishes, often seven sweets and seven sours on a holiday table, passed around and eaten in plenty.

Today you can taste it in family-style restaurants, farmers markets and bakeries around Lancaster County, and in Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market on days when Lancaster vendors visit.

What is shoofly pie?

Shoofly pie is a molasses pie with a crumb topping. Its name is explained by a story: the molasses is so sweet that flies must be shooed away. It may have started as a molasses crumb cake in the 1800s. Wet-bottom and dry-bottom versions are the two common styles, and the difference is how gooey the bottom layer is.

A wet-bottom pie has a runny layer of molasses beneath the crumbs, good with coffee. A dry-bottom pie is more like a cake and is meant for dunking. One guide names a bakery stall at Reading Terminal Market for baked goods, so ask what is on the counter.

What is chow-chow?

Chow-chow is a sweet and tangy relish of pickled vegetables, canned for winter and served with many meals. It might include cauliflower, beans, carrots, peppers and onions. It sits on a plate beside meat and gives it a bright, vinegary kick.

A good chow-chow is crisp, not mushy, with a balance of sweet and sour. At a family-style restaurant, a dish of it often arrives on the table with bread and butter.

What is Pennsylvania Dutch chicken pot pie?

Pennsylvania Dutch chicken pot pie is a stew, not a pie with a crust. It contains chicken, potatoes and large squares of noodle dough simmered in broth. If you expect a pastry-topped pie, you will be surprised, and pleased. A good one is rich and comforting, with noodles that are tender but not mushy.

Order it in autumn or winter when the weather suits it. It is often served as a main dish at a family-style meal.

Where did the whoopie pie come from?

A whoopie pie is two soft cake-like rounds with a creamy filling. A food historian cited in a Maine newspaper attributes its origin to Massachusetts in 1928, with the Amish adopting it later, so the claim that it is a Pennsylvania Dutch invention is debated. Either way, Lancaster County bakeries and markets sell them in many flavors, from chocolate and vanilla to pumpkin.

Eat a whoopie pie fresh. The filling should be light and not too sweet.

Where can you taste these dishes?

Lancaster Central Market, where farmers have gathered since the 1730s according to the city's visitor site, sells baked goods, smoked meats and preserves. One guide recommends a restaurant a drive from downtown Lancaster for meats, sides and Pennsylvania Dutch dishes. It is not named, because its current details were not confirmed. Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia has Pennsylvania Dutch merchants on certain days.

Because Amish stands often operate only a few days a week, check the schedule before you go.

Expect the pace to be unhurried. Dishes arrive in waves, bowls are refilled without asking and the meal can last an hour or more. Pace yourself: save room for pie, which is the reason many people come. If you are traveling with children, a family-style room is a gift, since the food is plain enough for small appetites and the shared platters keep everyone busy. Wear comfortable clothes, bring cash for small stands and thank the servers, who often work long shifts.

How to order at a family-style table

Family-style dining means large platters passed around the table. Do not be shy about taking some of everything. Try the chow-chow, the noodles and the pie. Ask the server which dishes are made in the kitchen and which are bought in.

Go with a group if you can. A table of six eats far better than a table of two.

What about scrapple?

Scrapple is a close cousin, made from pork scraps and cornmeal and fried at breakfast. It is a Pennsylvania Dutch invention that traveled south to Delaware and Maryland. If you see it on a menu, try it with eggs. It is crisp on the outside and soft within.

For more, see the Mid-Atlantic page below. The two share a table.

What else should you read around Pennsylvania?

The Pennsylvania food worth a drive guide covers markets and routes, the best soft pretzels in Philadelphia page covers a city snack and the build your Philadelphia tomato pie list page teaches a bakery method. The US guides page lists more cities.

Eating your way across Pennsylvania? The Food in Pennsylvania page links every town we cover.

A dish with a long history deserves a careful tasting. Get the Mosey app, rate each slice of shoofly pie and each spoon of chow-chow you try, and build a Pennsylvania list so that you remember which bakery got it right.