Red Beet Eggs, Rutchy, and Relatives

 Shoo-fly pie, the Amish, horses & buggies, farms dotting the countryside, whoopie pies, road-side stands – those among others, are some of the things Lancaster County is known for.

Since coming to live in Lancaster County about 6 years ago, I have discovered a few other things that could easily also typify Lancaster County culture: chocolate cake with peanut butter icing (or as some pronounce it “icening”), red beet eggs, strong work ethic, meadow tea, tight knit families, and large extended families. Here are the stories of how I’ve encountered some of these local phenomena.

Some of the Lancaster County foods have caught me by surprise. Let’s take red beet eggs for example. I had never seen red beet eggs before, but they were being served at the meal when I first meeting my husband’s family (when we were still dating). I had seen hard boiled eggs before, but not with such a pretty pink color. Growing up we had some of our Easter eggs colored on the inside when the dye soaked through and the dye never made the eggs taste any different. As they were passed to me, I placed one on my plate, looking forward to tasting a hard-boiled egg. Boy, was I ever surprised! In all my anticipation, I took a nice big bite of the red beet egg – and it tasted pickled, or something. It was not a taste that met my taste buds happily. Since then, I have learned to politely pass those pretty pink eggs on to the next person.

Other foods have surprised me as well, though not as drastically as the red beet eggs. Desserts are one of my downfalls – I love sweets! The more sugar the better. Whoopie pies are a well-known Lancaster County dessert, with a rounded piece of chocolate cake on top and bottom, filled with a nice thick layer of white icing. When I first saw this yummy looking dessert, I couldn’t wait to taste all the icing in the middle. Not until after my first bite did I realize that the filling was whipped cream icing, with very little sugar added. There are variations to the traditional whoopie pie, and when I have the opportunity I like to enjoy pumpkin whoopie pies with cream cheese icing. That satisfies my sugar cravings! Another variation is chocolate cake with peanut butter icing, but that is not found just in whoopie pies. This dessert is found at many family and church gatherings. Peanut butter icing is a favorite to many Lancaster “Countians”. I don’t mind it, but if a girl would ever want a piece of chocolate cake with just regular vanilla icing, she might just need to make it herself.

Various pronunciations of words and regional accents are easily found throughout our diverse nation. I’ve always prided myself in using correct English – both with word pronunciations and grammar. That’s why a few of the verbal “quirks” heard around Lancaster County get me riled up. “Icening” is one of them, “futher” is another – neither of those words are spelled that way, but yet somehow that pronunciation has been passed along. And it isn’t just words that are mispronounced – some words are completely left out of sentences: “the milk is all,” “the lawn needs mowed”. When I first heard someone say that something was “all”, I felt myself waiting in anticipation for them to finish the sentence. It took me a few moments before I realized that they were finished and then I found myself confused about what was even being talked about. (I did eventually catch on.) There are also some words from Pennsylvania Dutch that have made their way into general use among many people in Lancaster County, words like “aiy-aiy”, “rutchy”, and “nixie”. I like nick-names enough that these colloquialisms have found their way into my vocabulary.

Another aspect of Lancaster County that might not be experienced by visitors are the communities of extended, but tight-knit families. This is especially true in areas known for their Amish and Mennonite heritage. Although I had grown up visiting my cousins that had moved to the area, it wasn’t until I married into a family and began attending a church with Mennonite roots, that I realized how many branches were on these large family trees (often due to families with 4-9+ siblings). Over the years, I make more and more connections as my husband, mother-in-law, or sister-in-law point out how this person that I just met is somehow connected to me through so-and-so. In the first few years I was attending church where my husband grew up, I started to realize that there were a large majority of people in the congregation that were related, so much so that almost everyone could be connected to probably 1 of 5 families somehow. I’m sure that there are some that I am missing (I’m still learning some of the connections), but it has to be pretty close to that.Quite a bit more could be explained regarding family trees and connections between families and how it plays a role in the community, work and church, but that can be saved for another time....

So what do red beet eggs, "rutchy", and relatives all have in common? To me, they not only represent Lancaster County, but my assimilation into a new culture. It really may not be all that different from other cultures represented around the US, but it's the differences that make each community unique. And it's these differences that will play a part in shaping me into who I am.