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Show DANBELM FOOD Is Real De'icacy and Surpasses Spinach in Salad. Recipes Handed Down From Mother to Daughter Among Pennsylvania Germans Make Savory Dishes From Despised Plant. Philadelphia. Notwithstanding the general increase in the cost of living there is one dainty which the Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania Germans are enjoying nuw just us in the springtime of past years. That dainty is the dandelion. Pennsylvania German housewives prt famous not alone for their skill as cooks, but also for producing savory dishes at the least possible cost. Among them the preparation of the dandelion for the table has become be-come an art. Usually it is cooked as spinach or eaten as a salad. borne of the favorite recipes have been handed down as legacies from mother to daughter for many generations. genera-tions. Like most recipes of Pennsylvania Pennsyl-vania German cookery, they are not written out by those who invent them, nor do the women who possess them seem able to impart their mysteries with any degree of precision to persons per-sons not imbued with the Pennsylvania Pennsyl-vania German culinary instinct. Pennsylvania German cooks are born and not made, and they do not reduce their art to cold mathematical formulas. In explaining a certain concoction con-coction to one deemed worthy of their confidence they say: "I take me as much salt as will go on the end of a knife so," or "You just take not quite a cup of flour," or "Just pour a little molasses into it and mix it until it is ready so." It seems, so far as an outsider may penetrate the secret, that the usual way of preparing the dandelion is to cut off all roots and wash the leaves thoroughly, then place them in a sauce pan full of boiling water, permitting it to boil for an hour, after which the leaves are drained and placed in a frying pan with butter, salt and pepper, pep-per, and the mixture is stirred until thoroughly heated. It is then served with an egg or with sliced hard boiled eggs Another method is to beat one egg until light, add half a cupful of cream, stir this over the fire until it thickens, then add a small piece of butter, two tab!espoonf uls of vinegar and salt and pepper. The dandelion leaves are .vasl-.ed and cut up, after which the hot dressing is poured over them, the mixture being stirred over the fire until un-til the leaves are wilted. As a salad dandelion usually Is prepared pre-pared like lettuce, though instead of the mayonnaise dressing popular elsewhere else-where a dressing of hot bacon fat is sometimes preferred. Dandelion is also made into wine, which is held to be a remedy for a variety of ills. A firm belief exists among the Pennsylvania Germans that the dandelion possesses great value as a tonic, and many a farmer would not feel himself fit for . bis coming summer's work without partaking of dandelion at least once a day for a month or more. Its chief worth no doubt is that it constitutes a wholesome whole-some variation in the diet of the country coun-try people, who for months have subsisted sub-sisted largely upon pork, mince pies and similar food. So long as the leaves are young and succulent the dandelion is in daily demand, but when the plant begins to flower the leaves become tough and bitter and it is held to be a nuisance. Some rural churches with large burial grounds set apart a day in June when rll the members join in warfare upon the dandelions growing upon the church property. Though the dandelion grows in almost al-most any place where vegetation can subsist there are indications that even its abundance may not save it entirely entire-ly from the spirit of commercialism. Several experiments have been made in the Pennsylvania German country in the cultivation of the plant for market. A man living at Rittersville, Lehigh county, has laid out several large beds on the slope of a hill. The dandelion patch evidently is as enticing to certain cer-tain Pennsylvania Germans as the watermelon patch is to certain individuals indi-viduals of a duskier race, for this spring the owner of the Rittersville plantation had a man arrested on a charge of surreptitiously digging up I two bagfuls of the greens and selling them for $6. Hotbeds are used to force the crop, just as with other salad greens. To keep the leaves in marketable condition condi-tion all the year every bud is nipped off and the leaves are blanched by bunching them and heaping earth over them or covering them with a pot. After the leaves of the plant have given full service the roots may also be sold, being used in the drug trade under the name of taraxacum. No doubt the Pennsylvania Germans Ger-mans inherit their liking for the dandelion, dan-delion, along with other economical traits, from their forefather: who fled from the Rhine country a century and a half ago. |