Among the most gifted butchers I have known was old-timer “Hen Fox” who made outstanding sausage… The type of smoked sausage that was made in the 18th century and fired in an old type of smokehouse with hickory wood or apple wood. It’s an old time treat that made smoked sausage stew a delicacy in the long winter months. It’s not the modern type of sausage that is flavored with modern flavoring, but the type that’s really smoked for hours in one’s smokehouse, giving it an aroma that is hard to beat by cooking on the stove.
Henry Fox had a son, Jack, who with his wife, Dolly, operated the Dryville Tavern where they were famous for making Pennsylvania Dutch food and beverage for the community. It was a popular tavern where neighbors conversed in the PA German Dialect or played a game of cards. It is now operated by his son, Jeff Fox.
Berks County’s world famous Pennsylvania German/Dutch cooking would not have been possible had it not been for the large number of country butchers plying their trade with traditional family recipes and age old culinary expertise. Tried and tested by a number of local people’s palates, the meat products and meat dishes created by these butchers are unlike any other in the nation. Uniquely combined with our traditional Rhineland ethnic background, “Pennsylvania Dutch” folklife cooking won the hearts of Americans in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Richard H. Shaner is director of the American Folklife Institute in Kutztown.
