The oldest historical reference to funnel cake among the Pennsylvania Dutch was in a research paper presented to the Pennsylvania German Society by Henry Kinzer Landis of the Landis Valley Farm Museum, Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1935. Entitled “Early Kitchens of the Pennsylvania Germans,” this paper published in the Society’s volume XLVII described funnel cake as it was made in Lancaster County among local farmers who called it “Strivelin.” Landis further explained that the spiral movement of funnel over the pan of hot lard created circles of dough. However, he did not record the recipe, as his paper was concerned more with the material utensils used in our kitchens during Colonial times.
Dr. Shoemaker, aware of the “Strivelin” Dialect term, used it in his 1959 Pennsylvania Folklife magazine where the Berks County recipe for “Drechter Kucha” (funnel cake) was first published in an article by Edna Eby Heller. According to the Dutch cookbook author of five books and many articles, Edna stated molasses was always available at breakfast for eating these cakes, however, the tradition at the Folk Festival has always been to top them with confectionery sugar. A resident and descendant from a frugal Pennsylvania Dutch family living in Lancaster County, PA, many of the hillside farmers there and here in Berks County were hard pressed to feed their families when downturns in the National economy created not only a scarcity of jobs but a deficiency of food in our household pantries.
In just about all Pennsylvania Dutch households, there was always a traditional food or innovation which seemed to suffice until the economy resumed normalcy. But perhaps the hardest times were the winter months when pantries were depleted with the “fruits” of our country gardens. Canned and dried foodstuffs supplemented potatoes, apples, and root crops in our ground cellars. Just like fastnachts, they were fried to use up leftover lard, however, unlike them generally done before Lent, funnel cakes usually came to mind every time Berks County farmwomen had too much lard on hand from butchering animals for their culinary needs. Rendering large quantities of lard was a positive bi-product of Berks County’s thrifty farmers who never threw anything away when they butchered their pigs. Even recorded by some folklorists is the folk custom of farmwomen making funnel cake at the end of the wheat harvest, most likely due to when their husbands took their grain to the flour mill, they returned with extra wheat flour, thus, this surplus promoted the making of funnel cake.
Long-time friends of Dr. Alfred Shoemaker, The Millers (Herb & Viola) fortunately introduced the American public-at large to funnel cake. Herb’s mother had made funnel cakes with a batter that was poured through her household funnel, swirled above the hot lard in a pan on her kitchen stove. Herb would often remark, the funnel cake tubes were almost as thick as your thumb, not thin like most of the commercial ones made today! So when Herb married his wife, Viola, she caught on to how his mother made them and when the couple had unexpected company on the farm for Sunday, Viola used her mother-in-law’s funnel cake recipe to feed the additional guests. Notwithstanding, there were a lot of farm families around Kutztown who made this traditional dish, not just the Heffners and Millers.
But when Viola approached Dr. Shoemaker at the beginnings of Kutztown’s historic Folk Festival concerning funnel cake, he was eager to have her make it at the Kutztown fairgrounds. In short time, Viola would run the Pennsylvania Folklife eating stand that not only made funnel cake but also used some of the lard to make dough that was baked into bread to demonstrate the early stone bake oven alongside the society’s tent. Amid the festival’s success, local farm granges with Dutch families began making funnel cakes and sold them to the hungry crowds who ate them as a snack food. Herb, ironically, did live well into his 90s despite indulging in this breakfast treat (that has a high content of fat) as Herb would often tell festival workers how his mother, Emma Heffner, used to make funnel cake for breakfast. Living on a farm, their family ate hardy breakfasts at mid-morning, as many did, in preparation for the afternoon chores that might take all day as many farmers today can relate.
