The demand for Pioneer Grange’s Pennsylvania Dutch potato filling caught Tammy Schaeffer by surprise.
“I’m flabbergasted,” she said. “I had people calling in September for filling.”
They didn’t need advertisements, though the grange did have some posters up in a supermarket.
“It seems like people come out of the woodwork,” Schaeffer said. “One woman had my number saved on her cellphone.”
That’s how important this iconic Pennsylvania Dutch holiday food is to families around Topton where Schaeffer heads the crew of about 15 volunteers at the Pioneer Grange.
Schaeffer said many people turn to the grange rather than take on the time-consuming process of making potato filling for themselves. Potato filling remains a popular holiday fundraiser and a staple at grange and church dinners.
“My favorite part is making people happy when they get their filling,” Schaeffer said. “They are so thankful having us make this.”
At Kutztown’s Grange Hall, Darlene Dietrich is in charge of the sale.
The grange has been making potato filling from the same secret recipe for special occasions for as long as she’s been a member — that’s 40 years.
The Thanksgiving sale has been running for nine years, including last year during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We did have a sale in 2020 and did very well, probably due to the fact that people ate at home for the holiday instead of going out,” Dietrich said in an email.
In 2020, they sold 900 pounds of filling. This year it will be about 800, which requires about 850 pounds of potatoes and 28 stalks of celery.
“People like it for the taste and flavor, plus the tradition of having it at special meals,” Dietrich said. “For some I think it brings back memories of childhood.”
In Kutztown, the challenge is peeling and boiling all those potatoes in time for pickup, Dietrich said. It takes two days for volunteers to cook it along with the popular bacon dressing.
“Folks like to eat it (bacon dressing) over lettuce or potatoes,” Dietrich said. “In the springtime, it is popular and tasty on dandelion greens.”
Last year, Topton’s grange exceeded the capacity of its small kitchen and made 800 pounds of the fluffy casserolelike concoction of potatoes, bread, celery, onions and parsley.
“That was really, really rough,” Schaeffer said. “Storage — it was rough storing that much.”
Also, they don’t have a commercial mixer so the filling is made in many batches.
This year Pioneer Grange had to cut off orders when the total reached 700 pounds.
The filling — please don’t call it stuffing or dressing — is sold at 1½ pound for $4 and 2½ pounds for $6. That meant some people who called by the deadline of Nov. 14 were unable to order.
The process at the Topton grange to make the filling begins weeks ahead of time as bread — about 53 loaves — is set aside. On Monday the crew began in earnest with a marathon 12-hour session of peeling 450 pounds of potatoes and chopping the onions, celery and parsley. It takes 10 pounds of butter.
Tuesday and Wednesday are spent making the filling, which is distributed Wednesday for customers to bake at home for about 45 minutes until the top is crispy brown.
Gaining status
Pennsylvania Dutch potato filling is a merger of mashed potatoes some seasoned bread stuffing and eggs to make it fluffy.
Chester County food historian William Woys Weaver has said it dates to the 1700s but did not become widespread until the 19th century. Details of its origin are lost to time.
The love of potato filling finds it strongest popularity in Berks, Schuylkill, Lebanon and Lehigh counties, said Patrick Donmoyer, executive director of the Pennsylvania German Heritage Center at Kutztown University.
Potato filling’s stature was raised with a 2014 New York Times article that said it was the most searched Thanksgiving side dish in Pennsylvania. In May, Lehigh County native Carson Kressley of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” fame, raised its status higher by sharing a family potato filling recipe on cooking guru Rachel Ray’s website.
Over the years, families have adapted the dish to make it their own, but each recipe has the foundation of potatoes, bread, onions and celery.
In Pennsylvania German, filling is called filsel, with the “s” sounding a bit like a “z,” Donmoyer said. Usually it is not intended to fill anything.
In Lebanon County and what was known as the saffron belt of Pennsylvania, you’ll find the dish made with saffron, a spice and yellow-coloring agent made of the vivid crimson stigma crocus, Donmoyer said. While those in Berks, Schuylkill and Lehigh counties season the potato filling with parsley, pepper and onions.
In any case, he said, it’s not like turkey stuffing.
“It has to shimmy,” he said about the filling in the casserole dish. “It has a different consistency. It’s meant to be fluffy.”
Of course, the highlight is the brown crispy topping made through baking.
Donmoyer said its important that cultural traditions remain alive in communities and foodways are the last to disappear.
Schaeffer said while she doesn’t make the dish at home, she thinks it’s important to the community. Her dad used to speak Pennsylvania Dutch, as did her grandparents. She does not, but she continues the filling tradition and shares it with others.
“I get new people every year who say they have never had this and want to try it,” Schaeffer said. “I just like the taste of it, and I think people like it too because it’s different than mashed potatoes. We sometimes call it glorified mashed potatoes.”
A sense of community
At the Topton grange, the big hurdle is boiling the potatoes because the kettle holds just 20 pounds at a time. That’s 35 kettle loads this year, Schaeffer said. Her dad, in his 80s, is the main potato peeler.
The recipe has not changed. It’s been handed down for years.
No one is sure who it came from, but the filling had been a staple at grange banquets for years. In 2015, due to requests, the grange began selling it on holidays.
They skipped Easter 2020 due to the pandemic, but by Thanksgiving last year they were back.
Schaeffer estimated that after expenses the grange will raise about $1,000. That is not far from what is raised in hoagie sales, though, it is much more labor intensive.
Supply costs have increased, but the granges this year decided not to raise their prices.
Most of the crew is in their 60s, she said.
But they have helpers as young as 14, her granddaughter. Some are grange members, some just come to help and for the camaraderie.
“We’re trying to do it as long as we can,” Schaeffer said. “I think we have several years of filling making in us.”
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Pennsylvania Dutch potato filling tradition thrives at Thanksgiving in Berks - Reading Eagle
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