Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Snacking State-by-State: Pennsylvania IV - The War Between the States, Installment II (or "You call this sheet iron!?")

In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, and in a counterpoint to the final Mississippi post recreating of a lovely Confederate hors d'oeuvre featuring bacon-wrapped oysters on horseradish-covered toast, we cross the Mason-Dixon Line one final time to explore the not-so-glorious provisions found in the mess kits of Yankee soldiers all around Gettysburg.

Official Name: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
State Nicknames: The Keystone State, The Quaker State
Admission to the US: December 12, 1787 (#2 - Delaware beat 'em to the punch)
Capital: Harrisburg (9th largest)
Other Important Cities: Philadelphia (largest), Pittsburgh (2nd largest), Allentown (3rd largest), Erie (4th largest)
Region: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest; Middle Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT NationsMaple SyrupClambakeCrabcakeChestnutWild Rice
Bordered by: Maryland & the Mason-Dixon Line (south), West Virginia (southwest), Ohio (west), Lake Erie (northwest), New York (north & northeast), New Jersey & the Delaware River (east), Delaware (southeast)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: white-tailed deer (animal), milk (beverage), ruffed grouse (bird), chocolate chip cookie (cookie), brook trout (fish)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: German & Amish foods; Polish & Eastern European foods; pretzels, water ice, hoagies & Philly cheese steaks (particular to Philadelphia); city chicken, halupki halušky, chipped ham, kielbasa (particular to Pittsburgh); scrapple; Hershey's chocolates; birch beer; Herr's Potato Chips, Hanover Pretzels & (yes) Utz Potato Chips; people (if you're an extra in a George Romero movie, that is - the big ones were all filmed near Pittsburgh)

As the AmericanCivilWar.com website points out, the Northern army was better funded than the Southern one, and that included its wartime provisions.  That isn't to say that rations were particularly edible - today's MRE's are gourmet meals compared to what the military was forced to eat a century and a half ago.  And without our fancy freeze-drying technology, soldiers needed things that would last a while.  The website describes what both Yankee and Secesh had to deal with in their messkits.
Choices of what to give the troops was limited as they did not have the conveniences to preserve food like we have today. Meats were salted or smoked while other items such as fruits and vegetables were dried or canned. They did not understand proper nutrition so often there was a lack of certain foods necessary for good health. Each side did what they could to provide the basics for the soldiers to survive. Because it was so difficult to store for any length of time, the food soldiers received during the Civil War was not very fancy and they did not get a great variety of items. [AmericanCivilWar.com, date unknown]
Enter hardtack.

Ah yes, the incredible, edible... er, edible?  Semi-edible hardtack.  This little brick of flour in the form  of a cracker was desiccated to ensure that it didn't rot en route to the soldiers.  This was a plus for the Union soldier because it could last for months - and often didn't get to him until a few months had passed.  The problem was eating it: it was hard, like a piece of stone, and all you had to do was bite it the wrong way to break a tooth.  And who in the dickens wanted to see a 19th century dentist!? ***shudder***  As the ACW website notes [date unknown], hardtack was even nicknamed "tooth duller" or "sheet iron cracker" for this very reason.  Even worse, if somehow it had gotten moist anyway, you could even expect to find the occasional weevil squirming around on it.  Ah, fun.  Mind you, you could moisten it with some water yourself and fry it up in some bacon fat.  The soldiers called this "skillygallee" [AmericanCivilWar.com, date unknown].

Curious to try and at least make this historical MRE (or MRBYTO - Meal Ready to Break Your Tooth On), I went ahead and made some myself.


The Recipe: Hard Tack

The recipe is very basic: some variation of flour, water and salt, occasionally fat, and that's it.  The version on ACW.com suggests Crisco or vegetable fat.  The recipe I used is on page 28 of the Pennsylvania Trail of History Cookbook [2004], from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and the editors of Stackpole Books.  It is even less complicated than that.


All you will need are unbleached flour (I wasn't sure if bread flour was bleached or not, but the all-purpose sure was, and this said nothing about it), salt and warm water.


Mix the dry ingredients, all two of them.


Slowly add the water and mix (use a spoon - it's not as messy)  until not too sticky but not too dry.


Next roll it out until it's about 1/2 - 3/8" thick.


Yes, I used the parchment paper sandwich again.  Make sure you flour both the bottom parchment and the dough first.


If you don't (oops), it just becomes one big mush of dough stuck to both sheets and you will have to throw it out.  At least you still have all of the ingredients to start again.


There, that's better.


Transfer to a baking sheet and cut into squares about 3 or 4 inches to a side.  Cheat and use a pizza cutter if you don't want to get all "authentic" about it.


I wasn't planning to make a whole lot of these things here.


Poke holes in each piece, about sixteen, using a dowel or (in this case) a chopstick.


And now you're ready to bake them.  This will take a while.


Put them in a 400°F oven until they just begin to brown.


Next, turn the oven down to 200° and bake for two hours.  Finally, turn the oven off and leave in overnight. Now they should keep for months.


Tada!  These things are hard.  Hard, hard, hard. I must admit, I haven't tried to eat these yet.  I was more curious to see how long they held up than what they tasted like.  Perhaps I'll store it with that pemmican from Montana and see which lasts longer.

- - - - -

Like hardtack, our final Keystone State post is done.  Now for those of you keeping track, the next state in alphabetical order is right up Interstate 95. But Rhode Island will have to wait just a wee bit longer, wee state that it is.  First we are taking a segue to the Caribbean, and the largest US territory-not-a-state off our coast.  It's time to visit Puerto Rico, with nary a Menudo record in sight.

Sources:

Amish America.  "What do Amish eat?"  Copyright 2010 Amish America, All rights reserved.

Amish Homestead Cookbook.  Tourist cookbook, date of publication unknown.

AmericanCivilWar.com.  "American Civil War Recipes: Union Hardtack and Confederate Johnnie Cakes".  Date unknown.  Copyright 1997-2012 AmericanCivilWar.com, maintained by Central Design Lab. All articles are public domain and clearly credit and link to the author when possible.

Batz, Bob, Jr. "Pittsburgh sticks with loving 'City Chicken'".  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, published March 30, 2012.  Copyright ©1997-2012 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved.

Brieda, Luboš.  "Potato Dumplings (Halušky)".  Slovak Cooking, posted November 3, 2009.  Updated March 24, 2010.  Copyright 2009-2011 Slovak Cooking.

Chowhound.com.  "Slicing Ribeye roast for philly cheese steak".  Discussion on "Home Cooking" board, Chowhound.com. Thread started September 6, 2008.

Pat's King of Steaks. "Pat's King of Steaks Philadelphia Cheese Steak".  Featured on the episode "Best Sandwiches" of the show The Best Of.  Food Network, 1999.

Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau.  "Pennsylvania Amish history & beliefs".  Copyright 2012 Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau, site maintained by Cimbrian.

Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.  Pennsylvania Cookbook Trail of History.  From the Editors of Stackpole Books and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, foreword by William Woys Weaver.  Stackpole Books: Mechanicsburg, PA, 2004.

Pittsburgh.About.com (About.com). "How to Make Haluski (Cabbage and Noodles)"  Date unknown.  Copyright 2012 About.com.  All rights reserved.

Robinson, Douglas.  "City Chicken".  Recipe in I Grew Up in Southwestern Pennsylvania: A Nostalgic Look at Growing Up in the Pittsburgh Region.  Recipe featured in the article "Pittsburgh sticks with loving 'City Chicken'" by Bob Batz, Jr. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, published March 30, 2012)

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Pennsylvania" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Pennsylvania".

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Snacking State-by-State: Pennsylvania III - Apple Pan Dowdy!? We don't need no stinkin' Apple Pan Dowdy! (or "Amish Pie-radise")

Indiana has the country's most Amish county, and per capita there are (apparently) more Amish in Ohio than in any other state.  But the Amish are forever tied to Pennsylvania, where they first set foot the United States.  Many an "English" tourist has flocked to Lancaster County to get some exposure to Amish lifeways and culture, only to bitch and moan when they get stuck behind a horse and buggy.  There is something to be said about we tourists actually trying to, you know, respect Amish lifeways - especially when that involves getting stuck behind a horse and buggy.  But I digress.

Official Name: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
State Nicknames: The Keystone State, The Quaker State
Admission to the US: December 12, 1787 (#2 - Delaware beat 'em to the punch)
Capital: Harrisburg (9th largest)
Other Important Cities: Philadelphia (largest), Pittsburgh (2nd largest), Allentown (3rd largest), Erie (4th largest)
Region: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest; Middle Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT NationsMaple SyrupClambakeCrabcakeChestnutWild Rice
Bordered by: Maryland & the Mason-Dixon Line (south), West Virginia (southwest), Ohio (west), Lake Erie (northwest), New York (north & northeast), New Jersey & the Delaware River (east), Delaware (southeast)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: white-tailed deer (animal), milk (beverage), ruffed grouse (bird), chocolate chip cookie (cookie), brook trout (fish)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: German & Amish foods; Polish & Eastern European foods; pretzels, water ice, hoagies & Philly cheese steaks (particular to Philadelphia); city chicken, halupki halušky, chipped ham, kielbasa (particular to Pittsburgh); scrapple; Hershey's chocolates; birch beer; Herr's Potato Chips, Hanover Pretzels & (yes) Utz Potato Chips; people (if you're an extra in a George Romero movie, that is - the big ones were all filmed near Pittsburgh)


The Amish first arrived in Pennsylvania in the 18th century, after fleeing Europe for their Anabaptist beliefs, specifically that only adults may be baptized.  According to Wikipedia and Lancaster County website [Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau 2012], they first settled in Berks County, with many eventually settling in nearby Lancaster County.  Today there are over 50,000 Amish in Pennsylvania, many centered around Lancaster County, along with their less religiously conservative but similarly "plain" religious brethren, the Mennonites and the Brethren (both of whom do use electricity but typically dress the same).

Many Marylanders have had exposure to the Amish - not necessarily to individual Amish, per se, but to Amish country.  This includes the massive Amish buffets in Lancaster and Strasburg, which don't seem to fit the Amish spirit - "Amish" and "excess" aren't really two words that go together.  But as the Amish America website points out, the Amish are known for good food.  Good, filling, and not exactly slimming food.  While the Amish pretty much grow (and sell) their own farm foods - vegetables, eggs, milk, meat - depending on what the specific community allows, some Amish may buy food at the grocery store or even make their own wine (many communities are dry apart from weddings and semi-annual communion services).  And even the Amish are eating out more than they used to, bringing more processed foods into their diets.  But overall, most of their diet is of the low-processed variety [Amish America, 2010].

A few dishes are particularly famous for being Amish dishes.  Some, like scrapple, have crossed over into our "English" world.  Many people in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic love scrapple, that mixture of pig parts and cornmeal that you slice up and fry.


I. HATE. SCRAPPLE.

I could never understand what my mother saw in it back when she had a block of Rapa Scrapple sitting in the fridge ready to slice and fry up.  The Amish are also famous for their pies - apple butter pies, sugar cream pies, whoopie pies (yes, they make those just like New Englanders do), and the pie that I most readily identify as Amish: the shoo fly pie.

Just as New Englanders share whoopie pies with the Amish, so Southerners share shoo fly pies with them as well.  Hardly an Amish restaurant or buffet in Lancaster County is missing this gooey concoction of molasses and brown sugar baked in a pie shell.  One doesn't need to connect too many dots to figure out where it got its name: all the molasses attracted flies, hence the need to shoo them away.  While it is also known below the Mason-Dixon Line, as Montgomery pie (with lemon added), I have always thought of this as an Amish thing.  And few if any of the Amish cookbooks you buy in Amish Country are missing a recipe for the famous and easy pie.  I got this recipe from one of those cookbooks, The Amish Homestead Cookbook [date unknown], printed (apparently) for the Amish Homestead on Lincoln Highway East in Lancaster - long since replaced (apparently) by a Wal-Mart.

The Recipe: Shoo Fly Pie

This shoo fly pie recipe is on page 28 of The Amish Homestead Cookbook (in the "Fastnacht Day" section).  Since I don't think this is a copyrighted book - there isn't even a publication date - and not a terribly easy book to find, I will provide a photo of the recipe for exact measurements:


So as you see, you will need:


* pie crusts (yes I cheated - again, Trader Joe's is a good pre-made pie crust with as little junk as you will find in a pre-made pie crust.  Extra plus: I had this in the freezer and didn't even know it!  Note: though the Amish do occasionally shop in grocery stores, they probably would make their own)

From here there are two components to this recipe, the crumb part and the liquid part.  For the former, assemble:
* brown sugar (had it)
* flour (same)
* shortening (some recipes call for lard and/or butter, as Alton Brown's version on his molasses episode of Good Eats uses)

For the latter you will need:
* molasses (had a bottle of backstrap molasses in the pantry)
* salt (no, I didn't have this lying around.  That was snark.)
* cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger (I had most in ground form - had to grind the cloves myself)
* baking soda (had it too)
* hot water (not difficult to find)


Mix the brown sugar, flour and shortening together until well blended.


Like so.


Next, grind your spices if they need grinding.


Add the spices, salt and baking soda to your bowl.


Dump in your molasses.

And add hot water.


Mix the whole mess together.


Now for the pie crusts.  You only need one, to fit a 9 inch pie plate.  If you thaw it correctly, you won't need to roll it out.  I forgot this step, and so tried to cheat by blow drying it, on high.  [Yes, don't laugh.]  Needless to say, it didn't work, but with enough stopped and started blow drying it did soften the pie crust enough that I could roll out the various pieces that broke off as I tried to unroll it, and re-roll it out into a normal pie crust shape.  I could even make up for the few pieces I lost to the floor.


Looks good as new.  This is a little tedious, but the blow dryer and re-roll method is a viable shortcut if you forgot to thaw your pie crust.  Also I must point out that I got this method for rolling out pie dough between two pieces of plastic, wax paper or parchment paper from Adam Roberts, who suggested this on his Amateur Gourmet website.  I could not tell you when he posted this.  All I know is I got this from him.  So cred where cred is due.


Put the pie crust in the pie plate.


Crimp the edges and make it look all purty-like.


Now you're ready to assemble the pie.  Alternate crumb and liquid, making sure you both start and end with a crumb layer.


The easiest way for me to do it was crumb-liquid-crumb-liquid-crumb.


I went to the trouble of spreading out the crumbs all over the top.


You will bake this in two steps.  Start with a 450°F oven and bake for 15 minutes, then decrease the temperature to 350°F (I got there fast by both lowering the temperature and leaving the oven door open until it got there) for 20 minutes more.


Let it cool down, or just eat it piping hot.  Mmmm.  Burns from piping hot molasses.



This shoo fly pie is pretty much part and parcel what I would have expected from a shoo fly pie.  It tastes about the same, and feels that way too: gooey, ridiculously sweet and slightly salty, with a wonderfully flaky pie crust and a desperate need for some ice cream.  Again, the Amish are not eating health food.  Remember that, people.


Sources:

Amish America.  "What do Amish eat?"  Copyright 2010 Amish America, All rights reserved.

Amish Homestead Cookbook.  Tourist cookbook, date of publication unknown.

AmericanCivilWar.com.  "American Civil War Recipes: Union Hardtack and Confederate Johnnie Cakes".  Date unknown.  Copyright 1997-2012 AmericanCivilWar.com, maintained by Central Design Lab. All articles are public domain and clearly credit and link to the author when possible.

Batz, Bob, Jr. "Pittsburgh sticks with loving 'City Chicken'".  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, published March 30, 2012.  Copyright ©1997-2012 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved.

Brieda, Luboš.  "Potato Dumplings (Halušky)".  Slovak Cooking, posted November 3, 2009.  Updated March 24, 2010.  Copyright 2009-2011 Slovak Cooking.

Chowhound.com.  "Slicing Ribeye roast for philly cheese steak".  Discussion on "Home Cooking" board, Chowhound.com. Thread started September 6, 2008.

Pat's King of Steaks. "Pat's King of Steaks Philadelphia Cheese Steak".  Featured on the episode "Best Sandwiches" of the show The Best Of.  Food Network, 1999.

Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau.  "Pennsylvania Amish history & beliefs".  Copyright 2012 Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau, site maintained by Cimbrian.

Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.  Pennsylvania Cookbook Trail of History.  From the Editors of Stackpole Books and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, foreword by William Woys Weaver.  Stackpole Books: Mechanicsburg, PA, 2004.

Pittsburgh.About.com (About.com). "How to Make Haluski (Cabbage and Noodles)"  Date unknown.  Copyright 2012 About.com.  All rights reserved.

Robinson, Douglas.  "City Chicken".  Recipe in I Grew Up in Southwestern Pennsylvania: A Nostalgic Look at Growing Up in the Pittsburgh Region.  Recipe featured in the article "Pittsburgh sticks with loving 'City Chicken'" by Bob Batz, Jr. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, published March 30, 2012)

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Pennsylvania" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Pennsylvania".

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Snacking State-by-State: Pennsylvania II - A cheese steak just isn't a cheese steak... (or "The Philadelphia [Cheese Steak] Story")

When food fans thinks of Philadelphia, two things come to mind: cream cheese and cheese steaks (twice with the cheese).  I've eaten much more of the former, on bagels, in cheesecakes, even in maki rolls.  But the famous cheese steak is a sandwich I haven't eaten many of.  That changes below.

Official Name: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
State Nicknames: The Keystone State, The Quaker State
Admission to the US: December 12, 1787 (#2 - Delaware beat 'em to the punch)
Capital: Harrisburg (9th largest)
Other Important Cities: Philadelphia (largest), Pittsburgh (2nd largest), Allentown (3rd largest), Erie (4th largest)
Region: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest; Middle Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT NationsMaple SyrupClambakeCrabcakeChestnutWild Rice
Bordered by: Maryland & the Mason-Dixon Line (south), West Virginia (southwest), Ohio (west), Lake Erie (northwest), New York (north & northeast), New Jersey & the Delaware River (east), Delaware (southeast)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: white-tailed deer (animal), milk (beverage), ruffed grouse (bird), chocolate chip cookie (cookie), brook trout (fish)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: German & Amish foods; Polish & Eastern European foods; pretzels, water ice, hoagies & Philly cheese steaks (particular to Philadelphia); city chicken, halupki halušky, chipped ham, kielbasa (particular to Pittsburgh); scrapple; Hershey's chocolates; birch beer; Herr's Potato Chips, Hanover Pretzels & (yes) Utz Potato Chips; people (if you're an extra in a George Romero movie, that is - the big ones were all filmed near Pittsburgh)

Swing from western PA to eastern PA, and discuss the foods of Philadelphia, city of brotherly love.  This includes pretzels, water ice and of course Philly cheese steaks.

I've been to Philly enough - it's just two hours up 95 after all.  And yes, I've eaten a lot up there: Egyptian food, Irish food, ice cream, hot dogs, a myriad of plates full of whatever at the Reading Terminal Market (just before a visit to the Franklin Institute, or after a visit to the creeptastic Mütter Museum no less).  But I haven't really ever tried the cheese steaks.  This has spared me from making the fateful choice between the city's fabled competing cheese steak stands, Pat's vs Geno's (or were they actually fighting?  Maybe not after all...)  Yes, I know I'm not from Philly, and yes, I know that Baltimore, with its weird mish-mash of Northern, Southern and generic Chesapeake foods, is a major hub for "Philly (style) cheese steaks.  But since i haven't eaten many in Philly, I can only assume that ours are mere shadows of the real thing.  Probably the same can be said for the one I made below.  Actually scratch that - I know you can say that.

But I wasn't sure just how easy or difficult it was to make a Philadelphia cheese steak.  It can indeed be done - whole online forums are devoted to the subject.  The matter they debate is not about assembly, or even whether to use provolone or Cheez Whiz.  They debate how to slice the meat, and what meat to use.  Most forums, such as this one on Chowhound, specify a rib eye roast of at least a few pounds.  The rib eye roast, which is apparently the most tender to use, needs to be at least partially frozen to enable easier slicing.   In addition, the forums recommend a meat slicer.  I know my family has one, but I have no idea where this thing is.  And I don't have an extra $70 - $300 to buy a new one.  So a $20 electric knife will have to do.

The Recipe: Philadelphia Cheese Steak


The recipe I use is from Pat's King of Steaks.  They give an easy recipe to the Food Network that I attempt to replicate below.  You will need:


* beef roast (preferably rib eye; I got about 1 3/4 lbs of eye round for about $4 a pound)
* vegetable oil to fry up the veggies in; I had this)
* onion (had one)
* mushrooms ($2.50 for a small tub)
* green & red bell peppers (at first I planned to buy one each, roast them and fry them in oil, but buying the jar of pre-roasted pre-oiled peppers for about the same price - $4 - and this saved me an extra step or two at that)
* provolone and/or Cheez Whiz (I had neither, and wanted to try the cheese steak using both.  A half pound of provolone was about $4, as was one jar of Cheez Whiz, which I didn't realize was in the refrigerated section)
* ketchup (had it)
* Italian rolls (a package at Harris Teeter was another four bucks) 


First, leave your roast, uncooked, in the freezer for at least a few hours.  This will make it easier to carve.  Even after leaving it in for two hours, it didn't really get too hard.  I tried it in a semi-semi-frozen state.


I knew going in that the beef would never be truly as thin as I wanted it to be, since I didn't have a hand slicer.  But I did try my best to get it as thin as possible.


The pieces wound up being about this thin.  So already this won't be as thin as I want it.  But it's as good as I will get it.


Next, slice an onion thinly.


Heat some vegetable oil on a flat surface - a griddle, a grill or (once again) my trusty 12" cast iron skillet.


Fry the onions until slightly brown.


When they get like this, remove them...


...so you can fry the beef.


It won't take long to cook the beef through, though had the beef been thinner it probably would've cooked faster.



I wanted to try the cheese steaks with both provolone and Cheez Whiz.  The provolone is easy to use: just put it on the cheese steak.  But I don't usually work with Cheez Whiz, so I had to go the extra step of heating it up to a pourable consistency in the microwave.  I found that I had to reheat it since it re-solidified by the time I needed it.  That's just not natural, dude.


Take out the beef and cook the mushrooms.


Add the peppers, and what the hell, add the onions too.  Pat's recipe does not say to cook the onions with mushrooms or peppers.  It assumes those are already cooked.


Now to assemble your cheese steak.  First place the meat on your Italian roll, which of have to cut in half of course.


Next add the onions (had I cooked them separately, the mushrooms and peppers would go on last).


Then comes the cheese.  I decided to make half provolone and half Cheez Whiz, and divide the sandwich in half..


Top this with a little ketchup.  This didn't look right but the recipe never said where exactly to put it, so there it goes.


There you have it: my own version of Pat's King of Steaks' cheese steak.  Granted it's certainly nothing like the original, or their competitor's version.  I found it kind of messy to eat - had I put it inside some sort of paper wrapping I could have kept it from falling apart.  It didn't completely fall apart, though a few bits of beef did fall out, or off, here and there.  It was a jam-packed sub, that's for sure.  The beef was a little chewy, which would not have been a problem had I been able to slice it thinner.  As to the question of provolone vs Cheez Whiz?  I have to go with the provolone.  I found the Cheez Whiz to be surprisingly bland.  In comparison, provolone is too, but I just liked it better.  That said, I now have a jar of Cheez Whiz I need to find something to do with.

Sources:

Amish America.  "What do Amish eat?"  Copyright 2010 Amish America, All rights reserved.

Amish Homestead Cookbook.  Tourist cookbook, date of publication unknown.

AmericanCivilWar.com.  "American Civil War Recipes: Union Hardtack and Confederate Johnnie Cakes".  Date unknown.  Copyright 1997-2012 AmericanCivilWar.com, maintained by Central Design Lab. All articles are public domain and clearly credit and link to the author when possible.

Batz, Bob, Jr. "Pittsburgh sticks with loving 'City Chicken'".  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, published March 30, 2012.  Copyright ©1997-2012 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved.

Brieda, Luboš.  "Potato Dumplings (Halušky)".  Slovak Cooking, posted November 3, 2009.  Updated March 24, 2010.  Copyright 2009-2011 Slovak Cooking.

Chowhound.com.  "Slicing Ribeye roast for philly cheese steak".  Discussion on "Home Cooking" board, Chowhound.com. Thread started September 6, 2008.

Pat's King of Steaks. "Pat's King of Steaks Philadelphia Cheese Steak".  Featured on the episode "Best Sandwiches" of the show The Best Of.  Food Network, 1999.

Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau.  "Pennsylvania Amish history & beliefs".  Copyright 2012 Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau, site maintained by Cimbrian.

Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.  Pennsylvania Cookbook Trail of History.  From the Editors of Stackpole Books and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, foreword by William Woys Weaver.  Stackpole Books: Mechanicsburg, PA, 2004.

Pittsburgh.About.com (About.com). "How to Make Haluski (Cabbage and Noodles)"  Date unknown.  Copyright 2012 About.com.  All rights reserved.

Robinson, Douglas.  "City Chicken".  Recipe in I Grew Up in Southwestern Pennsylvania: A Nostalgic Look at Growing Up in the Pittsburgh Region.  Recipe featured in the article "Pittsburgh sticks with loving 'City Chicken'" by Bob Batz, Jr. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, published March 30, 2012)

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Pennsylvania" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Pennsylvania".