Lovina’s Amish Kitchen
Lovina Eitcher,
Old Order Amish
Cook, Wife &
Mother of Eight
It is already mid-forenoon and I feel like I’m running behind. I have so much to do before Joe and I leave tomorrow.
Joe’s workplace is taking their employees and their spouses and children under age 16 to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, over Thanksgiving Day. Two Crossroad buses will take all of us. There will be 56 people on our bus. It is an eight-and-a-half-hour drive from the start-out point to Gatlinburg. Joe and I have never been to the Smoky Mountains, so it will be nice to see them.
It was our turn to host Thanksgiving dinner this year for our Michigan family, but we will be gone over that time. It wouldn’t have worked out for sister Emma’s family either, with Steven still pretty weak from his surgery.
Nephew Steven, 17, spent last week in the hospital after having spinal fusion surgery for scoliosis. This is a major surgery, and with Steven also having muscular dystrophy, it takes the muscles longer to recuperate. He will have some long days, and so does sister Emma with being his caregiver. He needs to be turned over every hour or so.
Sunday afternoon, Joe and I went to visit him. Emma’s family were all there as well, and so was sister Verena. Then Dustin and daughter Loretta and sons and daughter Verena and her special friend Daniel Ray also came to visit Steven.
Saturday evening, son Joseph and Grace, daughter Lovina and Daniel, and son Benjamin spent the evening there as well. Nephew Benjamin was excited to shoot his first deer—an 8-point buck. So of course the men all stood around telling “deer” stories!
Our Friday night and Saturday were busy butchering two pigs. One was for Daniel and Lovina and the other one for us. Son-in-laws Dustin and Daniel dressed the two pigs on Thursday evening since they had to work on Friday. Then on Friday night, all the meat was cut from the bones. The bacon, pork loins, hams, and so on were cut out.
Saturday morning they started a fire under the big kettle to cook meat from the bones so we could make ponhoss. Ponhoss, also known as scrapple, is a mush made from pork, flour or cornmeal, and spices. We pick the cooked meat off the bones and put it through the grinder. The water the bones were cooked in is then measured and poured back into the kettle along with the ground meat. The mixture is then thickened with flour and seasoned with black pepper and salt.
Daniel and Lovina used flour and cornmeal and different seasonings for their ponhoss. It turned out a little too spicy for my taste. Everyone has their different tastes and opinions on how to make ponhoss, but I prefer seasoning with good old salt and pepper.
The sausage was also ground, seasoned, and bagged. My husband Joe sliced the meat, and it was all bagged and put in the freezer. Daniel has their bacon and ours soaking in a brine he mixed up for a few days before we slice it up. The lard was also rendered and turned out really nice and white.
I am so thankful to have sausage in the freezer again. We were out of it, though I still had canned sausage. We are enjoying ponhoss and fresh sausage again.
Dustin and Loretta, Joseph and Grace, and Daniel Ray also helped with the butchering of the pigs. We were glad once the last piece was washed up and we could call it a day.
As Thanksgiving Day draws near, let us thank God for the many blessings we have. Thank God every day, not only on Thanksgiving Day. Wishing all of you God’s blessings as well!
Ponhoss
For more information on ponhoss, see the story “Busy Butchering Days” in my most recent cookbook, The Cherished Table.
Pork bones
Water
Flour
Salt
Black pepper
Place pork bones in a large kettle and add enough water to cover. Cook until the meat comes off the bones. Remove bones and skim fat from broth. Measure the quantity of broth remaining. Return meat to broth. (We grind the meat before returning it to the broth.)
Then add 4 cups of flour for every gallon of broth, sifting in the flour, as well as 2 tablespoons salt and 1 tablespoon black pepper per gallon of broth. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened, then pour into pans. Let cool, then slice loaves as desired. Fry slices on each side until golden brown.
Lovina’s Amish Kitchen is written by Lovina Eicher, Old Order Amish writer, cook, wife, and mother of eight. Her three cookbooks, The Cherished Table, The Essential Amish Cookbook, and Amish Family Recipes, are available wherever books are sold. Readers can write to Eicher at Lovina’s Amish Kitchen, PO Box 234, Sturgis, MI 49091 (please include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply); or email [email protected] and your message will be passed on to her to read. She does not personally respond to emails.
