C2—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 11,1981
Kutztown Folk Festival
BY LAUREL SCHAEFFER
Staff Correspondent
Between June 27 and July 5 of
this year, Ray P. Hauer will have
baked nearly 3,000 loaves of bread
in an ancient outdoor bake oven.
Hauer, known more familiarly
as “Pappy” has been firing and
tending the bake oven located on
the Kutztown Fair Grounds, during
the annual Folk Festival, for the
past twelve years.
Relying only on experience
acquired over the years - without
the use of modem day ther
mometers or temperature
regulators - Pappy has tended the
oven, baking thousands upon
thousands of loaves of bread for
visitors from as far away as
Virginia, Connecticut, and
Wisconsin, and possibly even
foreign lands for years.
Raised on a farm near Myer
stown, Hauer has spent his entire
life in and around the area and
speaks fluent Dutch to the women
preparing the dough he will bake.
Asked how he came to be oven
tender for the Kutztown Folk
Festival bake oven, Hauer simply
remarked that one of the women
mixing the dough got him involved.
And he has been returning, year
after year, continuing part of a
tradition of the folk festival which
has been going on for the past
thirty-two years.
At just about anytime during the
nine-day affair, Hauer can be seen
puttering around the old outdoor
bakeoven.
“It’s not hard,” he remarked
while chopping some scrap wood to
be used to fire the oven, “but you
can’t go off to see the other sights
either.”
Heated with wood and relying on
the retained heat of the stone walls
and base of the oven to bake the
bread, Hauer must replenish the
heat after each baking. He
“watches” the heat of the oven but
usually doesn’t worry about it.
“It just takes practice,” he says
casually. “You just use less wood if
you’re baking less bread.”
The oven Hauer has mastered
(omes^ead
ttiies
Ivan Barnett displays his handmade weathervanes in jpst
one of the many stands at the festival. .
offers fen, variety, crafts
can hold as many as forty-one
loaves of bread at one time, but he
bakes only the number needed.
The average time needed to bake
the bread is about twenty-five
minutes but if a small batch is
being baked, they may be done in
twenty.
To fire the oven for the first day
of baking, Hauer builds a wood fire
in the oven at the same place the
bread will be baked, opening a flue
to the chimney. After a couple of
hours, usually about three, Hauer
rakes the fire apart, closes the flue
and cleans out the embers by
raking them down a chute in front
of the oven to an ash pit located on
the side.
Now the oven is ready to bake
the bread. Hauer then places the
bread in the oven by using a long
handled wooden paddle called a
“peel”. He closes the. cast iron
oven door and allows the bread to
bake.
Since the oven retains heat for a
long period of time, replenishing
the lost heat takes only a short
time before the oven is hot enough
to bake another batch. By the end
of the day several hundred loaves
will have been baked and sold to
many of the people attending the
Folk Festival.
During the remaining eight days
of the festival, Hauer must only
fire the oven for about one hour
before starting the first batch of
the day the oven is still warm
from the previous day’s firing.
While “Pappy" is preparing the
oven for the day’s baking, four or
five other people are busy inside
their screened-in kitchen mixing
and kneading, pan after pan, of
their aromatic delicacy.
Starting at 7 a.m., the first bread
emerges from the bakeoven at
about II a.m. usually before the
intrigued eyes of visitors are lored
to the vicinity by the aroma of
baking yeast. Many are seeing
“homebaked” bread for the first
time; or at least for the first time
in an ancient outdoor bakeoven as
many of their ancestors may have
done.
Skilled by years of experience and
much practice, several of the
women have won awards in baking
contests for their superb bread.
Working at the festival, Ellen
Zerbe of Robesoma is the longest
at baking bread. Mrs. Zerbe has
been preparing dough for the
Festival visitors for 24 years. She
also enjoys baking bread at home
and has been known to have her
prize-winning product for sale.
This year’s kitchen foreman,
Lillian Snyder, has also made a
name for herself as a skilled bread
baker. Even though she has only
helped at the Festival for the past
four years, Mrs. Snyder won the
baking contest at the Kempton
Fair last year and placed second
this year. Snyder is from
sville and enjoys baking raised'
cakes, and fasnachts as well.
The bakeoven and kitchen where
the bread is produced has been run
by the Folk Festival Society itself
up until four years ago. Since that
time however private en
terprenuers have managed it. This
year it was run by Richard Shaner
of Fleetwood who also managed Jt
last year.
The same bread recipe has been
used every year. This year whole
wheat bread was added to the
white and rye breads baked at the
Festival. This stand also has been
used to prepare dinners and pies
but has come to specialize in the
bread much to the liking of the
women. It got too hectic when too
many activities were trying to be
accomplished at once, the par
ticipants said.
Although only running the
bakeoven for the past two years,
Shaner has been associated with
the Folk Festival for over .twenty
years. He also has a Seminar Stage
Program each afternoon at the
Folk Festival and resides in
Fleetwood.
The bakeoven and its homemade
products were only one of the more
than two hundred crafts on display
at the Folk Festival this summer.
Another craft taking more skill
and talent, and not widely prac
tices as an essential in everyday
Me, is the art of Fraktur.
Originating in Germany,
Fraktur is a decorative style of
lettering. It is a continuation of the
Medieval art of manuscript
illumination, and was practiced
more or less as an occupation by
certain members of the Amish
* *
Fraktur, a decorative style of writing, Lancaster. She developed a style all her own
practiced by the Amish to record special and uses this unique writing to letter hand
events, was displayed by Meryl Griffiths of made plaques.
The women making the dough
have many years of experience
attributed to their craft as well.
* 'L
w
*•* • *
*»* • ♦
jg up
turning out some of the 3,000 loaves of bread that were
baked this week at the Kutztown Folk Festival is Ray “Pappy”
Hauer.
Lillian Snyder, left, and Cindy Rothermei knead the dough
that will be used to bake bread for the visitors at the annual
Kutztown Folk Festival held between June 27 and July 5.
community to certify important
family events such as births,
baptisms, weddings or m teaching.
Even though it was finally
replaced by the printing press,
some Fraktur -was practiced
during the early nineteen hun
dreds. Most people practicing the
art were school masters or
ministers who would travel from
farm to farm updating bibles or the
like as a supplement to their in
comes.
Meryl Griffiths of Lancaster has
mastered the art and has many of
her creations on display during the
festival. Mrs. Griffiths became
mterested in the craft six and one
half years ago after returning from
the Midwest to the area to live.
Even though she doesn’t have any
Pennsylvania Dutch background,
Griffiths found this craft very
untieing and has made it a part of
her life.
Developing a style from her own
handwriting, she practices the art
as it was done by the early Amish.
Original work was done in pastel
colors, as is hers.
Being an individual kind of craft,
Fraktur prints can be identified
with their original creator by their
unique style.
Other than for just recording
important events, the craft was
also used to decorate song books or
for just fun. Along with the let-
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