Author discovers oldest shoofly pie recipe in 1881 cookbook

At least, that’s how Tom Kerschner describes his journey.

Since 2020, this retired journalist has been passionate about food history.

“The rich flavor of the recipe remains from the 19th and 20th centuries,” the Carlisle man said. “You can ask for a recipe, make it, and get the same taste that people enjoyed all those years ago.”

Mr. Kerchner was sitting upstairs at his computer, skimming through the contents of the Cumberland Valley Cook and General Recipe Book, when he found a delightful tidbit, a refreshing moment.

In front of him was probably the oldest documented recipe for shoofly pie, a molasses and breadcrumb breakfast dish made famous by the Pennsylvania Dutch.

Mr. Ketchner couldn’t contain his excitement. He went downstairs to find her wife and told her about his discovery of her. Memories of home and family were revived.

“We’ve been making shoefly pies all our lives…both of us,” Kerchner said. “My wife remembers her mother, her grandmother and aunts cooking for her.”

He made this discovery during a personal quest to research the history of community cookbooks. Although the title suggested its birthplace in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, the edition Kerchner found was published in Topeka, Kansas, in 1881.

“Now, wait a second. …What does this mean?” he recalled asking himself. Well-versed in research, Kerchner turned to messages.com, his online archive of digitized publications. He also delved into the resources available at the Cumberland County Historical Society in downtown Carlisle.

Kerchner used what he learned to write a preface to a new edition detailing the background of the Cumberland Valley Cookbook and included a facsimile copy of the 1881 contents. Copies of his books are available for purchase at History on High, the historical society’s gift shop.

The cookbook began as a project for JB Morrow, editor of the Newville newspaper Star and Enterprise. Morrow had placed an ad seeking recipes from women in Cumberland County.

“The deal was that any local woman who submitted three or more recipes would receive a free copy of the cookbook once it was completed,” Kelchner said. “Moreau hoped to have it completed by the end of 1875.”

The response was so great that the editors had to postpone production of the cookbook. “When it was finally published in 1876, it was so popular that a second edition was published in 1878,” Kerchner said.

Ironically, the only surviving copy of this material is a bootleg edition published in Kansas in 1881, which listed J.A. Graham as the sole agent. Graham was Morrow’s brother-in-law.

During his research, Kerchner learned that Pennsylvanians migrated to Kansas in large numbers in the 1870s. According to the Oxford History of the American West, the lure of cheap farmland was a major factor in the exodus.

“Most of the people were farmers,” Kerchner said. “They had large families. When the children grew up and wanted to own a farm, there was limited farmland available in Pennsylvania. Kansas was wide open.”

Graham, a Civil War veteran, was a struggling businessman in civilian life. He was caught up in a wave of migration to Kansas, where he started a butcher shop, which burned down in 1881.

Kerchner said Graham took a copy of the cookbook to Kansas and at some point gave it to a printer and said, “Here, print this.” Perhaps Graham wanted to make a profit by selling his recipes to people who immigrated to Pennsylvania from the Keystone State.

An 1881 cookbook includes two recipes for shoofly pie, traditionally considered a Pennsylvania Dutch dish. In fact, according to Pennsylvania food historian William Woys Weaver, this pie was probably derived from a Centennial cake made by a New York City chef for the Centennial celebration in Philadelphia in 1876. It is said that it has evolved.

“If that’s the case, the two newbill recipes date back to the time the dish was invented,” Kerchner says. “References to Centennial Pie and Shoefly Pie began appearing in newspaper lists of winners of pie-baking contests at county fairs in Columbia and Union counties in the late 1880s. [of Pennsylvania]”

The earliest known recipe for shoofly pie was found in a Pennsylvania source from around 1890. Mark H. Zanger, a Boston-based food historian writing for the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, says of the shoo fly pie: The recipe is published in the Talent Cookbook, published by Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Mount Carmel, Northumberland County.

Kerchner said Weaver believes the name comes from a traveling performer called “Shoofly the Boxing Mule,” who was very popular in Pennsylvania Dutch circles. “I’m not going to ask academic historians, but there was a variety of molasses called hash molasses.”

During his research, Kerchner found a newspaper ad for Martin’s Bakery in Danville, Montour County, titled “100th Anniversary Shoefly Rum Pie.”

“The name was still floating around in 1910 or 1911,” Kerchner said. “The bakery very wisely tried to cover all possibilities even back then.”

Kerchner, a Navy veteran and Shippensburg University graduate, was a newspaper reporter for six years before working in public relations and technical writing. At one point, he served as administrative manager for the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet in Carlisle.

His first book, To Great Grandmother’s House We Go: American Comfort Food from the ’70s, ’60s and Before, was published in 2020. Since then, he has also written the first and second editions of Chicamacomico Cookery, which details recipes for the dish. An island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Mr. Kerchner blogs about the food and drinks in his daily life at PaFoodLife.com.