My most recent trip to Old Salem involved learning how to make paste paper and cooking a traditional German meal on the hearth. Using colored paste (made of corn or rice starch and water) to decorate paper was a popular craft of the Moravians, who used the paper mainly as book covers. Wooden block stamps or combing tools can be used to make sophisticated designs, but in its most primitive form, making paste paper is really like finger painting. I also enjoyed getting to cook for the first time on the Miksch house hearth, which is TINY compared to the expansive plantation kitchen hearth at Exchange Place. Our menu included cumin beef, parsley dumplings, savoy cabbage cooked in cream, and raw cabbage dressed with vinaigrette--all recipes from 17th and 18th century German cookbooks. The results were beautiful and delicious. (Thomas especially enjoyed the leftovers the following day.)
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| Materials for paste paper making |
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| Finished products |
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| Finished products |
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| Finished products |
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Ingredients for cumin beef, including "tree" onions from the
Miksch garden and a leek from my own garden |
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| Cindy stirring the cumin beef in the spider |
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| Grating stale bread for the dumplings |
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| "Raw" dumplings waiting to be boiled |
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| Gesegnete Mahlzeit! |
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