“The kinkling and the doughnut die, The pancake and the waffle cease, But now doth come the rhubarb pie, Oh, may I have another piece?”
— Baltimore Sun 1910
The Germans who colonized Western Maryland in the 1700s brought with them devout Christianity — primarily Lutheranism and Calvinism. But where one scratches the surface of devout Christianity, one often finds a little bit of Paganism hiding out, and Carnival season might be one of the times when the old ways are less hidden (despite the masks.)
Fat Tuesday aka Fastnacht happens to coincide with a time when a feast may have taken place among Germanic tribes, a celebration to drive away winter and usher in Spring fertility and sunlight.
This became the festivities referenced by Shakespeare in his 1601 play The Merchant of Venice: “Nor thrust your head into the public street To gaze on Christian fools with varnish’d faces.”
Although the area along the Monocacy River that Germans settled was a fertile region, it could also be a harsh and isolated one. There weren’t a lot of public streets to thrust one’s head into, and many of the social aspects of Carnival were left to the old world.
But not the sweet treats.
Fastnacht doughnuts famously took on the name “Kinklings” in Western Maryland and became a beloved tradition beyond the German communities where they originated.
An 1889 advertisement in the Frederick News touted “Golden Tinge” flour. “Next week will be fastnacht,” reminded the ad, “so all ye good housekeepers fill up your barrels.”
The same newspaper warned elsewhere that “old wiseacres say if you don’t make kinklins today you will have bed bugs all the year.” Who could risk that?
Eventually, churches and bakers helped people avoid the bedbugs with less hassle by selling fresh kinklings. One baker advertised that he would “have them delivered hot.”
Mrs. Eva Reeder shared her recipe in a cookbook produced in the 1970s by St. Mark Lutheran Church in Adamstown.
“Today is Kinkling Day and the smell of hot grease and fresh kinklings permeates many homes. Some people say that for good luck some of the kinklings must be fed to the chickens. This is done in a lot of
cases, but in most instances the housewife would rather do the eating.
Others declare that today is pancake day, and that tomorrow is kinkling day. Those interested can settle it among themselves.” – The Frederick news, Tuesday March 7, 1916
While Louisiana has its world-famous Mardi Gras traditions, Maryland is not without our own rituals in preparation for Lent, and as with other regional traditions, they have been woven into the cultural fiber well beyond their religious context or national origin.
Atwaters Bakery may be peddling exotic King Cakes at me but I’ll take a Polish pączek from Krakus Deli or a German fastnacht, thank you. Much like scrapple, the latter is yet another Pennsylvania Dutch food that is as much a part of Maryland as it is anywhere.
Frederick News 1932
“Fasnachts were made as a way to empty the pantry of lard, sugar, fat, and butter, which were traditionally fasted from during Lent.” – Wikipedia
In Western Maryland, where they go by the unique name “Kinklings,” these cousins-of-doughnuts are celebrated with an annual flutter of news mentions and a rush on bakeries for “Kinkling Day.”
“‘Eat a doughnut on Shrove Tuesday,’ say the Pennsylvania Dutch, ‘and live a year longer.’
Maryland Germans whose ancestors, like the Pennsylvania Dutch, came from the Palatinate, need no reminder that Tuesday is Fastnacht Day. By this time, they either have stocked the pantry shelf with the necessary ingredients for home-made fastnachts or they have placed an order with one of the bakeries that still make the real things.” – Baltimore Sun, 1958
I remember occasionally hearing my mother and her sisters mentioning the “Fox Nocks” they ate for dinner once a year. Quite a few newspaper-sourced recipes have made their way into decades worth of my family’s meals and apparently this is one of them. My guess is that the article my grandmother got the recipe from was “Doughnuts Everybody Remembers” from January 1963.
We worked with my aunts approximation of this recipe. In the future I would probably complete one of the rises in a refrigerator overnight for convenient timing.
Despite the indulgent premise, fasnachts are actually less sweet than doughnuts. You’ll notice the relatively small amount of sugar in the recipe, although they are rolled in cinnamon sugar on the outside.
One source of confusion for us was the proper method for creating the dough indentations. My aunt remembered them being really stretched out and thin in the middle, my cousin preferred to press the centers in and leave the sides nice and puffy “like little bathtubs.”
When I located the news article it appeared to side with my aunt but we all agreed that the little bathtubs turned out very nice.
This didn’t exactly rid the kitchen of fats, as I now have a gallon of used oil in my kitchen, begging for things to be fried in it.
So much for Lenten fasting…
Recipe:
1 medium potato, peeled and cubed
2 cups salted water
½ cup sugar
1 envelope dry yeast
¼ cup warm water
¼ cup shortening
2 eggs, well beaten
6 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
Dissolve yeast in the ¼ cup of warm water, adding a pinch of the sugar. Set aside. Cook potato in the salted water until tender. Drain, reserving 1 ½ cups of the water. While the water is still warm, slowly whisk in shortening so it melts. Mash potato & beat in sugar. Add eggs and salt, mixing well. Gradually add hot potato-shortening water. If the mixture has cooled to lukewarm, beat in yeast and then gradually stir in flour until dough is smooth, satin-y, and pulls away from sides of bowl. Knead until smooth and elastic. Place in greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled in bulk – about 2 ½ hours at room temperature or overnight in the fridge.
Punch down and remove to floured surface to knead further. Divide into two halves, form each into rectangle and roll to about 1/3-inch thick. Cut into 2 inch squares & place on baking sheets to rise again until doubled in bulk.
Pick up each square and press & stretch the center until the center is thin. Fry in hot oil or lard (375°), turning once to brown. Drain on paper towels & shake in a bag of sugar (optional: cinnamon sugar) while still hot.
“In Maryland, Cruller, Doughnut, and Fossnock are synonyms.” – questionable information from “Americanisms–old & New”, 1889
My first inklings of Maryland’s varied Easter traditions came from the Southern Heritage Cookbook Library. A menu for a “Southern Maryland Easter Dinner” featured Southern Maryland Stuffed Ham, Creamed Red Potatoes, Baked Tomato Halves, Frilly Deviled Eggs, Biscuits Supreme and Cardinal Pudding. It features this apocryphal account of Stuffed Ham:
Of course as with many such things, Southern Maryland stuffed ham has a likely slave origin. Stuffed Ham was new to me but as I sampled the various offerings of Raleys, Murphy’s, WJ Dent and other local purveyors, it fast became a favorite. Much has been written about stuffed ham, with more to come, and it will certainly be revisited on Old Line Plate (i hope!).
As fats get eaten up for Lent you will find an array of delicious doughnuts hit the scene. Recipes for fasnachts appear in several old Maryland cookbooks, sometimes under varied names like “fost nock”, or fossnock. Bafflingly, fasnachts go by the name of “Kinkling” in the Frederick area. Not bafflingly, they receive much fanfare.
Baltimore’s large Eastern European population offered contributions and variations on Easter Season menu. Burgersub introduced me to Pączki, another kind of doughnut, for sale in Baltimore. You just have to know where to look.
“The cry of “Who’s got an egg?” would bring youngsters out of their homes, ready to do battle with hard-boiled eggs dyed in shades of blue and pink and yellow.
The game, which today endures around Easter tables in certain families, worked like this:
One kid wrapped a fist around his egg, leaving only the point exposed through a hole between his thumb and index finger. The challenger used the point of his egg to aggressively tap his foe’s egg until one of the shells cracked. The eggs were then turned over and the game repeated with the butt end of the eggs.
The stronger egg would usually win at both ends, and the owner of the weaker egg would forfeit the ovum that had failed him. If there was a draw, the uncracked point would battle the uncracked butt. The loser surrendered his egg.
‘Picking eggs was a big thing around the neighborhoods, I don’t really know where it started,’ said Gene DeCarlo Sr., 68, who keeps the tradition alive in Highlandtown with his grandchildren. ‘You’ve got to remember, in them days eggs weren’t as plentiful as they are now. You won a hard-boiled egg from another kid – that was something good to eat.’
Old-timers remember the sight of champions running the alleys with the pockets of their Easter Sunday trousers bulging with eggs.
‘I think picking eggs was just something they did around Baltimore,’ said Dorothy Kraft, 68, who grew up on Decker Avenue. ‘I never heard of out-of-towners doing it.’
For generations it was part of local Easter along with cakes that looked like chickens and lumps of butter shaped like lambs; pre-dawn street processions with Easter lilies; taking baskets of food to church to be blessed; boys chasing girls on Easter Monday – known to some as “dingus day” – to beat them on the legs with switches; sunrise services at Memorial Stadium; and the annual Easter parades along Charles Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.”
There’s a lot more to Maryland than Catholicism and a lot more Easter traditions to look into but its kind of hard to tear myself away from hams and doughnuts.
