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Regional foods can often take us back to our childhoods. Nowhere is that more real for the author than Central Pennsylvania. Read on for some of the best Central PA food and where to find it.
I moved to Alaska at 18, about as far from my childhood central PA home as you can get without leaving the country, and to me, just as foreign. I missed my friends, my family, and the old haunts, but what really fueled the blues were memories of the central Pennsylvania food. Everyday meals I took for granted were completely unheard of. No turkey sandwiches with fries and gravy, no noodles with brown butter, no dippy eggs for breakfast. Okay, you could get dippy eggs, but you had to ask for “eggs over light.” Come along for some of the best Central PA food you’ll have to try on your next visit.
To Market, to Market with Mom
Every year when I went home, I made sure to get my fill. Mom knew there was no chicken pot pie or ham and beans with ribbles or even tuna subs, and she always kept the fridge stocked for me. And she roused me from my sleep every Saturday to visit the Lebanon Farmer’s Market. There, as she browsed the meat counter for the perfect Del Monaco steaks, I awakened to the rediscovery of the indulgences of my youth. Red beet eggs! Shoofly pie! Opera fudge! Whoopie pies!
Red Beet Eggs are a childhood favorite. Photo by Lori Tobias
Childhood Memories of Central PA Food
Each encounter was like an unexpected meeting with a dear old friend. Not just because it was all so darned good but the memories. I did my homework in the family booth at Mom’s diner over a plate of haddock with brown butter. We bought barbecued chicken in foil bags from a parking lot grill fired up for a school fundraiser. Summer days found me eating Lebanon bologna sandwiches layered with butter and potato chips at the backyard picnic table. While some goodies have made their way west, cellophane-covered packages of whoopie pies can’t compete with freshly made confection hand-wrapped one at a time.
Lebanon Bologna in its many forms. Photo by Lori Tobias
The PA Town Chocolate Calls Home
My Mom has been gone a little more than a decade. Now, when I make my yearly journey home, it is to Hershey, about 11 miles from where I grew up in Lebanon County. But no matter where I unpack my bags, my visits are still driven by the near-giddy expectation of the comfort foods of my youth.
The Central PA Sweetest of Sweets
I land in Hershey just before Easter. The Lebanon Farmer’s Market has moved several blocks from its former location but is still packed with the foods I remember.
Lebanon Farmers Market in historic downtown Lebanon. Photo by Lori Tobias
Given the time of year, there is an abundance of candy, including opera fudge. I’ve lived all over the US and have yet to encounter the rich sweetness of a sugar and vanilla concoction coated in pure chocolate liquor anywhere but in central PA.
Van Winkles is one of the favored Opera Fudge makers. Photo By Lori Tobias
The Origins of Opera Fudge
As best I can figure out, opera fudge originated with the German or Swiss who took it to the opera to indulge in during intermission. Today, you’ll find the candy in one-or two-pound boxes filled with small individual candies, but the opera fudge of my childhood came in a one-pound egg. It was personalized with my name and the centerpiece of my Easter basket. My mom ordered the eggs from Wertz Candies, set at the same spot on Lebanon’s Cumberland Street since 1931. When shopping downtown, this was also the place we stopped for licorice wheels, nonpareils, and caramel corn, its sweet scent beckoning long before we arrived.
A Bittersweet So Long?
Over the years, I’ve had Wertz Candies ship boxes of opera fudge to Seattle, Denver, and Alaska. But on this visit home, I learned the store is on the market, and it seems another childhood landmark will soon be gone.
Long-time candy maker Wertz Candies in downtown Lebanon. Photo Courtesy Wertz Candies
Shoofly and Whoopie Pies
Driving back from Lebanon to Hershey, I detour over to Route 322 in Annville for a stop at the Risser-Marvel Farm Market & Corn Maze. The market is a local favorite for its fall corn maze and pumpkins. Here, I find baskets of fresh vegetables, jars of chow chow, red beets, sauerkraut, and clear toy suckers. Also, individually wrapped whoopie pies in numerous flavors, including, new to me, shoofly pie. I’ve known the molasses and brown sugar with crumbly topping delicacy as a pie, but a whoopie pie? I’ve had my limit of sweets for the day, but I’m betting a shoofly whoopie pie is pretty tasty—and sweet!
One of many flavors of Whoopie Pies at Risser-Marvel Farm Market & Corn Maze. Photo by Lori Tobias
The 100-year-old Central PA Food Tradition
Back on Route 422, also in Annville, I make one last stop for the day at Laudermilch Meats, in business since 1919. As the name suggests, the specialty here is meat, including their own Lebanon Bologna—sweet or smoked—scrapple, sausages, and double-smoked hams. But Laudermilch’s is much more than meat. Their shelves and coolers hold boxed opera fudge, peanut butter, or original; frozen slabs of haddock; homemade noodles, including pot pie squares; homemade ham salad and freshly made subs. And a long list of other things.
More than meats, Laudersmilch is a deli and bakery. Photo courtesy Laudermilchs
The Friendship Founded in Cookies and Milk
I save my visit to the new Fresh Market at Hershey Towne Square for an outing with my best friend since third grade. Not surprisingly, the two of us bonded over, yep, food. I didn’t drink milk, which Tamah couldn’t get enough of. So, at lunch, we traded—my carton of milk for her mom’s homemade oatmeal cookies. The story of our friendship has made for many laughs and inspired a few gifts. But most memorable was the welcome at a Portland hotel, when the manager sent cookies and milk to our room.
The food that brought two Central PA kids together. Photo by Lori Tobias
A Fresh Market in Hershey
And this year, my visit comes with the bonus of a new market. Fresh Market at Hershey Towne Square has just opened next door to Hershey Park, as much a part of my youth as opera fudge and Lebanon Bologna.
We pull into the Fresh Market at Hershey Towne Square on Saturday afternoon. The offerings are similar to the other markets, with the addition of a brewery, winemaker, and the Midstate Distillery—“Harrisburg’s First Distillery since Prohibition.” The distillery offers samples of their small-batch gin, vodka, whiskey, and rum. I try the Blood Orange vodka and Tamah tries the Vanilla. Then we head downstairs to the Garden Level, where we buy goodies for our pups at “Doggie Delights.”
Midstate Distillery’s small batch spirits. Photo by Lori Tobias
Chocolate World
Visits home always include a trip with my great niece, Kylie, and great nephew, Carson, to Hershey’s Chocolate World. The favored tourist stop is packed with every sweet Hershey offers and all manner of souvenirs. Over the years, my personal haul has grown to include sweatpants, fleeces, ornaments, miniature cookbooks, soup bowls, a bank, a sofa throw, a cooler bag, and collectible tins. Embellished with one of the Hershey’s brands, such as Reese’s, Kisses, Kit Kat, or Twizzlers, they make great gifts to pack home.
Kylie & Carson with the “World’s Largest Chocolate Bar. Photo by Lori Tobias
While the Kids Play, Aunt Lori Imbibes
While the kids create their supersized dessert at REESE’S Stuff Your Cup, I escape to the food court.
Create your own supersized dessert at REESE’S Stuff Your Cup. Photo courtesy Hershey’s
Pennsylvania’s historically strict liquor laws have been relaxed in recent years, but I am still surprised that the Chocolate World food court now offers a menu of adult beverages. I order a white sangria, then sit to relax while watching the crowds surge from one sweet spot to the next.
Adult libations at Chocolate World’s food court are a new offering. Photo by Lori Tobias
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A Central PA Food Landmark Saved
Days later, I leave PA, taking a box of opera fudge, smoked meats, and a fresh batch of chocolate Twizzlers home. But more than the food itself, I take home the realization that these days there seems to be a heightened awareness, and with it, pride, of the unique food scene that is Central PA. Not long after I return to Oregon, I learn that Wertz Candies has sold and will not only remain a candy shop but will remain Wertz Candies. In what seems a perfect bit of synchronicity, the new owner’s name is also Wertz, though no relation to the original owners. It seems it’s true that some things never change, and in this case, I am grateful.
I look forward to many more years enjoying Central PA foods. Looking for more great foodie destinations and delights? Let Wander With Wonder guide you to more great stops in Pennsylvania , memorable shopping , and culinary treasures wherever you travel.
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The Central PA Food You Never Heard of—And Won’t Forget
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