Bread, butter and apple-butter play and usual role in Schwenkfelder culture. For the past 229 years, the Schwenkfelders have observed on September 24, a thanksgiving service (Gedaechtnisz Tag) which is unique in several aspects. The only fare provided at the traditional meal consists of water, bread, butter and apple-butter. This service of thanksgiving was instituted on September 24, 1734, bu the Schwenkfelder immigrants, two days after their arrival in Pennsylvania. It has been observed annually thereafter in remembrance of the safe voyage and the rescue from intolerance; as a measure of gratitude for the blessing of freedom; as a reminder of the responsibility for the preservation and extension of freedom to other; and as an expression of gratitude to God for his grace guidance.

The simple fare served at these thanksgiving services stands in stark contrast to the bountifuls meals generally associated with giving of thanks. This intriguing question posed by all of this is: why bread, butter and apple-butter?

Unfortunately, we have no certain knowledge of the circumstances nor do we know that this traditional fare was the one that was serves the first year. It may well be, as has been suggested that this was all that the immigratns coudl dadord only two days after their arrival in Phildelphia.

The Schwenkfelder did not construct meeting-houses until the 1790’s, so the annual services were held in individual homes. The difficulties attendant to serving one or two hundred people a full course meal from the”kitchen” of a log or plank house are evident. In all probability, the traditional meal was served on long plan tables set up near the house, crocks of apple-butter were brought up from the cellar or spring-house, and loaves of bread were gingerly removed from the warm bake oven.

With the construction of meeting-houses, the scene for the annual Gedaechtnisz Tag services were covered with homespun linens and used as tables for the traditional meal which was austerely served at noon. Today, the traditional meal is served on tables in church social room, the plain garb of the 19th Century has been replaced by modern dress, the sermons and hymns are rendered in English in leir of German, but the fare—bread and apple-butter—remains the same, as it has for the past almost three centuries.

When the Services are held at the Palm Schwenkfelder Church, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew G. Kriebel, Hereford, Pa., have, in recent years, been making apple-butter, and have kindly given us their recipe: