Scratched eggs

Easter is my favorite time of year. Coloring eggs was always a highlight of my childhood. We’d use Doc Hinkle’s dyes to paint our designs. The egg dye was first made in 1893 in Lancaster County and continues to be a Pennsylvania tradition. I remember trying to hold on to the hot egg and smelling the alcohol-scented dye. At night, my parents would hide them around the living room for us to find the next morning before sunrise service at church. I always stock up on these dyes when I head home — Easter doesn’t have the same meaning here in Wisconsin. It’s far too cold to decorate graves with hyacinths and the only egg dyeing here is full color immersion of the more readily available dye kits. Decorating eggs with a cotton swab and colors harkens back to scratching the eggs, oier gratze, something that resonates through the ages in the Pennsylvania Dutch country.

Decorating eggs is a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition. In the early days, eggs were dyed with onion skins to create a reddish-brown color. Some were then scratched with a sharp tool to create a design. The earliest surviving example is from 1774, but most still around today are from the latter half of the nineteenth century.

In addition to our regular Doc Hinkle eggs, I decided to dye and scratch some Pennsylvania Dutch eggs this year. I have recipes for dyeing them from both the Schwenkfelder and Landis Valley, so I did a mixture of the two.

Onion Skin Dyes Eggs
4.5 cups of water
2 T vinegar
12 eggs
12 onion skins

Combine water, onion skins, and vinegar. Bring to boil. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove from heat and remove the cover for one hour. Strain. Add the eggs and boil for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and let eggs in dye bath for 30 minutes.

Scratched egg on a nest of flax