PressSplit
kai_geo_kartoffelfest_00_4c_5 © Georgia Lori
The tempting smell of potato pancakes is in the air. The atmosphere is good, there are queues in front of the food stalls. The Petterweiler country women are satisfied. Your effort to organize the 10th Potato Festival was worth it.
“Potato soup, potato salad with sausages, potato pancakes,” Elfriede Blut lists. There are also around 30 cakes and tarts. The Petterweiler pampered their guests in the community center on Sunday. »We manage everything well because we help each other. Everyone does what they can,” says Anita Schmidt about the preparations. 70 rural women are currently active and passive in the Petterweil rural women’s association and new ones are constantly being added. Lieselotte Frambach (81) helps with the decoration, baked two cakes and prepared potato salad. She values the community and cohesion in the club. She reports on the close connection to the Lilienwald School, where old and young planted and cleared potatoes together in the field. Afterwards we cooked together: potato gratin. There is also the healthy breakfast that the rural women offer at school, reports Frambach. It goes without saying that the school is also there at the potato festival: the third grade expressed their thanks with songs and verses on stage. There is also a collaboration with the daycare center in Petterweil.
Meanwhile, countrywoman Ortrun Wolf showed various types of potatoes. Triplets lie in decorative baskets, “Sunita” floury and boiling, “Goldmarie”; “Laila” as well as “Annabelle” or “Bamberger Hörnchen”, waxy. The potatoes that the country women processed come from the Albrecht family in Rodheim.
»The Wetterau is known for growing potatoes. There are many potato farmers in Rendel. In Petterweil, farmer Moorfeld grows potatoes, as does farmer Schaub,” says Wolf. She would like to see younger rural women in the club. It’s difficult to manage a festival of this kind, but there are always many helpers from the club’s ranks. 100 kilograms of potatoes were used for the soup, potato pancakes and salads, as well as around 60 kilograms of apples.
Ingrid Lenz attends the festival as a Petterweiler and city councilor and is a passive member of the rural women’s association. “This is a highlight every year and it’s admirable what the country women achieve.” She thinks it’s good that the club is run by a team board. Younger members also come to the club again and again, which Lenz sees as positive, “since such a club shouldn’t die out.”
Thank you trip for the rural women
Petterweil is rural and newcomers from the new development areas integrate into the community. When the children perform, parents and grandparents are also there. One of the oldest people who slipped into the country woman’s costume to help at the potato festival is Gunhild Drechsler. She points to the 30 or so cakes and tarts that are kept cool in an adjoining room. The 89-year-old still bakes and helps with construction.
She said the young people for the club are often recruited from the ranks of the daughters. »It’s fun to organize a potato festival. The only important thing is that no one waits too long for their food and stands in line forever,” she said. The most popular are the potato pancakes. Drechsler has been a member for around 20 years. In 1971 she moved from Raunheim to Petterweil because the airport was too close to her terraced house. The aircraft noise bothered her. Her family is closely connected to the handball club locally.
What motivates people to help is the “thank you trip” that will take them to Bad Wildungen this week. The husbands of the rural women also help out at the potato festival. 72-year-old Helga Pfeiffer says: “The decorations on the stage have to be installed, electrical work has to be done or the tables and chairs in the hall have to be set up for the approximately 250 guests.”
kai_geo_kartoffelfest_00_4c_6 © Georgia Lori
Potato pancakes swim and sizzle in the fat before they are sold to the guests. ©Georgia Lori
