Elizabeth "Betty" R. Groff ('' née'' Herr, September 14, 1935 – November 8, 2015) was an American

celebrity chef A celebrity chef is a kitchen chef who has become a celebrity. Today, chefs often become celebrities by presenting cookery advice and demonstrations, usually through the media of television and radio, or in printed publications. While television ...

, cookbook author, and authority on Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine. Groff authored six cookbooks focusing on Pennsylvania Dutch foods, including ''Good Earth and Country Cooking'', which ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' magazine called "one of the top five regional cookbooks introduced in 1981." In 2015, ''

The Patriot-News ''The Patriot-News'' is the largest newspaper serving the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area. In 2005, the newspaper was ranked in the top 100 in daily and Sunday circulation in the United States. It has been owned by Advance Publica ...

'' further praised her contributions to regional food traditions, writing "Groff was to Pennsylvania Dutch food what the late chef

Paul Prudhomme Paul Prudhomme (July 13, 1940 – October 8, 2015), also known as Gene Autry Prudhomme, was an American celebrity chef whose specialties were Creole and Cajun cuisines, which he was also credited with popularizing. He was the chef propriet ...

was to Cajun cooking."

Formative years

Groff was born in

Strasburg, Pennsylvania Strasburg is a borough in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It developed as a linear village stretching about along the Great Conestoga Road, later known as the Strasburg Road.Susan M. Zacher, NRHP Nomination Form Strasburg/ref> The population ...

, to Clarence N. and Bertha K. Root Herr. She was a 10th generation

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

Mennonite Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radi ...

and a direct descendant of Hans Herr. She married her husband, Abram B. Groff, on November 12, 1955.

Career

In November 2014, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' selected Groff's recipe for glazed bacon to represent Pennsylvania in a survey of Thanksgiving foods from all 50

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Death

Betty Groff died at the age of eighty on November 8, 2015.

Bibliography

*Groff, Betty; Stoneback, Diane Williamson. ''Betty Groff Cookbook: Pennsylvania German Recipes'', Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, RB Books, 2001. *Groff, Betty. ''Betty Groff's Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook'', New York, Galahad Books, 1996.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Groff, Betty 1935 births 2015 deaths American cookbook writers American Mennonites Pennsylvania Dutch people American people of Swiss-German descent American television chefs Cuisine of the Pennsylvania Dutch People from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania People from Strasburg, Pennsylvania American women chefs Writers from Pennsylvania Mennonite writers