The rotary-dial telephone rings in the kitchen of the old Highlandtown church. The caller inquires when the ladies will be holding their annual sour beef and dumpling supper.
Devotees of sour beef circle on their calendars the days when local churches serve the dish that so tickles a Baltimorean's taste buds. Eaters devour the marinated beef, potato dumplings and the gravy lovingly prepared by dozens of grandmothers.
A church sauerbraten supper is a great attraction for families who have left the old rowhouses for ranchers in Rosedale and Perry Hall, Severna Park and Cockeysville. They all return to those scenes of a marriage, or first Communion, or confirmation for a delicious, stick-to-the-ribs fall dinner and the opportunity to renew old acquaintances.
No self-respecting East Baltimore politician would ever skip the local sour beef fest and miss the chance to palaver with a couple of hundred faithful voters.
"You can smell the aroma out on Conkling Street. It brings them right in," says Zennie Chavis Jachelski, a member of the Ladies of the Holy Family, a group of Highlandtown women who serve the city's largest sour beef dinner at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in the 3400 block of Foster Ave. The event is Nov. 1 and 2.
Volunteer cooks at the church say that preparing a sour beef dinner is more physically taxing than all the ham, crab cake and oyster suppers they offer throughout the year. More than 1,000 pounds of beef have to be bathed in a spicy vinegar marinade for several days.
Then 15 50-pound bags of potatoes must be washed, cooked, peeled and riced. The women -- and a few male volunteers -- sit at long work tables under the church kitchen's tin ceiling and peel potatoes. More than 30 people will be involved with getting the dinners on the refectory tables.
Aficionados of sour beef claim the secret of a great supper is the quality of the spherical potato dumplings, which must be fluffy and light, while still retaining a dose of German heaviness. The ladies will not divulge their recipe except to say that the dumplings are made of flour, riced potatoes, eggs, salt and farina.
"Once and a while, we get a backup because we can't hurry the dumplings," says Margaret Dorn Cholewczynski, one of the most respected cooks in the parish, who first became involved with the annual supper many years ago when she was enrolled in parochial school.
