LAURELDALE, Pa. \u2014 Donna Dijinio didn\u2019t wait until Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m getting fastnachts because they\u2019re the best fastnachts in Berks County. So here I am,\u201d said Dijinio of Riverview Park.<\/p>\n
And she\u2019s not the only one. For many families in Berks County, fastnachts mark the last indulgence before the Lenten season begins.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it\u2019s Mardi Gras tomorrow, and then Lent, you know, and then Easter,\u201d Dijinio said.<\/p>\n
Inside Hershey Harvest in Laureldale, it\u2019s been a nonstop operation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe make hundreds of dozens every day. You know, between today and tomorrow, we\u2019ll do about 600 dozen,\u201d owner Bob Hershey said.<\/p>\n
All of them are made by hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery Fastnacht gets handled multiple times\u2026 it gets rolled out\u2026 cut out\u2026 placed into the fat by hand\u2026 pulled out by hand. It\u2019s definitely not a mechanical operation,\u201d Hershey said.<\/p>\n
Hershey said the tradition has deep roots in Berks County.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big Berks County thing. So, we experimented with some recipes, and between my mother and my grandmother, we came up with one that actually works,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And on Fastnacht Day, he said customers should expect a crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt 8 o\u2019clock, the parking lot will look like a public auction. And it\u2019ll look like that all day,\u201d Hershey said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly why Dijinio decided to avoid the rush.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came in to order them for tomorrow because I thought they would be sold out, and I\u2019m pleasantly surprised that they are here, and I don\u2019t have to come back tomorrow,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAURELDALE, Pa. \u2014 Donna Dijinio didn\u2019t wait until Tuesday. \u201cI\u2019m getting fastnachts because they\u2019re the best fastnachts in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,55103,55102,50852,55105,5250,55104,128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-115811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-bob-hershey","10":"tag-donna-dijinio","11":"tag-fastnacht","12":"tag-hershey-harvest","13":"tag-laureldale","14":"tag-mardi-gras-day","15":"tag-reading-city","16":"tag-reading-city-headlines","17":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}