Amish Country

The drive to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania from New York took around three hours.  It was quite a pleasant drive - verdant countryside and pretty towns.  Throughout the greater Lancaster County area, there are a few smaller towns, each the heart of a local Amish community - keeping in mind that the Amish do not drive, each community can only be as large as can easily be traveled by horse and buggy.

We spent the first day in a town called Intercourse (nearly as famous for its 'I Love Intercourse' t-shirts as for its Amish culture).  Jokes aside, Intercourse is a pretty little area, with a wide main street, lined with Amish quilt stores, craft shops, saddlery shops, and traditional bakeries, pretzel shops, relish and pickle stores and more bakeries - Shoo Fly pies are an Amish specialty, a thick and delicious Molasses pie with a crunchy topping.

One of the bakeries had some sweet small animals in a pen to the side, for children to feed.  Tabitha was slightly wary of the larger creatures - while she adores cats, dogs, possums, squirrels and other small animals, she frowns a little at the bigger ones.  Fair enough - they are much larger than her!

There was an incredible store selling wooden items - furniture, rocking chairs, cedar chests, dolls' furniture, wooden toys, buggies, dining tables etc - all hand-made on site by a man and his sons, all Old Order Amish.  The Daddy and I could not believe the quality and low prices of these items - it was very tempting to order a container of furniture to ship home to Australia! Look at these sweet little ride-ons and wagons for children.  They were all under $300 - so amazing:

When we were planning our trip, I thought that, perhaps, we might see a couple of Amish folk in the distance - on their own properties, as we drove past.  I didn't realise the degree to which the Amish are integrated with the local communities.  Most of the shops and bakeries are staffed by Amish and Old Order Mennonite men and women.  Walk into any bakery and you will see a few women in somber dresses and white bonnets, bent over tables of pastry, rolling out pies.  As a general rule, the Amish are friendly and easygoing, but reserved and somewhat serious.  They don't tend to chatter with non-Amish, and the adults don't smile or laugh much - frivolity and 'fun' are put aside for hard work and religious dedication.  The children, however, can be seen skipping around, running barefoot and laughing together.  Partially, this is because people do not 'become Amish' until they reach adulthood - in fact, one of the key tenements of the Amish faith is delaying baptism until adulthood.  The Amish believe that people need to make an informed choice to become Amish, therefore they do not baptise their children into the faith, instead waiting until the child becomes old enough (generally over 18) to make the choice to remain in the community and live an Amish life.

This is a very simplistic summary - and like all people and cultures, there are plenty of differences between one person and the next, one family and the next, and one community and the next.  There are Amish communities throughout America, and some are far more conservative even than those in Lancaster County.

Watching a horse and buggy travelling along the road by a petrol station is an amusing sight - a juxtaposition between the old and the new:

We bought Tabitha a little bonnet from a store in town - not a classic Amish-style bonnet by an means, but cute nonetheless!

For dinner, we went to The Shady Maple, the biggest smorgasbord restaurant in the United States!  This dubious honour has gained the Maple a fair amount of fame, and several people had told me it is a 'must visit' in the area.  In fact, the food quality is excellent - traditional Amish-style food, which means fairly Germanic cuisine, with a slightly Southern influence:  buttered noodles, roast and smothered meats, fried fish and chicken, macaroni cheese, barbecue, fresh salads and vegetables, corn bread, pot-roasts and creamy vegetable bakes.    Desserts included pies, cobblers, dumplings, puddings and stewed fruits.  The dinner charge was less than $20 a person, from memory, and with a really decent food quality, the Maple was excellent value!

I paced out the buffet - it is nearly 100 of my large paces in length, so well over 80m long.  The entire area - the buffet and the seating - is the size of an American football field.  It is not fine-dining by any means, but it really is 'an experience'.  The older couple next to us, grandparents themselves, were incredibly chatty, and kept Tabitha occupied while we ate our meal.

The next day, we headed to the town of Bird-in-Hand, and started the day by taking a buggy ride, touring the region's farms and backroads in the company of our driver, an older Mennonite man.  He was a wonderful host, explaining the reasons for planting certain crops, some history of the area, and really giving us an up-close look at the traditional Amish farms.

Tabitha enjoyed the buggy ride - even though it was over an hour long, the pace was slow enough for her to take in what she was seeing (as opposed to a car journey) and quick enough to provide plenty of interest.

We drove past lots of Amish women sitting with their children, watching the cars and buggies go by:

Half way through the ride, our driver took us for a tour (on foot) of an Amish dairy farm.  We saw the baby calves, learnt about the feeding and food storage for the cattle, and asked plenty of questions about the process of large-scale milking, cooling and storage without electricity.  Did you know that most of the milk in Hershey's chocolate is from Amish farms?  Hershey's main factory is right in the heart of Lancaster County.

Here is a sweet little boy, the son of the farmer whose dairy farm we toured.  This little boy, who couldn't have been more than 6 or 7 years old, was near fluent in both Pennsylvania Dutch and English.  Him and his father easily switched between the two languages - chatting to the cows and each other in PD, then to ourselves in English.  The boy sung a gorgeous little song about milk, lemonade, cookies and pretzels - he sells all of these things to tourists, and his spruiking song was just adorable.  We bought some lemonade and cookies, and the young fellow confidently worked out our change on his own.  I was impressed - bilingual, and some excellent maths for a 6 or 7 year old!

This is the house belonging to the dairy farm we toured.  All of the Amish houses we saw were really beautiful - large, white, classic style homes, with manicured lawns and pretty gardens filled with shady trees.  Almost every house had a few children lounging out the front - reading from bibles, doing schoolwork, or climbing trees. 

Here is our tour guide with one of the working mules.  Most of the farm machinery and tractors are pulled by teams of mules, while the horses used for buggies and riding are generally Standardbreds.  There were also quite a few draught horses around (for really heavy pulling) and plenty of miniature horses, which are used for teaching the children horsemanship.

Here is a cheerful little miniature horse - he put his front legs up onto the feed ledge, standing up so that we could all reach out and rub his neck.

Each Amish home has at least a small vegetable patch - staples like corn, potatoes, onions, beans, tomatoes and garlic are all grown, as well as fruit and berries.  Large amounts are grown, with the excess being canned or frozen over winter.

You wouldn't believe the length of the clothes washing lines!  They stretched high into the sky, meters long, and are attached to a pulley system - many families have at least 6 or 8 children, so there is plenty of washing to be done (by hand):

Each washing line looked basically the same - men's black overalls, boys' black overalls, men's and boys' dark shirts, women's plain dresses, girls' plain dresses, then some white cotton underwear.  Amish do not generally use buttons, and never use zips or velcro - most clothing is fastened with ties, or with metal pins.

The buggy ride was really heavenly on such a hot day - in the shade, with a gentle breeze flowing through the buggy as we drove along.  With an absence of cars or powered machinery in the area, driving along, all you can hear is the 'clip clop' of the horses and the occasional shout of a child at play.  It was incredibly serene.

Here is a photo of a typical Amish bakery / food store.  Rows and rows of canned / jarred items (relishes, vegetables, pickles, sauces, chow-chow, pumpkin butters etc.) and large tables of freshly baked pies, cakes, cookies and whoopie pies:

Most of the Amish stores also sold locally-made, hand-stitched quilts.  The average full-sized quilt has literally hundreds of hours of work in it.

We drove back into the farm area in search of what we had been told were the best pretzels in the region - no lie, they were the best pretzel I've ever eaten, approximately 1,000 times better than a German street-stand pretzel.  Chewy, hot, buttery, salty and sweet, I could easily have eaten ten large!

After the pretzels, we visited another out-of-the-way bakery, in amidst the farms.  It is reputed to have the best Shoo-Fly pies in the area, and I wouldn't dispute this for a second.  While we were shopping, a few Amish and Old Order Mennonite teenage girls came in with their younger siblings, treating them to ice creams.  The little babies, around Tabitha's age, in their overalls and shirts, or long pinned dresses, were just the cutest things you've ever seen.

Here is a Shoo-Fly Pie.  Delicious.

We sat out front of the bakery store for an hour or so, watching the people, the children, and the farmers at work across the road.

We sat in a large, 4-person 'rocking chair', a covered wooden structure of table and two bench chairs, which you can lean back in and gently rock the entire thing with your feet.  I've never seen something similar, and I could happily have sat in it all day, eating pie and drinking lemonade!

Across the road, two groups of children had little roadside stands, selling hand-carved hammers, tomahawks and painted horseshoes to passing tourists.  Plenty of buggies drove past, too.

Lots of the Amish girls travel around on scooters - I suppose that riding a bicycle isn't practical in a long dress, and the girls seemed to get up some real speed on their scooters:

We stopped in at a farmers' market called the Covered Wagon.  Tabitha sat high on my back in the Vatanai - I like having her wrapped up in the Vatanai when we're in stores, because it prevents her from reaching out and grabbing hold of things!

We also stumbled across an enormous antiques and bric-a-brac store, spanning three separate buildings, filled with tens of thousands of items.  I could have bought half the store - old cookbooks, kitchen items such as copper moulds, weighted scales, jars and tins, teacups and mixing bowls, as well as antique toys, paintings, and items such as a 1920s first aid kit, taxidermy animals and hand-embroidered christening gowns.

I have mentioned before that my favourite 'genre' of cookery books is the books and pamphlets published by companies to promote their own products - 101 Ways with Macaroni, put out by the American Pasta Board, or How to Enjoy Junket at Every Meal.  This store had a collection of over 100 of these books - I nearly had conniptions in the effort not to buy the lot!

This one was a winner - '7-Up Goes to a Party!'.  It features recipes for meat dishes, salads, desserts and seafood entrees, all including that 'versatile ingredient', 7-Up soda.  Scary stuff.

Due to a series of fortuitous events, we had the great pleasure and honour of being invited to eat a dinner meal in the home of a local Amish family - a rare event indeed!  The lady of the house, the wife of a dairy farmer, loves cooking, and since all of her 8 children and 23 grandchildren have now left home (although some of them just live next door), she occasionally invites some guests into her home for a spectacular meal.  She had called the owner of our bed and breakfast, just that morning, to ask if they had any guests who were particularly interested in the Amish lifestyle.  We were overwhelmed with excitement - our bed and breakfast hosts told us that Anna loves guests, and - unlike most Amish - is happy to chat at length about her life, answering any questions we might have.

When we arrived, we were taken for a tour of the dairy farm and barns by her husband, Reuben, and a handful of their grandchildren (around 6 girls, aged between 4 and 8).  We also viewed their vegetable gardens, where much of the ingredients for our evening's meal had been grown.

Inside the house looked, essentially, like any farm house - wooden boards, simple, well-made furniture, a few small decorative pieces (an impressive wall clock, a few vases of flowers) and comfortable chairs strewn with handmade quilts and blankets.  It was, however, most strange to look at the completely bare ceilings - not a light fitting or fan in sight!  No power points, no light switches, no lamps (except a few gas ones).

The meal was incredible.  Almost all of the food was grown on-site, or at neighboring farms, including the meat and dairy. The meal included:

• Homemade bread
• Homemade butter
• Asparagus - picked that morning - in butter
• New potatoes from the farm, boiled and then tossed with butter, salt and parsley
• Baked corn - Anna picks the corn, then grates it off, frying it in a little butter, then freezes it over winter.  She then bakes it in a mixture of eggs, milk, cream, salt, pepper and a little nutmeg, creating the most delicious, creamy, slightly crispy corn quiche type dish.
• A very pretty salad - a large circle of lettuce, covered carefully with cherry tomatoes, grated carrots, sliced cucumber, boiled eggs and a delicious, creamy dressing (all from the garden and farm).
• An incredibly juicy, rustic-style meatloaf with tomato ketchup and steamed buttered carrots.  I will never forget the taste of that meatlof, so juicy that it needed extra bread to mop up the last bits.
• Strawberry shortcake with whipped cream and homemade vanilla ice cream.  Anna had hoped to bake a strawberry pie, but when she went to pick the strawberries that morning, there were 'only' enough to cover a delicious, vanilla-scented sponge cake.

Anna makes large, flat ricecakes (sort of like prawn crackers in structure) to sell at a farmers' market, and she kept giving them to Tabitha to eat, who loved them.  Tabitha sat in a wooden high chair which was over 70 years old - Anna's husband Reuben had sat in the very same high chair when he was a baby!

While we ate our meal, several of Anna's young granddaughters came in to play with Tabitha on the floor - it was fantastic to sit back and enjoy our dinner, watching Tabitha shriek with laughter, entertained by half a dozen young Amish girls, chasing her around, playing blocks and cuddling her.  Anna also happily carried Tabitha around on her hip, effortlessly jiggling her as she finished off preparations for dessert.  When we left, Anna hugged us each warmly, and Reuben grinned and nodded - he was certainly the quieter of the pair!  Anna also asked, laughing, if we wouldn't mind leaving Tabitha with her while we enjoyed the last week of our holiday!!

We didn't take any photos while on the farm or in the house (the Amish do not like posing for photos), however I snapped a quick photograph as we drove away down the road - most of the main farm area and barns are obscured behind the car.

While in Lancaster County, we stayed at a brilliant bed and breakfast called the Apple Bin Inn.  I had chosen it based on rave reviews online (it scored top for the area on Trip Advisor), and it really exceeded our expectations.  The hosts, Steve and Jamie, could not possibly have been more friendly or welcoming, and the property was perfectly clean and pretty.  We stayed in a 2-bedroom cottage, with a separate living area, dining area and gorgeous details such as hand-sewn quilts on the beds and antique books in the living room.  It was only $200 a night, including breakfast (served in the main house).  And what breakfasts!  The first morning, we were each treated to a baked apple, doused in rich caramel pecan sauce (homemade of course), filled with thick cream.  This was followed by baked oatmeal, fried hamsteaks, scrambled eggs and toast, with fresh orange juice, tea and coffee - they even made Tabitha a bowl of stewed apples with cinnamon.  Of course, she was more keen on my hamsteak!

On the second morning, we started with a large parfait glass of 'breakfast banana split', which was layers of fresh banana, vanilla custard and cream.  This was followed by baked blueberry pancakes, applesauce bran muffins, bacon and maple syrup.  I'm sure there were other components, however I was temporarily put into a food coma and cannot recall all of the details!

The food was just excellent - I asked for the recipes for the baked pancake and the muffins.  Not only did they give these to me, but they also gifted us with a recipe book - a compilation of recipes from local Lancaster County bed and breakfasts, including a good selection of their own recipes.  I was over the moon!

We were really sad to leave Lancaster County, and the Apple Bin Inn.  I hope to return one day, and cannot recommend a visit to the area highly enough - if you ever want to visit New York and Washington, DC, it is literally half way between the two, and it was just so simple to rent a car and drive through for a couple of days on our way to DC.

Here is our cottage - with our Cadillac hire car.  We needed quite a large vehicle to hire, since we had three suitcases, the pram in its case, the (small) porta-cot and Tabitha in her carseat.  It was lots of fun to drive around in the Cadillac!

Here is the backyard of the Apple Bin Inn - the garden was gorgeous, with so much native birdlife.  Steve has even converted a small walled garden (formerly a swimming pool area) into a grassy, overgrown habitat for local rabbits!

As we were driving away from Lancaster County, there was one final, exciting surprise.  We saw a sign advertising the sale of raw milk at a small Amish farm.  The sale of raw milk in Australia is illegal, and it is still exceptionally hard to come across in America.  But goodness, is the taste (and nutrition) superior!  We pulled in and bought a gallon of raw milk for less than $4, from an Amish lady who wished us safe travelling as she rolled out the pastry for dozens of pies.  We drank it over the next few days, and already, I am missing the taste.

Our final stop, for the milk, was also our parting glimpse at the Amish - a few young boys played in the yard, in their black overalls and straw hats, and smiled at us as we drove off.  I do hope that one day, we will be back.