Yesterday Andy and I went to the Amish area of Ohio to visit with his parents and check out Lehman’s, which can best be described as Andy-Darcy Disneyland.
Remember how I was wishing for more detailed information about the how and why of canning? Check. I got several books with nice meaty sections about, well, all the things that can go wrong for starters but also why you do each step, what the preservatives do, etc. I’ve only read enough so far to get myself good and freaked out about botulism, but I’m hoping that further reading and more scrupulous pre-canning jar boiling in the future will get me to a better place.
I’m especially excited about The Joy of Pickling, because birthday money from Andy’s parents went to buying a pickling crock, which is winging its way toward me as I type. I want to be all set with recipes when the crock gets here, and this book also tells you where you can shift the ingredients a little one way or the other. I got a mandoline (oddly, the one utensil my mom didn’t have) for chopping up cabbage for sauerkraut, too.
Andy got a book on hand tools written by his bookbinding hero. We got some funky German canning jars that were on sale that have reusable glass lids and little metal clips instead of the Ball jars with disposable lids we usually get. I am eager to learn more about those and try them out. I got my precious food mill, and probably some other things I’m forgetting. We stopped for apples on the way home and got 2 1/2 bushels for under $40 (compare that to $20 for a half bushel at our local farmers’ market) and the biggest jar of horseradish I’ve ever seen. Oh, and we had lunch at Mrs. Yoder’s Kitchen, aka Comfort Food Heaven. I didn’t eat for the rest of the day.
I feel lucky to live in a state that has the largest population of Amish/Mennonite people in the world. I loved seeing all the horse-drawn carts, their simple clothes. A kid in a buggy waved to me (oops, I guess I was staring), and I just felt so happy.
There was some confusion about where we were meeting initially, so we stopped first at a smaller satellite store, and the sign on it directing us to the larger store said it was 10 minutes away by car, 55 minutes by buggy. I just love the idea that some people still live at that slower pace. We, of course, sped from one store to another in 10 minutes in a very un-Amish Prius. I am not sure exactly why it gives me comfort just to orbit their simple world, but it does. I hope we go back again for another visit before too long.
And I have made it a week now posting every day. Phew.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Andy-Darcy Disneyland has better mascots, i.e., none.
The largest Amish population in the world, really? I thought Lancaster County had it, but I guess more Amish folks are leaving? There is far too much commercialism in Lancaster — really cheesy touristy Amish places.
Elise, PA is second place. I’m using Wikipedia as my source, so maybe there’s better information somewhere? There’s also the whole issue of Amish vs. Mennonite vs. other Old Order Anabaptist communities. I’m kind of lumping them altogether, which I know isn’t very PC but whatever. I’m actually kind of totally happy to let them cash in on my fascination with their lifestyle via tourism. Is that wrong?