Pennsylvania Dutch Country: satisfy your craving for comfort food, yearning for yesteryear, and curiosity about the Plain People on a rural ramble through Lancaster County

Travel America, May-June, 2005 by Randy Mink

APPLE DUMPLINGS AND APPLE butter. Shoofly, pecan, and pumpkin pies. Platters piled high with fried chicken, roast beef, and homemade bread. Soft pretzels fresh from the oven.

For those of us who travel on our stomachs, vacation memories in Pennsylvania Dutch Country weigh heavily--and I do mean weigh--on scrumptious baked goods and home-style meals. Bring a hearty appetite and be ready to nibble and nosh at any time. Flitting from town to town one day, I did so much sampling--much of it free--that I totally forgot about lunch.

With food playing such a major role in the life of the hard-working Amish and Mennonites--and such a drawing card for tourists--eating and sightseeing converge in this colorful patchwork of towns and rolling farmland in southeast Pennsylvania. Lancaster County is America's oldest Amish community and second largest after Holmes County, Ohio.

In a rural area being encroached by subdivisions and shopping centers, the Amish and Mennonites (Anabaptist religious sects who came from Germany in the 1700s) hold on to their customs, living in peace with God and their neighbors despite the distractions of modern life. The Amish (more tradition-bound than the Mennonites) do without conveniences like cars and electricity, and few have telephones. You'll see them in horse buggies and plowing their fields with mules. When necessary, the Amish will ride in a car or truck if an "English" (non-Amish) person drives.

The Amish--and many more non-Amish of German descent--speak a dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch, a term that has nothing to do with being Dutch. The word "Dutch" is a corrupted version of "Deutsch," the word for "German."

My first stop in Amish Country was the Pennsylvania Dutch Visitors Center, off Route 30 in Lancaster City, 77 miles west of Philadelphia. There I signed up for a one-hour van tour of the countryside--a smart idea because it summed up Amish culture and food in a nutshell.

It's easy to identify the Amish homesteads, our guide said as he pointed out simple white houses with plain green curtains, no electrical lines, propane tanks in the yard, and plain-color clothes hanging out to dry. A cluster of houses signals that several generations live on the farm.

During the afternoon tour, we saw Amish kids walking home from one-room schoolhouses. They don't have too far to walk, our guide said, because Lancaster County has 160 of these schools for students in grades 1-8. The U.S. Supreme Court has exempted the Amish from attending high school.

You also might see boys--in brimmed straw hats--and girls--wearing white or black bonnets--on scooters or rollerblades. They're not allowed to have bicycles, a form of transportation that, their elders fear, could take them too far from home.

Near the village of Bird-in-Hand, our van pulled into the Eli and Mary Glick farm, where we had time to peruse a gift shop stocked with Amish crafts. Several people bought dolls, spicemats (hotpads filled with fragrant cloves), and quillows (a little quilt that can be folded into a pillow). I came away with a jar of homemade apple butter, something I would enjoy many times back home.

At the wood shop next door we got a look at the air-powered machinery used to make the hickory furniture and cedar chests for sale. Many Amish farmers operate woodworking and other cottage businesses to supplement declining farm income. Roadside stands selling crafts and just-picked fruits and vegetables are not unusual either.

In a separate building the Glicks tempt visitors with baked treats at low prices. It was hard for me to bypass the oatmeal-raisin cookies, cinnamon rolls, sticky buns, and pumpkin bread. Apple and cherry half moons (turnovers) also caught my eye. I decided on two Pennsylvania Dutch standbys--shoofly pie (a heavy, molasses-based concoction) and a whoopie pie, a spongy round chocolate cake sandwich stuffed with cream filling.

The Amish do not like to be photographed, but a good picture would have been the Glick boy driving around the farmyard in a cart pulled by a miniature horse. We heard him and his sisters speaking German.

The farms in Lancaster County are not especially big and seem rather close to each other. In many places, stores, industrial parks, and new upscale homes loom just beyond the barns, silos, and windmills. But driving the winding country roads--observing the Amish at work and play, passing over covered bridges, and soaking in the bucolic vistas--is still a delightful trip into the past. It's almost like visiting another country, and getting lost is half the fun.

Route 340--you can't miss it--abounds with tourist attractions, especially the four-mile stretch between Bird-in-Hand and Intercourse. You'll be sharing the scenic two-lane byway, also known as Old Philadelphia Pike, with tour buses and clip-clopping buggies.

Ravenous travelers chow down at Plain & Fancy Farm, one of Route 340's visitor magnets. All-you-can-eat, family-style dinners feature heaping helpings of fried chicken, baked sausage, roast beef, and chicken pot pie with handmade noodles. The menu also includes mashed potatoes, assorted vegetables, sweet-and-sour relishes, brown buttered noodles, and made-from-scratch bread. Top off your meal with a slice of shoofly pie or an apple dumpling a la mode.