Comfort food of a different kind
Not only am I not Amish I don't personally know a soul who is. But over the years, I have treasured the arrival of a number of Amish cookbooks. The first was written by an Amish newspaper columnist named Elizabeth Coblentz, the rest by her daughter and successor, Lovina Eicher. I treasure these books not so much because of the recipes, which are often (but not always) wonderful, but for a glimpse into an unknown world.
The books began in 2002 with “The Amish Cook: Recollections and Recipes from an Old Order Amish Family” by Elizabeth Coblentz and Kevin Williams (Ten Speed Press). Williams is an editor, the man who persuaded Coblentz, in the early 1990s, to write a column called “The Amish Cook,” which Williams then syndicated to newspapers. In 2002, after Coblentz's death, her daughter, Lovina Eicher, took up her pen, and the result was not just more newspaper columns but more books: “The Amish Cook at Home” (2008), “The Amish Cook's Baking Book” (2009) and now “The Amish Cook's Anniversary Book” (2010), all still edited or cowritten by Williams and published by Andrews McMeel.
The latest book has the sweet feel of a reunion. Coblentz, the original “Amish Cook,” comes alive again. Her first column, from 1991, is reprinted: “This has been a rushy morning, but enjoyable,” she wrote. “The kitchen has the smell of freshly baked pies ... three apple, one rhubarb, four lemon, two oatmeal, two blueberry.” Coblentz, a mother of eight and grandmother of 32, wrote her columns (or “letters,” as she called them) as homilies on daily life canning applesauce, making noodles (“we used 110 eggs ... so they should have plenty of noodles for a while”), doing laundry, ironing clothes. Occasionally, she describes a special event a barn raising or a wedding along with preparations for huge numbers of people (she described a “typical” Amish wedding as including 800 to 1,000 guests).
The new book takes us through the sadness of the death of Ben Coblentz, Elizabeth's husband of 40-plus years, and through the death of Elizabeth herself, at the age of 66. Then there is Lovina's first column: “I am nervous and not sure how to begin ... I will never be able to write like my dear mother did but I will try my best.”
Whether or not you are Amish, whether or not you are religious, you may find hope and solace in the plain writing, hard work and busy lives chronicled in these books. Then there are the recipes, which offer comfort of a different kind.
Elizabeth Coblentz, with uncharacteristic hubris, called the sugar cookies here the “World's Best.” Lovina tempers her mother's claim. Yet they disappear so fast in her household, she says, “Perhaps they are.”