The Amish Cook from Oasis Newsfeatures

Some of you on the Amish Cook email list may have seen this photo, but those who are not:  this is a shot I took of some of Lovina's home-canned foods on a recent visit.  Pictured here are home-canned peaches, pears. and tomatoes.  A ton of work goes into getting these foods processed and put up, but the work is worthwhile.  While the rest of us are shivering through winter dealing with rubbery grocery store produce from Chile or Argentina, Lovina and her family are enjoying the literal fruits of a summer's worth of labor.  Everyone pitches in, especially the girls.  Home-canning is still very much a staple of an average Amish homemaker's life.  In church districts, though, where gasoline-powered freezers are permitted there has been a slow shift away from the labor-intensive home-canning.  Interestingly, though, as some Amish shift away from it, home-canning has enjoyed a resurgence among non-Amish as people seek a more self-sufficient lifestyle and the recession has interested people in stretching their food supply.....

The Amish presence in Minnesota is increasing and the Fargo, North Dakota newspaper took note of that today.  The Fargo newspaper's circulation goes almost equally into Minnesota as it does North Dakota because the city is right on the border.  I remember being in Fargo once to give a talk at the public library, it was about 8 degrees with 12 inches of snow on the ground from a recent storm. Weather conditions like that in Ohio would have shut down cities here, but people in Fargo were milling about like it was a balmy summer day (I saw someone in the parking of Target in short sleeves).  The crowd at the library for my talk was pretty sizable, people seemed to think 8 degrees and sunny.  Anyway, back to the article in today's Forum....it was a pretty good read, giving some insight into the growing Amish presence in the area.  I expect to see the increase continue in the years ahead. Click here to enjoy.

By the way, Minnesota's largest Amish settlement is in the SE part of the state near the town of Harmony, about 45 minutes south of Rochester. I've visited that Amish community and, as the name implies, it's a very pleasant one!

This is a discussion we'll be having later today on Facebook, so I wanted to have it here also.  The first newspaper to ever sign up for The Amish Cook was the Quincy Herald-Whig, in Quincy, Illinois.  The Quincy paper still carries The Amish Cook to this day.  The Amish Cook hasn't signed on many new papers in recent years.  Relatively recent subscribers are - for some reason - almost all in Indiana:  South Whitley, Anderson, and Washington, Indiana papers.  I've come to the kind of sad conclusion that The Amish Cook will probably never grow much beyond where it is now in its newspaper readership.  BUT,  I think the column will continue to grow overall in its readership and this presents some exciting possibilities. It used to be that if I wanted to have readers of the column in San Antonio, Texas my only, only, only hope would be to persuade the local paper, The Express-News, to subscribe.  Like most big cities San Antionio used to have two papers but The San Antonio Light burned out years ago.  Now, however, Lovina gets reader mail from Australia, Canada, England, San Antonio, New Brunswick, Canada; and all sort of other places that we never, ever dreamed of reaching...I think it's a choppy transition to this new era, but where as I used to view the column's fortunes as being tied just to newspapers, I think its future could well be bright online.  It's amazing the speed it has brought in delivering the column.  For instance,  I get Lovina's column on Mondays and send it to newspapers on Mondays.  Some newspapers - like the South Bend Tribune and Battle Creek Enquirer - run it a week later.  Yet I post that same column right away online so many of you read it that day a week before some newspaper audiences read it!  I hope I am wrong, but I fear newspapers are dying a slow death and that 20 years from now there won't be many left, they'll be a retro luxury.  So, what do you think?  Are newspapers dying a slow death or will they persevere and be going strong 20 years from now?

This photo was again shared by one of our site regulars.  Here's how she sets the scene in Lancaster: "I was sitting at a traffic light at Route 30.  Directly in front of me were a buggy full of Amish, a 1950-something vintage Dodge (turquoise no less), and a school bus.  I thought this combination was just too good to pass up, and I figured since I would be taking the backs of the Amish, they'd never know.  Ha!  Wrong!  Just as I clicked the shutter, the folks in the buggy apparently decided to suddenly change plans and make a sharp left-hand turn (across two lanes of opposing traffic ... aarrghhhh) to go to the Wawa.  I don't know whether the woman was looking only at the traffic -- or if she even saw me and my camera -- but I did feel a little guilty..  (Now if I'd been sitting there hoping that one of them would turn around so I could take their picture...)"

The photographer was right, a fun combination in the photo! I think the Amish in Lancaster County are pretty accustomed to cameras, especially when they are out in public like that. Common courtesy is the watch-word....and in more conservative Amish settlements I just avoid the camera altogether.  The open buggy is interesting.   This is purely anecdotal observation on my part, but it seems that I am observing more open buggies in more different settlements these days but I might be wrong....if I'm not, I'm not sure why this increase would be?   Historically open buggies have been quite common among the Swiss-lineage Amish of Berne-Grabill, Indiana and Webster County, Missouri, but lately I've been seeing them more places.

Ah, and for what it's worth, I love those WaWa convenience stores out east, we don't have any here in Ohio!