Amish & Mennonite Books

More-With-Less Cookbook

Doris Janzen Longacre

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 82 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Healthy, Frugal and World Conscious meals 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I have just ordered my second copy of this excellent book as mine (that I have bought back in 1991) is torn, stained and well-used and loved. This book is full of recipes that are simple, delicious, filling and can be adjusted according to the size of your family (I have five children and have to adjust my recipes accordingly). The author writes about being more frugal and how today's diet is high in sugar and wasteful things. I have learned much about re-using leftovers and planning my weekly menus with the ideas in this book. With today's rising food and fuel prices, this book would be an invaluable resource if you're looking to save money and seek more recipes using leftovers.

Wonderful! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I am reading the best cookbook I have ever read. It is called The More-With-Less Cookbook, by Doris Jantzen Longacre. The first fifty pages are about food politics, how the food industry developed into its current state, and why what North Americans eat effects the entire world and causes other people to go hungry. This book cuts to the core of these issues better than any book I've ever read, even Fast Food Nation or Diet for a Small Planet. So even if you don't read any of the recipes, it still is worth reading the first fifty pages.
this book has helped me to look at food in a new way. It has reiterated what both of my nutrition teachers have preached, as well, which is: Don't trust the government and certainly don't trust health claims by food manufacturers. They don't have your best interests at heart.

The author of this book was a Mennonite missionary, and wrote this as a church cookbook in the '70's. It became so wildly popular that a publisher picked it up, but even still it is obviously written with a Mennonite community in mind. However, I found the ethics that the author espoused to be absolutely universal- all Golden Rule type stuff. Also, she quotes a Muslim, expresses admiration for Southeast Asian Buddhists, and advocates on behalf of birth control, so I think she must have been a pretty hip lady.

Plus it has spiral binding! All cookbooks should be bound this way. So it shall be when I am in charge.

Anyway, if you stumble across this book in the library, snap it up. It's awesome.

The Beverly Lewis Amish Heritage Cookbook

Beverly Lewis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Beverly Lewis Does It Again 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I ordered this for my landlady, she said she hasn't cooked from it yet, but she loves it, we both looked through it when it arrived and we loved the little notes from Beverly Lewis, the recipes look delicious and very down to earth, my husband loves to watch the food channel but so much of it is too fancy and strange ingredients, that stinks! I will probably buy this sometime for myself. It is a lovely cookbook, and I recommend it to anyone who likes Beverly Lewis, Cooking, or collecting cookbooks, it is a must have. Go for it you'll not regret it. Have fun in your kitchen.

Editorial Review:

A homespun, authentic collection of Amish recipes collected over the years by Beverly Lewis. Many are from her grandmother and other family members as well as dear friends from the Amish world she writes about with such power and authenticity. Now she lovingly shares these with her millions of readers who have come to treasure her ¹ctional insights into Amish life. The additional Amish sayings and line drawings make for an appealing gift.

Amish Friends Cookbook

Wanda E. Brunstetter

Amazon Price: $10.18 List Price: $14.97 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Barbour Publishing, Inc Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $9.58

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great Amish Recipes 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

We have Amish friends in Indiana and Pennsylvania and have enjoyed
many of the dishes that are in the Amish Friends Cookbook. I love
this book and would recommend it to anyone that loves good cooking.

Pa Dutch cookbook 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I collect Penna. Dutch style cookbooks. This one has not disappointed me at all. I grew up outside of Lancaster County and still enjoy Dutch style food. A lot of the recipes in this book I remember my Grandmother making. They are all very tasty and easy to adapt to your own tastes. I highly recommend it if you want to sample some good comfort food that is easy to make with many ingredients you already have.

Editorial Review:

New, from Barbour's best-selling author of fiction, Wanda E. Brunstetter, is the must-have cookbook of the season. Her Amish Friends Cookbook collection is a treasure trove of recipes and interesting facts from the heart of Amish country. With recipes divided into sections including breads and rolls, desserts, main dishes, sides, jams and jellies-and more!-you'll find only the best of home cooking between the pages of this delightful book. As an added bonus, you'll find featured facts about Amish life preceding each section of mouth-watering recipes. Topped off by one amazing package and an even more amazing price, cooks of all ages will have a hard time passing this one up!

Mennonite Community Cookbook: Favorite Family Recipes

Mary Emma Showalter

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A classic! 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

OK, it's a little old-fashioned, but it's a relic of a bygone age, and many of the recipes deserve to be given new life.

The weaknesses are mostly in some of the main-course recipes that, by all appearances, can be extremely fatty and greasy. Speaking as someone who just lost 30 pounds, I don't need that! But they're probably good for an occasional indulgence.

The cookie, cake and pie recipes are the book's strongest point. Saucepan Fudge Cake is easy and unbelievably good, and Rochester Cake (also labelled as Grandmother's Favorite Cake) is outstanding, a layered spice cake with a raisin filling and topping. It's a great favorite of mine for parties.

The recipes for pickles, jams and jellies will probably interest a lot of people in reviving the dying art of home canning.

There are recipes that probably don't work at all in today's world, or are probably not up to modern tastes. A Russian "birthday cake" is pumpernickel bread, sliced and spread with cottage cheese, and the recipe is probably presented more as a historical curiosity than anything else. Another recipe, for a "Pork Cake", is something like a cross between a fruitcake and a meatloaf and will probably make modern cooks gag.

Still, there are many good good good recipes in this book. Hearty old-fashioned fare, not something to base one's diet from, but a great addition to a cook's library.

Quilters Christmas Cookbook

Louise Stoltzfus

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Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Special Occasions -> Christmas & Hanukkah

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

And it's not just for Christmas!! 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful.

My favorite holiday cookbook, but also fabulous for good company recipes, potluck dinners or when you just want something a little special for those you love at home. Recipes from appetizers to desserts. Comfort food and ethnic specialities! A to Z!!

I also love reading the notes in the corners with memories of Christmas' past and enjoy seeing the regional specialties from different parts of the country. It is also interesting to see what kind of quilts patterns are being made throughout the states and that this wonderful artform is being kept alive.

A must have for anyone who loves Louise Stoltzfus' compilation cookbooks! Or anyone who loves good old fashioned good food!

Treasure Chest of Traditional, Easy Recipes. 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

`A Quilter's Christmas Cookbook' by `Good Books' (in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania) editors Louise Stoltzfus and Dawn J. Ranck is a genuine bargain for traditional recipe collectors who keep their magazine cutouts in little `tin' filing cans designed for holding 3" by 5" index cards. I know this because this is exactly how my mother keeps her recipes, and so many of the recipes in this book are the very same she has in her little gray can.

For a list price of a mere $13.95, we get 330 pages of recipes, stuffed to almost always three to a page, giving us close to 900 very traditional holiday recipes. A quick look at the title, publisher, and the names of the editors may lead one to think that this book is all about Pennsylvania Dutch recipes, but it is not. The book is a collection of recipes from quilting hobbyists from all over the country. And, the traditional Amish and Mennonite centers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York State are in the distinct minority, While there are a fairly large number of contributions from small towns in southeastern Pennsylvania (Punxsutawney, PA seems to have an inordinately large number of contributors), my hunch is that there is at least one recipe here from every state in the Union, and some from Canada.

In spite of the geographical diversity, there is a great commonality in the style of recipes. Not only do most of them hint of hundreds of little gray boxes from around the country, there is also a strong spirit of pre-Julia Child 1950s style of cooking epitomized by Poppy Cannon, of `Can Opener Gourmet' and other books in that spirit. Two of the symptoms of this style are the use of margarine in place of butter and the heavy use of packaged gelatins (`Jell-O'). The fact that these recipes come from all over the country makes this uniformity even more dramatic. The third symptom is a heavy use of canned goods, especially canned soups, vegetables, and fruits.

As simple as almost all these recipes appear to the casual browser, many are simply too simple. For example, there is virtually never any statement of what size of egg to use in the recipe (The editors could not make such a statement, as there was no way they could know if our 900 contributors all used the same size egg.) Similarly, few recipes specify salted or unsalted butter, in the few cases where butter is used. There are also very few baking recipes that give instructions on how to determine that the baked goods are `done'. I see one recipe with such an instruction, but most recipes on either side of this example have none. So, these are distinctly NOT the kind of recipes you will find in `Gourmet', `Bon Appetit', or even `Martha Stewart Living'. I suspect that you will also not find recipes of this type in `Good Housekeeping', as all our major culinary media have been thoroughly steeped in the `fresh, fresh, fresh' and `local ingredients' mantras of Alice Waters and Deborah Madison.

All this suggests that the editors, like the editors of church and social group cookbooks all tend to assume that their readers already know how to cook well, and are much more interested in the variety in dish than they are about honing their already quite satisfactory cooking skills.

In a brief lapse of focus, I noticed that there seemed to be a rather large number of recipes using cranberries. When I came to my senses, I realized that this is, after all, a book of Christmas recipes, and the cranberry comes into season late in the year, just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas. But this doesn't explain the four-(4) rhubarb recipes, when rhubarb is a traditional spring and early summer speciality.

I don't want to leave this book without stating that for a very large cookbook audience, this book is exactly what they are looking for. An enormous collection of relatively easy recipes providing excellent ideas for what to make in the weeks surrounding Christmas. So what if there is no `bouche de Noel' recipe which requires a day to make and the patience of a saint, not to mention the skills of a journeyman pastry chef. And, this book is inexpensive enough and small enough so that it will sit alongside the household's copy of `The Joy of Cooking' without taking too many family resources.

I confess there is just a bit of the insider's interest in the book, as each recipe's headnote includes the name of the quilting pattern the contributor is making when they submitted their recipe. I look at these names and draw a complete blank, although I suspect that among the quilting community, they are as well known as `Extra Virgin', `Colcannon', and `Ratatouille' are to us foodies. If I were to offer any suggestion to the editors, it would be to include a picture of each quilt, or at least some distinctive part of each quilt in the headnote, but then, this would probably double the price of the book.

Neither `Gourmet' nor `Pennsylvania Dutch', but an immense collection for Christmas cooking.The huge chapter on Christmas cookies and the Christmas breakfast dishes alone make this book worth getting.

Editorial Review:

Enhance your Christmas celebration with any of the thousand delectable recipes gathered together in this cookbook treasure. Quilters from across North America offer recipes--both comforting and exotic--from their smorgasbord of food traditions.

Cookbook From Amish Kitchens: Vegetables (Cookbooks from Amish Kitchens)

Phillis Pellman Good

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The Amish Cook: Recollections and Recipes from an Old Order Amish Family

Elizabeth Coblentz, Kevin Williams

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Like always, "The Amish Cook" is great! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

If you are a fan, as I am, of the weekly Amish Cook newspaper column, this is a must-have for you. There are stories and tidbits of the column and daily life, as well as the recipes. If you like "The Amish Cook," stories about Amish life, or Amish recipes, this book has you covered x 3!! Get it! You'll love it!!!

Editorial Review:

The Amish Cook

Recollections and Recipes from an Old Order Amish Family by Elizabeth Coblentz with Kevin Williams

Ten years ago, aspiring newspaper editor Kevin Williams convinced Elizabeth Coblentz, an Old Order Amish wife and mother, to write a weekly cooking column called "The Amish Cook." Each week Elizabeth shares a family recipe and discusses daily life on her Indiana farm, spent with husband, Ben, and their eight children and 32 grandchildren. THE AMISH COOK, a full-color cookbook based on Elizabeth's columns, compiles more than 75 traditional Amish recipes, photographs of the Coblentz farm, practical gardening tips, cherished family tales, and firsthand accounts of traditional Amish events like corn-husking bees and barn raisings. A truly unique collaboration between a simple Amish grandmother and a modern-day newspaperman, THE AMISH COOK is a poignant and authentic look at a disappearing way of life.

Plain and Happy Living: Amish Recipes and Remedies

Emma Byler

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Very good "back to basics" book!! 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Mr. Gail and Emma byler have done a fine job helping us remember all those skills that our grandparents grew up with. Today, with everything brought to us at a supermarket, we have lost much of the knowledge that was common sense years ago. This book lets us in on some of that knowledge that has been forgotten in this fast paced world of today!!

Native American Medicine and Amish Wisdom 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Five hundred years ago, it was illegal to own a Bible written in any language other than the dead language of Latin. But the invention of the printing press created a vibrant black market in vernacular Bibles in Germany, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, - thus the Reformation was born. Out of this came a group of Bible readers called the Anabaptists (again baptized) from which the Amish emerged along with the Hutterites and Mennonites, who in time took their beliefs and philosophy of nonviolence to North America. The Native Americans found the Amish to be friendly and not warlike as the English were. Hence, the Amish learned of many native plants and herbs, and how to grow them.

Emma Byler is Amish. Her father taught her the Native American foods and herbal medicines such as golden seal for a sore throat. He and the Amish community also taught her Amish Biblical wisdom. Her subsequent life experience taught her the rest: she raised ten kids on her own beginning at age 33 after her husband died. "We had to make do with what we had", she wrote. Through the years, she recollected the home remedies she had learned and wrote them down; she also wrote down recipes and even an occasional memo of a memorable event. As her writings grew, she found an empty shoe box to keep them in while she kept writing and adding to her library.

One day an anthropologist, Peter Gail, met the now 70-some year old Amish woman and learned of her library. Seeing the treasure there in recipes, Native American home remedies, homemade household goods, food preservation, and decorative knot-tying, Dr. Gail helped her to compile this book. The food list for a 200 guest wedding dinner alone is worth the price of this book.

In addition, Mrs. Byler shares her Amish wisdom brightened by a wonderful sense of humor honed by her faith in God and many life experiences. She offers much food for thought in addition to her recipes for many foods - a delightful chairside companion!

Cookbook From Amish Kitchens: Breads (Cookbooks from Amish Kitchens)

Phillis Pellman Good

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Home Baking! 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

No need for a bread machine with these recipes! Simple, down to earth, and best of all....Delicious! There is no substitute for the home made taste of fresh baked bread and muffins. These recipes are simple to follow, and easy to make. The Potato Bread recipe is my personal favorite, but then again, mmm love those bran muffins also!

Editorial Review:

A warm, moist, pungent smell through the house. A steaming loaf of bread just lifted from the oven! Thoughts of cinnamon rolls, glazed doughnuts, and corn pone will make any child hungry for home. For these foods are rich in flavor and affection and warm memories of big kitchens full of love. One of 12 cookbooks from Amish kitchens! The recipes in this series overflow with the good, old-fashioned food which comes from some of the world_s best cooks. These handsome cookbooks have sold more than 800,000 copies!

Cookbook From Amish Kitchens: Pies (Cookbooks from Amish Kitchens)

Phillis Pellman Good

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

LOTS OF OLD FASHIONED GOODNESS ON THESE PAGES! 4 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

I ordered several of these small pamplet-like cookbooks and was pleasantly surprised by the wonderful recipes inside. Many excellent cream and fruit pie recipes with that special taste you can't buy at the grocery store. Easy to read and no nonsense. Lots of goodness (and recipes) in a small book.