Mashed Potato Image Used Under Creative Commons License From Wikipedia
Citizens, the Amish have a cuisine that emphasizes caloric intake because these people work literally from sunrise until long after dark in the fields.
No powered mechanical assistance allowed (for the most part). They are renowned for their hospitality, delicious food and intense work ethic that showed how life in the 19th century was truly lived.
I greatly admire them and was lucky enough to live with an Amish family for a week when I was 5. It was truly a life-changing experience. 🙂
The Amish are a group of traditionalist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German Anabaptist origins. They are closely related to, but distinct from, Mennonite churches. They are known for simple living, plain dress, and reluctance to adopt many conveniences of modern technology.
The history of the church began with a schism in Switzerland within a group of Swiss and Alsatian Anabaptists in 1693 led by Jakob Ammann. Those who followed Ammann became known as Amish.
Jakob Ammann (c. 1644–c. 1730) was a Mennonite leader whose controversial teachings caused a schism among his coreligionists in Switzerland, Alsace, and southern Germany. Ammann insisted that any excommunicated Mennonite church member should be shunned socially and that anyone who lied should be excommunicated. Following Jesus’ example, he introduced foot washing into the worship service and taught that church members should dress in a uniform manner, that beards should not be trimmed, and that it was wrong to attend services in a state church.
Although Ammann sought reconciliation with the Mennonites, he continued to insist that all who had been excommunicated should be avoided, and therefore his attempts at reconciliation failed. Amish communities sprang up in Switzerland, Alsace, Germany, Russia, and Holland, but emigration to North America in the 19th and 20th centuries and assimilation with Mennonite groups gradually eliminated the Amish in Europe.
In the second half of the 19th century, they were divided into Old Order and Mennonites. The latter do not eschew motor cars, whereas the Old Order Amish retained much of their traditional culture. When people refer to the Amish today, they normally refer to the Old Order Amish.
In the early 18th century, many Amish, and Mennonites, immigrated to Pennsylvania for a variety of reasons.
Most traditional Amish are members of the Old Order Amish Mennonite Church. In the early 21st century there were about 250,000 Amish living in more than 200 Old Order Amish settlements in the United States and Canada; the largest were located in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, and Kansas, and others were found in Wisconsin, Maine, Missouri, and Minnesota.
Their settlements are divided into church districts, autonomous congregations of about 75 baptized members. If the district becomes much larger, it is again divided, because members meet in each other’s homes. There are no church buildings. Each district has a bishop, two to four preachers, and an elder; but there are no general conferences, mission groups, or cooperative agencies.
Today, the Old Order, the New Order, and the Old Beachy Amish continue to speak Pennsylvania German, also known as “Pennsylvania Dutch”, although two different Alemannic dialects are used by Old Order in Adams and Allen counties in Indiana.
Why Cream Cheese Isn’t Optional
This recipe for Amish mashed potatoes makes the richest and most delicious taters you’ll ever taste – the secret is the addition of cream cheese and sour cream beyond the standard butter and milk.
That secret isn’t just about flavor, either. Cream cheese and sour cream are a working solution to a real problem: mashed potatoes made for a church-day crowd have to sit out, sometimes for hours, without refrigeration, while dozens of people are served in sequence from a rotating host’s kitchen. Butter-and-milk mashed potatoes turn gluey and separate under those conditions; the fat and acid in cream cheese and sour cream hold the starch structure together far longer, keeping the dish fluffy well past the point a simpler version would have collapsed into paste.
They’re simple but delicious beyond compare – just know they’re diet-busters and enjoy! They also serve 20, so feel free to ½ the recipe or more. Citizens – this recipe is without any doubt an all-time winner! 🙂
Cousins Worth Knowing
If this dish’s make-ahead durability intrigues you, its close relative — the layered, cheese-topped casserole often nicknamed “funeral potatoes” in both Amish and Mormon kitchens alike — solves the identical problem via an entirely different mechanism, baking low and slow under a cheese crust instead of relying on stovetop dairy fortification. And for an entirely different direction, My Green Goddess Mashed Potatoes and My Cameroonian Spiced Mashed Potatoes and Red Beans both prove the humble mashed potato can carry flavors this dish never touches.
Cook potatoes until soft. Mash fine with potato masher. Add cream cheese. Stir well. Add butter and sour cream. Stir well. Add salt and milk as needed for desired consistency.
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Love the idea of cream cheese in it.
Reminds me of the potatoes my grandmother used to make – also to feed the farmhands!