This is the second article I did for my local paper on the Amish, based on the Old Order way of living and my mom's experiences as a young Amish woman. Be sure to check out the delicious berry recipe at the end. There is even an "English" cheater version that tastes almost as good. :)
As the days lengthen into beautiful summer, luscious, ripe strawberries, blueberries and blackberries taunt us with their sweetness, begging us to pick them and taste their marvelous juices, taking us back to summers before when we gave in to their seduction. The Amish, too, had times of berry picking when whole days revolved around these sweet gems.
Since my mother’s family had no kind of refrigeration (today some of my Amish relatives use a method of placing a large ice block into a deep freezer, not plugged in, to keep food items cold), the berries had to be eaten or preserved the day they were picked or the following day.
My mother remembers the berry season coming around with the ripening of the bright red, sweet strawberries. Her mother usually planted a patch three or four feet wide that ran the length of their vegetable garden at the edge of their yard. Also, the advent of the cherry orders marked the season.
The Amish are a tight knit community where very few of them in my mother’s day had contact with the outside world. Since there were no local orchards for the Amish to go pick their own cherries, they placed orders as a community to a place that one of the men in the community knew about. This man would go around on a Sunday and ask the families how many cherries they would like to order, then he would place the order by phone at the English neighbor’s house. After he got the delivery information, he told each family when the truck would arrive at his house with the cherries. On the day of delivery, a freezer truck would come with five-gallon metal containers of frozen cherries. The truck dropped off fairly early. My mother remembers her father hitching up the buggy and heading off to pick up their order of cherries. By the time the containers arrived at their house, the cherries were mostly thawed except for a chunk in the middle that were still frozen. While the rest of the cherries thawed, the women got the quart-sized canning jars up from the basement and washed them. Then they filled them with the cherries, topped them off with cold water and put them in the pressure cooker just long enough to heat and seal them. The jars were left to cool on the counter, tantalizing rows of bright red or yellow cherries, ready to use in desserts or eat virgin from the jar.
But cherries and strawberries were not the only berry excitement of summer. After the “necessary” berry picking came the wild berries, the ones my mother and her sisters picked just because they enjoyed the unique jam flavors these berries made. These were the blackberries, boysenberries and dewberries that grew deep in the woods. On berry day the girls rose early in the morning, usually around 5:00am, went out to the barn to do the milking chores, then returned to the house for breakfast. Their mother had eggs, hashbrowns and oatmeal ready for them. In my mother’s house the family did not drink coffee. They had milk or water for breakfast. If anyone wanted coffee, they had to make their own from instant.
After breakfast, the girls took the younger children with them, each of them taking a container to put the berries in. Then they headed into the woods to find their treasures. They found patches of berries, thick with thorns and crawling, vine-like, part way up the trees. They had fun by daring each other to go into the thick brambles, seeing who could reach farthest into the bushes and the highest up the trees. They would return to the house with their find to cook the berries down, add sugar and thickener then pour the finished jam into jars. To seal the jars they melted wax and poured it over the top of the jelly.
Another treasure they enjoyed picking was elderberries which grew along the roadside. In elderberry season, the women tried to keep boxes on the back of the buggy in case they stumbled onto a patch of elderberries while going out to visit friends. On their way home, they would stop and cut off the heavy heads that held the clusters of tiny elderberries. They filled the boxes then took them home to pick them off the severed branches.
After the jams and jellies were made, my grandmother set some berries by for fresh pies and delights or just topping off a piece of cake or tossing into a fresh cobbler. Below is a recipe that has been passed down to me from my mother’s Amish days that I still make today. There is a simple “store-bought” version that is quick to make and saves on time. But if you want to experience the work and reward of flavor that was a daily requirement for the Amish, then follow the recipe below.
Cherry Delight
4 ½ graham crackers, crushed to make 1 cup
2 tbsp melted butter
4-8oz cream cheese, depending on your taste
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups cherries
4 cups water
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup sugar
red food coloring for a more vibrant color (optional)
Before you begin, set the cream cheese out to reach room temperature. (You could cheat and put it in the microwave for a few seconds, but remember, the Amish wouldn’t have had microwaves.) You can use half a bar of cream cheese, or the entire thing if you like the flavor more “cheesy”. Either way, the final result will still be sweet and dessert-like. Next, cook the cherries in the water. Bring to a boil and let boil for five minutes. Then add cornstarch by mixing it into a few tablespoons of cold water in a dish. Stir cherries while adding the cornstarch mixture. Next, stir in the sugar and food coloring and let cool completely. (A can of cherry pie filling also works here.) Mix graham cracker crumbs and melted butter thoroughly, then pat into a 9x9 inch pan and bake at 300° for 10 minutes and let cool completely. (You can use a pre-made graham cracker pie crust here.) Next, beat the whipping cream until it forms soft peaks then carefully fold in the sugar and vanilla and set aside. (You can use an 8oz. tub of whipped cream here.) Now, stir the softened cream cheese (make sure it’s not actually warm because it will melt the whipped cream) to get it loosened up, then gently fold in the whipped cream until mixed. Put dollops onto the cooled graham cracker crust and spread evenly with a spatula. Lastly, top with the cooled, cooked cherries and enjoy. The dessert is best eaten the same day.
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