A Lancaster County Fire Hall Served Over 1,000 Amish Wedding Dinners In One Day

Intercourse Fire Company Station 44 sign reading Amish Wedding Dinner Today 12-5 — The Intercourse Fire Company has now held its Amish wedding dinner 16 times. Image: Intercourse Fire Company

A Lancaster County, Pennsylvania fire station served over 1,000 Amish wedding dinners on Saturday. It was the 16th year the Intercourse Fire Company has held the fundraiser, which ran from noon until the food sold out.

This was another in the long tradition of volunteer fire companies in the area, many of which have heavy Amish and Mennonite representation, funding themselves through benefit events. The best-known of these are the annual mud sales.

Mark Scolforo of LNP | LancasterOnline attended and wrote about the event, calling the meal “nothing short of a culinary triumph,” a dinner that was “fresh, perfectly prepared and mouth-watering.” Sounds good to me. Adult dinners were $20 whether eaten inside or picked up at the drive-through, with children ages 5 to 12 at $12 and children 4 and under free.

What Was On The Menu

According to deputy fire chief Nate King, the food was what is usually served at the noon meal of an Amish wedding. The evening meal, he said, is commonly left to the couple to decide. Scolforo described the food this way:

The main dish was roast chicken with filling, the chicken and the filling served in small cubes that melded together perfectly. The silky mashed potatoes were somehow both creamy and fluffy. The refined gravy was loaded with flavor while still keeping a uniform appearance. The pepper cabbage, diced and not a bit watery, complemented it all.

Then there were the small touches. The cream-filled doughnut that came in its own perfectly folded paper bag. The fruit cup that was probably two servings and nothing like the canned fruit cocktail of my youth.

Taken together, it gave off a smell that evoked the best of Thanksgiving dinner without a bit of turkey or cranberry.

Sorry if I made you hungry there; all credit goes to Mr. Scolforo 🙂 So as I understand it, the same price either got you the take-out meal or an all-you-can-eat option if you chose to dine in. Here is the ad via the Intercourse Fire Company:

The fire company’s flyer for this year’s dinner. Image: Intercourse Fire Company

King put the tally at about 800 takeout dinners and some 300 dine-in customers. He estimated as many as 70 volunteers were involved.

Work began days ahead. The team started picking chickens on Thursday, then turned to the fruit salad, pepper cabbage, and celery on Friday. Any operation this size takes a lot of work and coordination; Scolforo notes how well the whole event was executed.

The Lancaster Amish Wedding Meal

An Amish wedding meal is a great idea for a fundraiser for this time of year. Lancaster County Amish weddings traditionally take place in the late fall (though that has changed some with the times), with the meal served to hundreds of guests at the family’s home or in a portable wedding house.

Celery is closely tied to weddings in this community, and a Lancaster Amish wedding preparation booklet, Das Hochzeit Büchlein, covers buying and preparing it, along with sections on peeling potatoes and a bulk food shopping list that includes 50 pies.

Wedding menus vary from one community to the next. One earlier wedding account listed chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing, noodles, mixed vegetables, angel food cake, dirt pudding, several kinds of pie, and candy bars. For more on how the day unfolds, see What Happens At An Amish Wedding.

If you missed it this year, well there is always next year. If you’d like to support the fire house anyway, you can do that here.