3 Ways Amish Families Cook & Bake
As a low-tech group, how do the Amish cook and bake?
Below I share several ways Amish prepare food (specifically, how they generate the heat for cooking & baking – if you’re looking for things like Amish recipes and food prep techniques, this is not that topic 🙂 ).
As with many things, there can be a lot of variety in cooking methods across the many Amish groups.
Some of these are more popular in more conservative Amish churches, and some in the more progressive ones, as I’ll explain.
1. Wood-burning Stoves & Ovens
So first of all would be wood-based stoves or ovens. Amish use wood burning cook stoves and ovens for both traditional cooking and baking needs. Some may use coal-burning stoves for cooking as well.
Generally this is a very common way of both cooking and heating the home.
That actually hints at one of its drawbacks, because in the summertime you’re not necessarily going to want to generate that much heat, especially if you’re Amish and you tend to wear fairly heavy clothes compared to non-Amish Americans.
2. Fossil fuel-burning Stoves & Ovens
So that would bring us to the second family of cooking implements. Those would be fossil fuel-based stoves and ovens.
Plainer Amish generally use kerosene for their cooking, while more progressive groups use propane.
First of all, kerosene-based cooking – kerosene stoves as well as kerosene ovens. Kerosene, in some ways, is more old fashioned, as it was being used in the mid-1800s already in households – versus propane, which came along later.
So that may explain why it’s more readily accepted in the more tradition-minded communities. One advantage of a kerosene stove and other fossil fuel stoves, for that matter, is that it’s a cooler type of cooking.
In fact, some Amish may use both a wood cookstove (winter time) and a fossil fuel-based stove or oven (summer when the excess heat is unwanted).
More progressive Amish are going to use propane-based stoves and ovens. Visually these will resemble the more modern stoves you would see in non-Amish homes.
You may also see a Coleman camping-style stove being used for some cooking, and in some places you’ll also have Amish using natural gas for cooking purposes.
3. Outdoor methods of cooking
As for the third way the Amish cook food, I would categorize this as the outdoor cooking options.
Summer backyard family campfires are also a great chance to roast hot dogs and S’mores, mountain pies and other treats. They have fire pits and the whole family will pull up lounge chairs to enjoy a summer evening by the fire.
And especially in communities with a level of disposable income, some Amish enjoy grilling out on backyard grills and using other outdoor cooking implements.
Some Amish families have quite fancy grills, especially in some communities where you have Amish with a lot of disposable income.
This past summer, I ate at a cookout with some Amish friends. They had one of those “Green Egg”-style grills.
These outdoor methods are not a primary form of cooking, but these are kind of the special occasion outdoor cooking examples that you’ll find.
Other ways the Amish cook
In addition to these, there may be cases of Amish in more progressive households using other cooking implements (crock pots), powered by a combination of a battery and inverter, though this is not common.
Things the Amish don’t do
So what are some things the Amish don’t do when it comes to cooking?
Appliances that rely on plugging something into an electric outlet, you’re generally not going to see that.
And as you might guess, you’re not going to find microwaves in Amish homes, or much electric-based cooking. Although, when you talk about the Amish, there are always exceptions.
I suppose you could run a microwave off of a battery-plus-inverter combination, which some Amish use to power some appliances, lights, and fans in some cases.
I won’t say that some Amish aren’t using those things, around the edges, in the more progressive communities – because that is always possible, and you may find examples of that.
And you might see microwaves in Amish workplaces, where rules surrounding public electricity can be more lax. But as a rule, no microwaves.
What about “eating out”?
The Amish also eat out as well. They go to restaurants. They eat fast food in some cases. Not on a regular basis for most Amish people – but it is something that Amish individuals and families will do at times.
I recently took Amish friends and their large family out to a restaurant.
We had to take two trips – but it was a family of nine children. We went to a local barbecue restaurant, which was a really neat treat for them, and we had a lot of fun.
Amish people who are involved in business on the road a lot are also going to be eating out more than Amish who are farming, for example, who are going to be spending much more time at home.
So there you have it. The Amish aren’t reinventing the wheel here in any big way. But I hope this gives a better idea of what they permit and what they don’t.
For more, see:
- Three Ways Amish Heat Their Homes
- Three Ways Amish LIGHT Their Homes
- Amish Foods: 5 Favorites Not To Miss
- Amish Homes: 12 Common Questions
- Bathrooms in Amish Homes
Mountain Pie
What’s a mountain pie that you mentioned?
Those are hot melted sandwiches made over a fire using pie irons. There is a picture and more info at #5 on this list: https://amishamerica.com/5-favorite-amish-foods/
Ways of cooking
Wonder what the cost between the three ways of cooking with wood, propane, coals. If wood is hard to find or buy. Out west the wood is $350 to $375 for ton. It may of gone up due to inflation. Can they use wood pellets for wood cooking stoves?
Interesting I never heard of battery operated crock pot. Interesting.
Also wondering if they have outdoor stove not a barbecue or fire pit? That would be great for the summer.
I’m not able to comment on the various fuel prices which I would also assume would vary some by region. I haven’t seen a lot of outdoor stoves myself but I wouldn’t be surprised if some had them (if I understand what you mean by that). As for the battery – not directly battery-powered (though maybe sth like that exists) but it would be possible using an inverter to convert 12-volt DC battery power to AC. The inverter has an outlet which you can plug electronic implements into, which some Amish do with lights and sometimes other appliances. There’s more on how that works here: https://amishamerica.com/5-types-of-lamps-in-amish-homes/
Water
Do you know if the Amish have running water in their homes?
I have Amish friends who make and sell a lot of baked goods. One day when I was visiting them, they showed me a new stove they had just bought. It was a huge wood-burning cookstove in which the oven they could bake up to 16 large pies at a time. The biggest one I’ve ever seen!
The only cooking stove one of our neighbors (non-Amish) had was a wood-burning cookstove. They had adequate money to buy an electric stove, but said they liked the way the wood-burning stove cooked and baked, so used it until the mid-1960’s. One of my aunts had a combination wood-burning/electric cookstove which she used until the late 1960’s and then bought an electric-only stove.
question about stove in photo
In the article there is a stove pictured. I know nothing about these. What are the two identical looking dials, one on the lower left and one on the upper panel? Are they some kind of draft adjusters? Is the third dial looking thing on the right of the upper panel a thermometer for the oven? Thanks in advance for any info. I love this website.
On the right that would be the thermometer, and on the left would be the thermostat draft control knob for more even heating, here is a tech outline of how that works: http://www.antiquestoves.com/ashlandstove/images/Fig%204.jpg
Lower left, I’m not sure, you don’t see that knob on many of the stoves, but perhaps a similar function. The “Ashland New Decade” model has this feature.
Your favorites?
Hello Erik,
You might not want to identify the cooks because you don’t want the other cooks mad at you . . . but, can you name your three favorite Amish foods or meals? For bonus points, will you share some of your favorite places to eat Amish food or “Amish inspired” food? “Amish inspired” always makes me laugh.
Thanks, Jim
Jim I am one step ahead of your first question at least, I wrote up my 5 favorites here: https://amishamerica.com/5-favorite-amish-foods/ I really like the breakfast foods, one on that list is breakfast casserole. Also snitz pie.
I actually haven’t eaten at a ton of Amish-style restaurants, but I really enjoy Boyd & Wurthmann in Berlin, Ohio. Huge pie selection. Trail bologna sandwich. I actually quite enjoyed the “Amish-inspired” buffet at Bird-in-Hand Smorgasbord. A bit surprising b/c I find the buffets usually are more filler than quality and rarely go to them. But what I had was delicious. Went with some Amish friends this past December.
Boyd & Wurthmann
We have visited this restaurant many times. Always enjoyed breakfast the most. You certainly are correct regarding the pie selections. Seriously how could anyone be disappointed.