Plain and Fancy: PA Dutch Country

Visit one of the several working Amish farms that give tours in the Lancaster area, an especially great place for kids. In Early July don't miss the Kutztown Folk Festival, and get a crash course in the food, music, culture of PA Dutch life. Take a drive up Mount Penn to see The Pagoda, a local landmark and curiosity.

Quick Tips:

A long weekend is the perfect amount of time to visit, especially in May or September. Get a day of shopping in at the outlet centers in Reading, Vanity Fair in Wyomissing being one of the best, if shopping is your thing. Hit Route 222 South to Ephrata on a sunny Saturday morning for the roadside flea markets and antique shops, and stop to eat a hearty Dutch meal at one of the many family style restaurants in the area.

Best Way To Get Around:

Accessible by most major bus lines, but the best way is by car, so that you can explore the back roads on your own. If you're driving, please be mindful of the Amish who share the same highways with you in their horse drawn buggies.

Great PA Dutch cooking can be found all over the Lancaster area on Route 30, Route 896 and Route 722. ZINN'S DINER on Rt. 272, Denver is locally famous, and the GOOD 'N PLENTY RESTAURANT Rt. 896, Smoketown, is a giant family style tourist trap. It's now expanded to accommodate bus loads of tourists, so take that for what its worth. The food is very typical of the area and of good quality. You buy a ticket (currently $15.95 per adult) to sit down "family style" and eat as much as your poor overloaded stomach can handle. If you want something a little more "down home" try the Amish Barn on Route 896 just north of Route 30. A smaller menu but just as authentic, you can buy a normal meal at decent prices. Their salad bar is stocked full of the various salads and cold dishes that make me think of PA dutch cooking: chow-chow, potato salad, pickled red beet eggs, carrot salads and cottage cheese and apple butter. The dining room is a lovely open wood paneled room with big tables and the staff is friendly. Highly recommended, and the gift shop upstairs has all the "dutchie" crafts and treats you could ever want. PS: They had a nice selection of cook books. Both a high quality department store and restaurant, DONECKERS on N. State St. in Ephrata is a favorite. My mother goes there once a year with "the girls" for shopping and afternoon tea. I would make reservations.

If you are in the Kutztown area, make sure you stop at BOWER'S HOTEL on Bowers Rd. in, yes, Bowers PA. Its loud and casual, with a lively bar that has live music. Get "Bowerized' on one of their oversized cocktails.

My first introduction to real German cuisine and a perennial favorite is the ALPENHOF RESTAURANT on Morgantown Rd. in Reading. Last time I was there the sauerbraten was excellent.

In Reading all the locals go to the Peanut Bar, located on Penn Avenue in the downtown area. From the outside it looks like any other local watering hole, but inside you can get a fine, casual meal from a large menu. Mind the floor, its covered with peanut shells, and you are encouraged to add to the mess. Its all part of the fun. Weekend nights can get crowded. Make sure to try a pint of Yuengling Lager, brewed in nearby Pottsville (in my opinion, one of the best beers around).

If you want a real slice of life, Haag's Hotel in Schartlesville is a must see. Located on the Old Hex Highway, or Old Route 22, which runs parallel to I-78 near Hamburg, Schartlesville is an excellent stop along a route renowned for its old barns and hex signs.

One can still find many vestiges of an old PA tradition of hotels that aren't really hotels, they're a loophole around an old liquor licensing quirk that allowed a hotel to serve liquor, but not a restaurant. Thus, around rural parts of PA Dutch country, you'll see hotels, such as Haag's, which comprise of a dining room and a bar, but not much else. Oh, they may have had a room or two in their day, but I doubt you can get accommodation there.

Anyway, Haag's is the pinnacle of Dutch family-style dining. You may find yourself seated with another party at a large table, and food is often served in bowls for the whole table, not just yourself. You can sample some authentic Pennsylvania Dutch food here, and you get your money's worth. Try one of their typical dinner platters, which give you a generous portion of meat (roast beef, fresh ham, sausages, or chicken) with a choice of potato, AND three vegetables. Come hungry. Their potato filling, a local dish, is not the best I've ever had, but certainly filling. Try the pepper cabbage, their homemade applesauce, and another specialty, dried corn. I recommend it for the experience, if nothing else.

Now a few years back, some bright minded individual SOLD the locally famous and greatly treasured Kutztown Folk Festival to a group that moved it out of Kutztown. Thus, the original Kutztown Folk Festival is somewhere else no where near Kutztown, and the "new" Kutztown Folk Festival carries on, in the same location as it has for decades.

The Fair always begins in late June and carries on through the July 4 weekend, and is the best place to see the truly wide and astonishing variety of Pensylvania German crafts. I guess I never stopped to think about how "crafty" these folks are. Its not just quilts, although the quilts are the show stoppers. The PA Dutch have traditions in toll painting, quilling (making pictures with rolled strips of paper, paper cutting which has a name I can never remember, redware pottery, glass blowing and more.

Of course, the other thing to do at the Kutztown Folk Festival is eat. You can get anything in the PA Dutch repetoire from bratwursts to funnel cake and shoo-fly pie.

Well worth seeing. (4 for adults, plenty of parking on the fairgrounds). Its about a 2-3 hour drive from Phila or NYC. Lots of stuff for the kids to do, and for the guys, there's always an impressive collection of antique farm equipment and the "engine" show. Who knew antique farm engines were so interesting?

Simply put, the "Plain" folk are the Amish, who strive to live a simple pure life without the entrapments of modern life. Yes, just like in the movie "Witness" they do refer to outsiders as the English, but time is marching on and the Amish are adapting to 21st Century life just like we are.

"Fancy" refers to the general Pennsylvania Dutch or German population that settled the area, who, in the past, set themselves apart from the "Plain" people by their fancy ways, for example, by using buttons on their clothes.

Time marches on, and a lot of the local culture that I knew of as a child seems to be disappearing. I remember the Mennonites (a more progressive sect than the Amish) driving old black cars with the chrome, the bumpers, trim and so forth, painted black. You don't see that anymore. Today, it's not unheard of to see an Amish man using a cell phone. Amish children can play on roller blades. Many of the farms worked for years by Amish and Mennonite families are disappearing to make room for malls and housing developments. I hope that the encroachment of modern life doesn't drive these communities away, as they have been there for so many hundreds of years and are responsible for the color and vibrancy of the area.

A favorite for the kids is the STRASBURG RAIL ROAD on East Main Street in Strasburg. You can take a short ride through the country on a real steam engine locomotive.

If you are into nature, there is plenty to do. In Kutztown, visit CRYSTAL CAVE. A favorite for hiking, bird watching and nature lovers is the HAWK MOUNTAIN SANCTUARY in Kempton, where you can see all types of hawks, even eagles.

The man-made BLUE MARSH LAKE in Leesport has beaches for lake swimming. Locals come here to boat, water ski and jet ski.

For some real Amish culture, there are several working farms. Try the AMISH FARM & HOUSE on Route 30 East, Lancaster.

There is lots of history in the area, dating all the way back to the Revolutionary War. If history is your thing, visit the DANIEL BOONE HOMESTEAD on Daniel Boone Road, Birdsboro, or HOPEWELL FURNACE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE in Elverson, PA.

I couldn't possibly talk about PA Dutch country without mentioning the food. Oh, the food... Do try it. If you are a foodie, some of these shouldn't be missed.

The local version of Chicken Pot Pie is more like Chicken and Dumplings, a thick chicken stew with broad flat egg noodles. There are many interpretations of casserole dishes like Corn Pie and Schnitz Un Knepp (Dried Apples, Dumplings and Ham) that are simply wonderful.

Another staple is Filling, a great alternative to bread stuffings for holiday dinners. It is a baked casserole of potatoes, eggs. You'll find this dish EVERYWHERE and you should try it. Mmm, a plate of sliced turkey, tons of gravy and a mountain of filling, Yes please. Of course, it is extremely filling, but you don't eat PA Dutch food to lose weight.

Most everyone has heard of the notorious Scrapple, a mysterious sausage-like concoction eaten for breakfast. I'm not a fan, but scrapple has its staunch supporters and is available at most every diner in the region.

"Dutchie" cooking makes marvelous picnic food. They make wonderful red beet eggs, coleslaw, cheeses and sausages that have been at every picnic I have ever attended. The PA Dutch do marvelous things with Potato and Macaroni Salads, which are often much sweeter than you'll find elsewhere. Old German influence on the cooking comes out in these dishes, often with sweet and sour sauces and bacon. I go mad for Lebanon Bologna, a sweet and sour summer sausage great in sandwiches and available at any local sandwich shop or grocery store.

And I must add here, although I am sure I will get the spelling of it wrong, a marvelous treat you'll find in any country family style restaurant. Its called "Schmerecasen" (again, the spelling? dunno) which is simply cottage cheese and apple butter. Don't knock it until you try it. It makes a marvelous breakfast and kids love it. I first had it at the Kutztown Folk Festival. I remember sitting a a huge picnic table watching amply shaped farm folk slap mounds of full fat cottage cheese and dark apple butter onto slices of white bread. If this doesn't grab you, do at least try the apple butter, the darker the better. Many local shops sell hand made jars of apple butter that make great souvenirs.

These folks love sweets. If you haven't heard of ShooFly Pie, I don't know where you've been. It should be sampled. Not one of my favorites, its usually heavy and strongly flavored with molasses. I am fond of Fastnachts, however, made especially on Fastnacht Day, or what the rest of the world knows as Mardi Gras. Its a rather plain type of donut made before Lent. The area is famous for its Fritters (Corn, Apple, etc.) Of course most of us have seen a version of Funnel Cake at summer carnivals. The real deal is thick and warm and covered in powdered sugar.

Though not packed with five star restaurants, there are some great eating adventures to be found. Jump in your car, turn off on a small country road, and stop at a quiet local diner for a good country dinner you won't soon forget. Bon appetit!

Let's face it, the only reason people are coming to Lancaster, besides seeing spectacular countryside, is to see the Amish. Amish country isn't a zoo; the Amish people live, work and interact with the local "English" in, for the most part, harmony. Keep that in mind when you stop to take their pictures or just gawk as they roll by in buggies. They're people too.

There is a lot of myth and mystery around the Amish. Its interesting to keep in mind that you don't really become Amish until you are 18, when young adults get accepted into the church. Until that time, the youth are free to do the things that other teenagers do: drive cars, stay out until 4 in the morning, etc.

Their "rules" are often confusing too. Each bishop makes his community's rules, therefore some are more strict than others. It is true, they shun all things electric - but a generator-run refrigerator in the house is okay. Yes, in some cases, cell phones are okay. Kids are often seen on rollerblades.

Another myth is that they shun the English. This isn't true: the local Amish do business with the community and interact just as anyone would. They sometimes rely on the local "English" to, say, drive them somewhere, or to visit a doctor.

When you come to Lancaster, begin your trip at one of the house and farm attractions to learn more. The Amish Farm and House on Route 30 is a good place to start a days' visit. Open from 8 to 5 pm, they offer a guided tour through a typical Amish house, then you are free to explore the farm, buy crafts or sample some food. The gift shop here is actually quite nice. They have foreign language guides on certain days.