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The Amish Cook's Anniversary Book:
20 Years of Food, Family, and Faith

by Lovina Eicher with Kevin Williams

Description
Part cookbook, part cultural education, part family memoir, ‘The Amish Cook's Anniversary Book: 20 Years of Food, Family, and Fait’h celebrates two decades of home and hearth straight from the pens of the original Amish Cook, Elizabeth Coblentz, and her daughter and successor, Lovina Eicher.

Featured inside are classic recipes such as Cucumber Salad, Homemade Cheese Soup, Rhubarb Custard Pie, Poor Man's Steak, Asparagus Casserole, Frosty Strawberry Squares, and Yumasetti; a sampling of the best columns from ‘The Amish Cook’ archives; reflections on Amish history and lore, including stories of old-order days; and glimpses into special events such as weddings, funerals, church services, butchering days, family reunions, and holidays.

More than 30 recipes are featured alongside evocative full-color photographs and descriptive monthly columns on topics ranging from cooking and gardening to family meals and celebrations--each offering insight on a culture rooted in food, family, friends, and faith.

About the Author
Together with editor Kevin Williams, Elizabeth Coblentz founded "The Amish Cook" newspaper column and later coauthored the column's namesake inaugural cookbook. Today, Lovina Eicher, Elizabeth's daughter, pens the column that continues to share Amish culture, tradition, and recipes with a nationally syndicated audience of more than 130 newspapers throughout the United States. Lovina lives in Michigan with her husband, Joe, and their eight children. Kevin lives in Ohio.

REVIEW
I purchased this book as a gift for my mom who is interested in Amish culture. From the title, I expected a cookbook with a few tidbits about Amish life thrown in. The reverse is what this book really is.

The book is a compendium of newspaper columns written by Elizabeth Coblentz and later on by her daughter Lovina Eicher. Commentary from the newspaper editor, Kevin Williams, explains to the reader a little background on many of the columns. I learned a great deal about modern Amish life in Indiana. From wedding customs to house church, the peak into the daily lives of these women gives a down to earth, homey view of their lives.

The recipes use a variety of basic ingredients and convenience items like store-bought mayonnaise and jello. Almost all of the recipes could be made by modern lifestyle cooks. The number of servings are often large, in the 8-10 range. There are also recipes for canned items, and the recipes make for large batches to be put up for later use. There are really only about 33 recipes in the book.

This is a nice book if you want to learn about the Amish from journal style entries written by Amish women. The recipes are just a nice side addition to the text.
Lisa Linnell-Olsen (Amazon.com)