Dinner at an Amish bakery

Tuesday night we were invited, along with about 30 other missionaries to eat at an Amish farm about an hour from Nauvoo.  John Van_____ met us in the parking lot and chatted with us while his daughters sold goods in the bakery.  We bought some deliciously moist pumpkin bread. John took us on a short, bouncy, buggy ride.  I heard him speaking a German dialect with his 4 year old daughter, so I asked him to tell me about his family in German. " Wir han' acht Kindeln."  John explained that his ancestors came in the 1700s so of course the language had changed some.  However they read the Martin Luther Bible, which is in high German.  "If I went to Germany I would understand them, but they might not understand me," he said. I wanted to hear more, but it was time to eat.  Dinner was served buffet in an unfinished great room behind the bakery that was lit by battery light.  The meal was a regular farm meal - mashed potatoes with sausage gravy, meatloaf, noodles, and a sort of coleslaw salad, followed by apple or cherry pie.  It was a very hearty meal.
We've lived in the West and in the East.  Now we are having a Mid-West experience.