Seasons of Plenty: Amana Communal Cooking (Bur Oak Book) [Paperback]

Emilie Hoppe (Author), Rachel Ehrman (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Bur Oak Book | Publication Date: February 1, 1998

Step into Iowa's Amana Colonies and experience the charm of living history, cooking, weaving and furniture-making, arts and crafts, and architecture as they have been for almost 150 years.

Let Strohman, a knowledgeable and congenial guide, take you through the many fine restaurants, bed-and-breakfast inns, gift and antique shops, historical buildings, and educational displays that make the seven villages of Amana Iowa's most enchanting tourist attraction. His Colonies listings, along with a subject index, telephone numbers, hours, information on lodging and prices, menus, and other amenities make this a perfect guidebook.

Delightfully illustrated with photographs of yesterday and today, the Amana Colonies Guide also includes a history of the Colonies as well as historical information about each of the seven villages, from their settlement by a communal religious society in the mid-1850s to their transition to capitalism in 1932. Everyone who plans to visit the Amana Colonies should not be without this handy, authoritative book.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 236 pages
• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press; 1 edition (February 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587295644
• ISBN-13: 978-1587295645
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,907,481 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book, October 31, 2007

By 

Marilyn E. Fromherz "Marilyn (Myers)" (Southern California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seasons of Plenty: Amana Ckg-98-P (Paperback)

I got this book as a gift from Janet Wendler(mother of the author) whom I played with in Amana back in the 1950's. I lent it to a friend to read and she lost it, so am buying another copy. I visited the Wendlers every summer with my family. The book has wonderful recipes I grew up with and never knew where my mother learned about them. The story of the Amana Colonies is wonderful reading from a historic standpoint and the recipes are all great.

5.0 out of 5 stars Some recipies, some history, May 16, 2011

By 

Sharon McKee (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seasons of Plenty: Amana Communal Cooking (Bur Oak Book) (Paperback)

I received this book as a gift and have enjoyed cooking out of it and reading it. There are not a lot of recipies here, but every one I have tried was easy to follow and the results taste great. Now that I am buying more of my groceries at the local farmer's market, I've found it especially useful. A substantial part of the book is devoted to the history and culture of the Amana Colonies.

5.0 out of 5 stars A very special cookbook, March 30, 2011

By 

Susan M. (Northeast USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Seasons of Plenty: Amana Communal Cooking (Bur Oak Book) (Paperback)

I found this cookbook by a strange route. I have a Kindle, and was enjoying a free offering from books in the public domain - a letter from Martin Luther to Pope Leo X. That led me to look up Martin Luther on Wikipedia and there I found reference to German Pietists and from that I was led to the Community of True Inspiration, or what became in Iowa one of the most successful communes in the U.S., the Amana Colonies. I have since learned that The Community of True Inspiration, a religious community, began in Germany in the early 18th century, and became a communal society when it moved to N.Y. state about 1843. After about ten years, the members began the move to their final home in Iowa.

I knew of the Amana Colonies because my maternal grandmother had been born in Amana during the 19th century, and when I was a child in the 50s and 60s my family went there every other summer or so, to walk around, buy wool cloth, go to the meat market, and always, to eat at our favorite restaurant. What a quaint and ethnic place, where the villages remained unchanged and the restaurants served, family style, the most wonderful fresh meals. However, I never knew the story of the Amanas, and recently when I wanted to learn more about the history of the Amana Colonies, I looked for the best books on the subject and came up with about six I wanted to own. One of them was this wonderful cookbook full of recipes and glimpses of life in the colonies through historical photos and recorded interviews with people who remembered growing up there.

This book is a treasure of both recipes and information, with truly charming illustrations - stylized ink drawings of daily life and landscapes of the Amanas before "The Change" of 1932, and the decision to end the communal way of life. I'm so pleased to have found it!