As my parents age, I increasingly ask about their early days, and a new story surfaced this Christmas. My parents both grew up Amish, my mom in Iowa and my dad in Kansas. My dad passed what I thought was a family trait to me, but I just learned it was a characteristic common to many people in his Amish community in Kansas. When we are really listening or focusing, we tend to cock our heads a bit to the side. I think I mostly extinguished this behavior when friends in college pointed out how bizarre it was, but I probably slip up some, and give “The Yoder Look” when I’m around my dad or extended family.
When the Kansas Amish finished with the wheat harvest each year, they moved northeast to the corn harvest in Amish communities in Iowa and Indiana. This would have been just after hog butchering, so sausage would have been the most common food to serve this hungry group of workers. I guess the Kansas crews stood out not only for their voracious appetites, but also for the earnest sideways looks they cast.
Early in my parents’ marriage, my mom’s aunt identified my dad as being a “schrecks gsichtich ah vahst fresser,” a slant-faced sausage eater. When asked, my parents hesitated with the spelling and exact translation of this Pennsylvania Dutch term, but it is a very efficient insult! Not only does it identify an entire community’s tendency to turn their heads to the side slightly when speaking to you, apparently the term for eat here would normally only be used to describe an animal eating. My parents say this is typical Amish humor – blunt and accurate, but not so mean that the target of the insult can’t laugh at himself.
What choice did we have but to make sausage sandwiches for Ben’s Day Wednesday this week?
Loved this story Liz! How did I not know your parents both grew up Amish? My mother did as well, in Nappanee, IN. I’d love to know the story of their leaving the Amish church, and meeting each other, etc. I don’t think my relatives cock their head to the side when listening, but I will have to look for that. They definitely have some speaking patterns and a lilt that is unmistakable, and you are spot on about the sense of humor. Frank and often self-deprecating. My parents were quite sarcastic with each other, and I saw it as a sign of love. We ate a lot of sausage at our house too, though not as yummy as what you picture here, with onions and peppers and cheese!
I loved reading your piece recently about your mom and the telephone. I think you and I have many overlapping experiences! My mom was the youngest of ten to leave the Old Order Amish, but she and all her siblings remained some stripe of Mennonite/Conservative/Beachy Amish. My dad’s family was Beachy Amish, and he and his just older brother were the only ones to leave. Nobody was shunned, and I think of both tribes as essential to my individual identity. A post I made last summer sheds light on my mom’s side of the family.
https://bensdaywednesday.com/freundschaft/