CULTURE
Shopping in an Amish Paradise
by Elizabeth Station
Somewhere between Michigan and Indiana—in a land they call Michiana—the
world’s largest wood-peg barn rises majestically over the cornfields,
marking the home of the American Countryside Farmers Market.
Just opened last May, the market is far enough southeast of Chicago (110 miles) and west of Toledo (80 miles) that it’s easy to miss. But developers hope the big barn will put this windswept patch of agri-prairie on the map, becoming a crossroads where red-and-blue-state America can come together around our common love of food, crafts and Saturday morning shopping. Kind of like an Amish Country Wal-Mart.
Some 12,000 people showed up to shop on the market’s opening Saturday last May. Traffic has slowed since then, but the prospects for success are good. Across the USA, local farmers’ markets have grown from 1,755 to 4,385 in the last twelve years. Americans of every stripe are hungry for fresh, local fruits and vegetables, meat raised with minimal chemical processing and other ventures that help sustain the small family farm.
Will Work for Food
Michiana residents are also eager to back any effort that provides a shot in the arm of our ailing economy. Michigan and Indiana have lost thousands of jobs with the downturn in the auto and manufactured housing industries. When it comes to supporting agriculture, politicians seem most interested in big projects involving biofuels, like the ethanol plant that belches a foul odor in the air around South Bend.
“Smells like jobs,” is what people said when the plant first opened.
The American Countryside Market has opened its doors with a vow to keep dollars and small farmers in Elkhart County. I showed my support just before Christmas by heading down the U.S. 20 Bypass and turning into the parking lot at the sight of the big red barn.
Outside, handsome young Hoosiers sold holiday greenery and kids were having their pictures taken with a live reindeer (for $8). Inside, three stories of vendors’ stalls rose up toward three soaring cupolas. White Christmas lights glowed against the golden pine paneling. On the solid wood beams surrounding the food court, Amish craftsmen had carved the virtues: love, joy, patience, peace, kindness, gentleness and—at the risk of discouraging shoppers—self-control.
Vendor after vendor beckoned with tempting wares. I strolled past the Wakarusa Dime Store stall (“home of the jumbo jelly bean”) and Crystal Valley Organics offering free samples of hormone-free cheddar goat cheese. Yoder’s Kitchen was roasting crispy Amish chickens and the Fritter Place was serving up steaming plates of fried dough. I saw olive oil from Tuscany and certified fair-trade organic coffee from South America. But most of the goods seemed to come from nearby: Michigan-grown squash and apples, colorful soybean candles and homemade baked goods galore.
Shop Til You Drop
What bounty, I thought. Michiana’s cup runneth over! If all that food on the first level wasn’t enough, shoppers could still explore a second floor “filled to the rafters with crafters” as the sign at the stairway said. This is typical—when the going gets tough in Indiana, the tough go to Hobby Lobby, Michael’s or other mall chainlets to fuel their sewing, knitting and scrap-booking habits.
At the Countryside Market, things felt a little more down-home. Kindly Amish matrons were selling lovely traditional quilts that I hoped were made from their children’s worn-out Sunday best. The menfolk were doing a brisk business in handcrafted furniture, all made from trees sustainably felled in the USA (or so they assured me). There was a calligrapher, a knit shop, a genealogist, and local artisans like the ladies who painted original designs (“World’s Best Grandma”) on tea towels and sweatshirts.
A pair of geezers called Dave and Doug played live music, celebrating our region’s incipient cultural diversity with back-to-back renditions of “Go Tell it On the Mountain” and “Feliz Navidad.” That got a chuckle from the handful of Latinos who were selling and shopping. But generally, the vendors and clientele were as white as the bread in the bakeshops.
Red and Blue America
Red and blue America can meet at the Market, but the red team definitely has the home court advantage. As I walked about, I saw a group of volunteers stuffing Christmas stockings for our Indiana troops in Iraq and flag motifs everywhere. Some of the humor was folksy (like the yard sign that said, “An old soldier lives here with his privates”) but some seemed a little menacing (like the T-shirt, “We interrupt this marriage to bring you hunting season”).
If you were a person of faith, you had one choice: Christianity. Variations on the theme came in Bibles sold at the cozy Christian bookstore, hand-lettered “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” signs outside the ladies’ room and a “Great is Thy Faithfulness” plaque hanging over an Amish four-poster bed.
The more I walked, the more I got the feeling this was a canned and very well planned version of America. Amish carpenters built the barn, but, sure enough, their bosses turn out to be the Troyer Group, a large Indiana developer. The American Countryside Market sits on just 15 of the 450 acres it hopes to develop into a massive “recreational destination place that embodies the values and replicates the rural charm of Northern Indiana,” according to its mission statement.
The American Countryside Farmers Market is Phase I of a multi-phase plan to add a giant indoor/outdoor water park, a 350-site RV resort, and an environmental center (stay tuned for that one!) that is “family-oriented with features and activities for all ages.” They haven’t ruled out giving national retail chains a piece of the action, either, so the Amish cheese vendors may soon be competing with Sam’s Club.
Bring on The Tourists
Under the plan, American Countryside will eventually draw tourists from a five-state, 150-mile radius, many arriving on tour buses from Wisconsin, Michigan and even Ontario, Canada. Not all the locals are enthusiastic. One successful businessman who turned down an invitation to invest in the project explained his reluctance to me this way. “A farmer’s market is an organic thing,” he said. “You can’t plant it in the middle of nowhere and see it grow. Local people come to farmers’ markets for the social interaction. You can’t replace it with one that’s like a mall, where the purchase is the purpose.”
For the comfort and camaraderie—and to combat superstore sprawl—he prefers to sell his wares at a renovated storefront in South Bend’s struggling downtown. He also has a booth at the South Bend Farmers’ Market, a 75-year-old institution started by local small producers and still maintained by them.
So whom do we root for, in an economy where the little guy often needs powerful allies to get his products to market? If the American Countryside Market fails, people like me will blame the greed of big developers and cheer when the last RV pulls away. If it succeeds, we’ll be happy for those Amish family farmers—assuming we can still find them there.
Until then, we’ll celebrate any place where red and blue can come together over a pasture-fed buffalo burger or a bag of fair-trade caramel corn. And one thing was clear as the fragrance of tamales, rotisserie chicken and apple fritters mingled in the food court on the Saturday morning I visited.
At least for now, it smells like jobs.
The American Countryside Farmers Market, located at 27751 County Road 26 in Elkhart, Indiana, is open year-round on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
