Amish Wedding Steak

By Kevin Williams

Amish wedding steak.  It's a budget-friendly meal that is a tradition in some Amish settlements, primarily in northern Indiana.   Amish weddings are huge undertakings that often require feeding 800 to 1000 guests.  Obviously, you won't be serving porterhouse steaks to the attendees.  The ground beef, cracker crumbs, mushrooms, etc are all a way to "dress up" the beef in an economical but festive dish.

A few other Amish wedding thoughts:

Amish wedding gathering outside Geneva, Indiana....=

AMISH WEDDINGS

Traditionally Amish weddings have been held on Thursdays although that is slowly changing.  Some Amish weddings are shifting towards Fridays and Saturdays.

Few Amish can actually give the reason behind the Thursday weddings, the original answer largely lost to history.  Now they just cite “tradition.”  The best answers I have been given date to the 19th century, This is when people might have had to travel a long distance by horse-drawn buggy. If the wedding was held on a Thursday faraway guests could leave without missing church on Sunday,  They could then arrive back home for Sunday services. Although since worship is held every other Sunday among the Amish, so that theory has some holes.

Amish couples do get marriage licenses so the ceremony is official and the advent of the “wedding wagon” has made life much easier for the bride’s family which usually holds the wedding at their home.  Gone are the days of having to round up every spoon, commandeering ovens, and procuring plates.

These harried tasks have been made easier by renting a “wedding wagon." For a fee, one can rent an RV-size mobile kitchen stocked with plates, portable ovens, tables, table service, glasses, tablecloths, and virtually everything else you’d need to throw a party for a 1000 people.  These wedding wagons first started appearing only about 10 years ago by a few brilliantly enterprising Amish (rule one of capitalism: find a need and fill it)

Now, back to the wedding steak...this is a superb recipe to feed a crowd while still retaining some trappings of elegance.

meat mixture cut into squares

This dish is very economical in feeding a crowd...

Man, if you like mushrooms - and this editor loves them - the `shroom love in this recipe is amazing!

The wedding steak is done!

Now enjoy!