amish cooking

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you may notice that I like to point out articles dealing with the Amish. The law tends to affect them in strange and unusual ways because they aren't the people that many of our laws are written on behalf of, and they don't have much of a voice. Mostly, they just want to live their own lives simply, and peacefully.

Imagine that you're on a bus tour through Amish lands in Pennsylvania, and the opportunity comes up to feast with the Amish in one of their homes. Of course, they are going to charge you for this, but I'd expect a good meal, and a chance to see a different lifestyle. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania would like to see the Amish who feed tourists get restaurant licenses and be subject to occasional health inspections, fearful of such things as e.coli outbreaks. Now, if many of them went ahead and procured licenses to serve food as restaurants, they would be running into zoning laws which don't allow restaurants in agricultural districts. Chances are in the future that your bus might just pull up in front of a McDonalds or Burger King.