Seven days on the road, 3,000 fry pies: Amish family serves RAGBRAI riders entire route

MILO — The stand is set up, the fry pies have been put out and now, shortly after 7 a.m. on RAGBRAI’s Day 4, Katie Gingrich has a question.

“How hot is it supposed to be?” she asks, an important question when you are selling ice cream and also are Amish without a wealth of information at your fingerprints.

When told the high is supposed to be 86 degrees, Katie Gingrich replies, “That’s warm, but not 96 degrees like it was last year.”

Last year was the Gingrich family's first taste of selling fried pies, ice cream and other Amish delicacies along the RAGBRAI route when they sold for two days.

This year, Katie and her husband, Jonas, are all in, setting up each of the seven days of the RAGBRAI route. The Amish couple from southwest of Chariton has a utility trailer that includes their booth, a refrigerator, freezer and four ice cream churns, all powered by a diesel-fueled motor.

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Wednesday, the Gingrich set up their stand, Horse and Buggy Essenhaus (kitchen), in Milo. They will head to Lovilia on Thursday, Libertyville on Friday and Mediapolis on Saturday.

“We have a reefer (refrigerated trailer) truck in our yard right now to keep baked goods fresh,” said Jonas Gingrich, who lives in rural Chariton.

Fry pies are the big seller for the food booth that also offers ice cream, sweet breads, chocolate chip cookies and some beverages.

Although they have the more modern ice cream makers in the trailer that make up to four gallons each simultaneously, the Gingriches also have a fully functional churn on display powered by a 1930s-era John Deere motor known as the Hit ‘n Miss for the distinctive noise it makes while running.

“We get a lot people that come through that are interested in that,” Jonas Gingrich said.

The couple had planned to spend three days turning more than 300 pounds of flour into 3,000 fry pies but ended up doing it in two, Jonas Gingrich said.

“We worked until midnight last Thursday and Friday, probably shouldn’t have, but I’ve never been afraid of hard work,” Katie Gingrich said.

The Gingriches, who have 17 children, are joined on the trip with four of their younger sons and a driver who hauls the family and pulls the trailer.

That driver, Ken Clarke, retired to Chariton two years go after moving from Ohio. Since moving to Iowa, he has found the perfect retirement gig in providing rides to the Amish, who don’t drive.

“I’ve driven to everything from the store, to weddings, to funerals, to girlfriends going to see boyfriends and boyfriends going to see girlfriends,” Clarke said.

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Clarke said a friend got him set up driving for the Amish and he has loved every minute of it.

“The Amish live a simpler life and it’s a good life. If I was 20-years-old again I think I would join an Amish community. They are so self-sufficient, and their community takes care of their community including widows and orphans,” Clarke said.

Jonas Gingrich said they also operate their food booth at other events, including a fall festival in Kansas. The family does it because Katie loves to engage with the customers, he said.

Katie Gingrich agrees.

“I love the whole thing,” Katie Gingrich said of the RAGBRAI experience. “I love to serve people and when people smile, I love smiling back. The people on RAGBRAI are so friendly.”

Amish country greets RAGBRAI on Day 5

As the 2024 route turns south out of Knoxville on Day 5 Thursday , riders will skirt parts of Iowa known for their concentrations of Amish population.

Keep an eye out for Old-Order families out in their horse-drawn buggies, and perhaps some of the pedal-less scooter bikes favored by some communities.

From a distance, they sure look like a bike — two wheels, handlebars, a basket, maybe a handbrake. But on closer inspection, there is definitely something missing, particularly for cycling enthusiasts like the RAGBRAI crowd.

Many Amish bicycles eschew pedals and instead feature a flat platform near the bottom, essentially making the equipment more of a scooter.

Some of the Amish scooters could be seen along RAGBRAI south of Winterset, where an Amish community set up at Podunk Center, a former town and now the location of a restaurant by that name. The Amish were there raising money for their community school.

But why no pedals? When bicycles first came out in the 1800s it was an expensive means of transportation before automobiles and not particularly practical for the unpaved roads of the time.

Amish churches decided bicycles were not practical so they did not become part of the culture. As roads improved, the scooters became a more accepted form of transportation, according to a LancasterOnline article from an area in Pennsylvania that has the largest estimated Amish population in the world.

“It’s just simpler,” said Perry Gingrich, whose parents own the Horse and Buggy Essenhaus stand.

Kevin Baskins covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at kbaskins@registermedia.com .

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Seven days on the road, 3,000 fry pies: Amish family serves RAGBRAI riders entire route