Village Inn

The town of Middlebury is where Amish farmers come to shop for dry goods and hardware. When it is time to eat, locals and hungry travelers crowd into a town lunchroom called the Village Inn for plowman’s meals served by Mennonite girls in organdy caps.

How about a huge plate of cornmeal mush, accompanied by head cheese, for breakfast? There are ordinary egg breakfasts, too, but even they seem twice as hearty as anything you would get in an ordinary diner. Lunches are even bigger: chicken and noodles or meat loaf or beef stew and mashed potatoes, smothered steaks and stuffed peppers, all served with plenty of richly-dressed slaws and salads and well-cooked vegetables enriched with breadcrumbs, butter, and cheese.

It has long been a tradition among “the plain people” to make spectacularly unplain pies; and town cafes in the Amish parts of Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are terrific places to stop for pie breaks while traveling. They offer about a dozen different kinds of pie every day at The Village Inn, the roster indlucing blueberry (from locally-picked berries), lattice-topped raisin, and the pie known among Indiana farm folks as O.F., meaning “old fashioned”: little more than sugar, eggs, and cream, whipped into a jiggly custard perched atop a flaky pastry crust. Whole pies can be ordered in advance, to go.