What’s the deal with Amish Friendship Bread??
Last week, my neighbor’s daughter stopped by with a ziplock bag full of goo and a sheet printed with instructions for making Amish Friendship Bread. Basically, the gist of it is, you get this fermenting bag of ick, squish it around for a few days, add some flour and milk and sugar, and then make bread out of it. But! Before you turn it into bread, you divide it out into ziplock bags and pass it along to another unsuspecting sucker.
I know I’m being a huge party pooper here, but…doesn’t the whole idea of this gross anybody out?? Anything could be in that bag! Anything at all! I don’t know the history of where this starter has been! It’s like picking up some stranger at the bar! What if someone jizzed in that bag? Or, or…just had a bad cold while they were making the starter? Or, they don’t wash their hands after they use the bathroom? I’m kind of horrified by the whole thing.
Last week, I left the starter bag on the kitchen counter for a couple of days, and then during a cleaning frenzy, I tossed it in the trash along with the instruction sheet. Fast forward to today. My doorbell rings, and my OTHER neighbor’s teenage son shoves a bag of goo toward me and says, “Uh, this is for you.” Do YOU want to make bread out of a bag of goo, handed to you by a teenage boy you barely know? I kind of don’t.
I’ve heard that the bread is good. I just can’t get my mind around the idea of preparing it, consuming it, and possibly feeding it to my family. It’s like foraging for cookie ingredients in a food court trash bin. Gross! Thoughts?
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Laura, also known as LaLaGirl, is the mother of a teenager and two young sets of twins. She's happily married, loves living in Colorado, and writes almost daily about married life, raising multiples, and parenting a child with autism.
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March 27th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
It’s the same theory as sourdough bread. Old, fermented starter makes the best sourdough bread and makes wonderful Amish friendship bread, too.
Google for your very own recipe to start your own starter for the friendship bread. Then you can see what the big deal is about how yummy it is and still know that it was made in a kitchen with washed hands and no cold germs.
March 27th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
HA! Well normally you get it from people you TRUST! LOL. I mean would you eat your neighbor’s food they prepared? If so then eat the bread. LOL.
March 27th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
I’ve eaten food from them in the past – cookies, for example – but this is completely different! This is a magical concoction that has been passed on not just from them, but from God only KNOWS who! They might have gotten it from someone at church or some friend of a friend of a friend, or their favorite checker at the supermarket, or…who knows! And any one of those people could have prepared it with poop germs on their hands. Haha! It feels like I’ve been given a bag of DNA!
March 27th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
It’s actually quite good, it’s a cinnamon-y pound cake kind of consistency. You can add other things to it to make it super healthy…banana, wheat, flax, even chocolate if you’re so inclined. I know it’s weird @ 1st, but give it a whirl as long as you trust the person giving you the starter. I know it’s totally creep-tastic since you have no idea the origin of the starter, who’s had it, etc. I felt that way too when I first tried it. They say you can’t make your own starter and that someone else has to do it for you. Lies. I’ve made my own and you know me, I’m far from Amish.
I can give you the recipe if you want or hell I can start it for you. It’s kind of a cooking chain letter. After a few rounds of it, unless you have the heart to throw it out, you’ll have a crap ton of starters you’ll be begging to pimp out to others too.
March 27th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
That’s exactly why I don’t go out to eat anymore. I’m always afraid that the cook will have poop germs on their hands. EWWWW
March 27th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
I totally agree with you; the thought repulses me. No way would I even consider it and would throw it straight in the garbage.
March 28th, 2009 at 6:34 am
I had friends in college who did that and my roommate had some in one of our cabinets. What seemed annoying to me was “feeding” it everyday. Glad she was into it, because then I could eat some and not have to do the work!
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March 28th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
OH HELL NO!!! I’m with you! I am sure your neighbor’s are wonderful people, but GROSS!! Who knows who touched that and what kind of nastiness is in there. I threw up a little in my mouth when I read that. I am sure it tastes fantastic, but I will let someone else be the judge of that thankyouverymuch!! Ugh, I am so grossed out. Hahaha!
March 29th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Too funny! Esp. since I too have a pile of goo in my kitchen right at this very moment. We live in the sticks tho’ and I’m relatively certain of the origin, so all is well and we’ll be baking today, lol!
March 29th, 2009 at 11:29 am
It’s so funny that you mention this because I felt the exact same way as you. In my case, it was someone I worked with on a consulting basis. She handed me the bag of goop and told me to keep her posted. Oh, the pressure.
Like you, I had no idea what was really in it. I was told the true ingredients were a secret or some such nonsense. To me, it seemed like a chain letter, but with bread.
It fermented okay but never left the bag. In fact, I never even read the instructions. When asked how it was coming a few days later, I said I was just waiting on it to finish prepping itself.
Oh, the horror. Apparently, I was supposed to nurture this bag every day. Cuddle with it, sleep beside it, whatever. I have enough living things to worry about and yeast isn’t high on my priority list.
Anyhow, long story short, the bag was tossed and I flat-out lied in saying that it was tasty. She was so stoked about this bread that I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I thought the whole concept was too much of a pain to mess with.
I just hope my feigned interest doesn’t lead to a repeat.
March 30th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I had no idea there was a whole underground chain letter movement of Amish Friendship Bread.
April 1st, 2009 at 2:06 pm
LOL, I am SOOO with you! It’s like getting invited to a dinner at someone’s house and their place is all nasty and though you are starving, you pretend that you can’t fit an ounce of food in your stomach due to the huge lunch you had? OR pot lucks??? Who knows what kind of kitchen that meat loaf came from? Bake Sales?! Okay, I’m going to stop before I make myself sound any more crazy!
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April 1st, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Holly, you’re so funny – I thought you were about to break into Rapper’s Delight for a minute there!
So you try to play it off like you think you can by sayin’ that you’re full – and then your friend says, “Mama, he’s just bein’ polite. He ain’t finished, uh-uh, that’s bull!”
April 1st, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Someone gave me some once, and I had never heard of it- I thought it was some story she made up at first. Needless to say, I did NOT make it. ewwww
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April 3rd, 2009 at 7:15 am
I agree… it’s a gross. I’ve always thrown it away. Even when I know who it came from well. I mean, ew! I’m extremely picky about that. But I’m guessing it comes from the whole you help out each other theory and this is the way that they are helping each other in those communities.
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April 8th, 2009 at 10:01 am
I never thought of it that way, but I’m totally grossed out! I’ve eaten this countless times during childhood and I’m flashing back to see if I had any encounters with the stomach flu or sickness after an unsuspecting piece…. Hilarious (yet so true)!
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April 8th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
OK Funnier on the second read, once I got the phrase “friendship bracelet” out of my head.
And no, I do not want anything to do with anything handed to me by a teenage boy I barely know. Thank goodness I have shunned my neighbors enough that nobody knocks on my door – EVER.
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April 8th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
your fucking high?!!
April 8th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
My fucking high what?
April 8th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I am SOOOOO with you on this one!
I’d channel Nancy Reagan on this one.
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April 9th, 2009 at 1:29 am
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July 20th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Has anyone felt sick from eating this Amish Bread?