SMYRNA, Maine — A growing number of Amish-owned businesses dot a several-mile stretch along Route 2A in Aroostook County, with two more that sell wood-fired artisan pizza and homemade ice cream just added this summer.
Those two offerings have joined the menu of locally produced goods available for purchase at The Back 40 Farm Market in Smyrna, which is a retail hub for the Amish community’s handmade offerings including local meats, cheeses, dairy, baked goods and canned jams and jellies.
About 26 families belong to the Smyrna Mills Amish community, sharing their products, tasks and skills to support each other’s businesses, which include Pioneer Place, an Amish general store; Moosehead Meats, a USDA-certified slaughterhouse; Sturdi-bilt Amish Storage Buildings, The Back 40 and more.
Those businesses have benefited from the growing demand across Maine and the country for fresh, locally grown and produced foods, including heirloom tomatoes, crisp vibrant greens and burgeoning melons.
On Saturday morning, most of the innovative shops were buzzing with a steady stream of customers. The Back 40 Farm Market had sold out of most produce, including freshly picked strawberries and its famed jalapeno cheddar bread.
But the lines for vanilla and strawberry ice cream handmade from fresh raw milk, and for wood-fired pizza with a light wheat sourdough crust, continued long past noon.
Leona and Milan Frantz, siblings who are both in their early 20s, started their made-to-order artisan pizza business a few weeks ago, operating under a tent just outside The Back 40 on Fox Run Drive every Saturday, from about 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Leona Frantz, who also makes the jalapeno cheddar bread for the Back 40, makes fresh dough from flour she has milled down from grains within the last 24 hours, then mixes in the market’s commercial kitchen. This gives the dough time to rise slowly and then rest in the cooler overnight.
“They say flour has a shelf life similar to milk,” she said.
Leona and Milan Frantz found a portable wood-fired pizza oven in a catalog and ordered it for their business. The metal oven stands on a table and uses small pieces of wood for fuel. Once it gets going, its temperatures can reach up to 850 degrees fahrenheit, said Milan Frantz, who also works full-time at Sturdi-bilt.
“It’s so hot it only takes about two to three minutes for the pizza to come out of the oven,” he said.
On Saturday, one customer ordered half pepperoni and half green pepper. Leona Frantz rolled out the dough, spread spiced tomato paste mixed with some olive oil onto the crust, added a generous amount of shredded mozzarella and provolone, and topped it with their own farm grown peppers and pepperoni.
Milan slipped it into the very hot oven and in what seemed like seconds, it was a beautiful image of color, melted cheese and fresh sizzling toppings.
They also sell iced coffee and strawberry kombucha that their mother, Joanna Frantz, makes from black tea.
“We are excited about our fresh ingredients,” Leona said. “People have been very positive and we have heard good feedback.”
Another member of the Amish community, Kenneth Miller, also stayed very busy on Saturday. Just around noon, he was dipping creamy scoops of his freshly made vanilla and strawberry ice cream into waffle-style and regular cones.
Similar to the Frantzes, Miller also runs his new business under a tent outside The Back 40 on Saturdays. He also works full-time at Sturdi-Bilt Storage Buildings.
The ice cream, made with locally sourced raw milk, is initially mixed in The Back 40 commercial kitchen and then frozen.
Some might wonder how Miller is able to create ice cream in the middle of summer without modern appliances and freezing techniques, which Amish people avoid using. But he created an innovative ice cream churn that actually freezes the ice cream in about 20 minutes.
After reading and research, Miller found a 1935 John Deere Hit and Miss engine that he connected to the churn made up of the cylindrical ice cream freezer and an outer tub that he packs with salt and crushed ice. The gas-powered engine mixes the ice cream by turning the dasher inside the ice cream freezer. The dasher continuously scapes the sides as the ice cream begins to freeze.
“If you use enough salt, the ice cream will freeze pretty quick,” Miller said.
The ice comes from frozen blocks retrieved from winter ice ponds and then stored in foot-thick freezers the Amish built at The Back 40.
“I really like making the ice cream with an old engine,” he said.
Both new businesses plan to remain open through the summer and into the early fall.
