BECKS MILLS, Ohio -- Arriving fashionably late to a cocktail party is one thing. But dinner at someone's home? You don't have to be Emily Post to know that's the height of bad manners.

Which explains why late -- oh, so late! -- on a summer afternoon my husband and I were flying down a winding country road in the heart of Ohio Amish country. We'd made reservations to have dinner with an Old Order Amish family who live on an 118-acre farm near this tiny village just south of Charm. Even with written directions that helped us negotiate a confusing crisscross of county and township roads, the drive took us way longer than we'd anticipated.

By the time we found the Yoders' tidy, white-clapboard farmhouse in what felt like the middle of nowhere (after twice driving past it), John and his wife, Fannie, had already served the 10 other guests who'd managed to get there on time. But not to worry: they quickly set us a place at the table and insisted we dig in.

		Hitch up and go Hungry for a taste of the past? Amish Heartland Tours of Berlin, Ohio, serves up several different ways to enjoy a home-cooked meal in a private Amish home. One of the most popular, and cheapest, culinary experiences is the family-style dinner offered year-round in one of 13 local farms and homes. A minimum of eight diners is required, and reservations must be made at least 72 hours in advance; directions to the home are e-mailed to diners beforehand. Cost: $20 per person, or $49 per person when packaged with a two-hour tour. Throughout the holiday season, the company will also offer "Christmas With the Amish." Tours depart from the Farmstead Restaurant in downtown Berlin, and include stops at an Amish candlemaker's home and a local store where many of the area Amish do their shopping. It concludes with a hearty Amish Christmas meal of turkey, ham and homemade bread in an Amish home. Cost: $69 per person. The company also offers a progressive meal once a month that kicks off with breakfast at 7:15 a.m., stops around noon for lunch and ends with a late-afternoon supper. The next dinners will be held Saturday and, after a short winter break, on March 14. Cost: $129 per person. For more information, call 1-330-893-3248 or visit amishtoursofohio.com. Reservations can be made at TourReservations@aol.com. -- Gretchen McKay

Not that we needed any encouragement. The spread, which was served on plain Corelle dishes, included everything from roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy to oven-fried chicken and noodles. There also was salad, big bowls of pickled beets and fresh green beans, home-baked bread with apple butter and Mennonite Wine, which is punch made from Kool-Aid, orange juice and 7-Up.

With 36,000 Amish and Mennonite in residence, Holmes County in northeast Ohio is synonymous with Amish country and draws 4 million visitors a year. So there's no shortage of restaurants and stores that feature Amish home cooking and bakery items. But my husband and I were hungry for something a bit more authentic -- and what's more real than eating with "real" Amish?

Well, not so much with them as among them; while the Yoders cooked and served the $20 dinner, they didn't eat it with us. They did, however, engage in friendly and honest conversation about Amish life while we filled our bellies. For instance, we learned that John -- who is a bishop in his church and has 11 children and 50 grandchildren -- worked for two years in a sawmill before becoming a farmer some 30 years ago. Now semiretired, he spends much of his time making child-sized rocking chairs in a large woodshop across from the barn. He married Fannie a few years ago, after his first wife died in 1999 of cancer.

It might seem strange that the Amish -- who prefer not to be photographed and shun modern trappings like electricity and cars -- would open their doors to "English," as the Amish call the non-Amish. But it's getting harder and harder to make a living from farming, and so these homespun meals provide a way for more people to make some extra income.

Amish Heartland Tours of Berlin, Ohio, which has been offering dinner tours since April 1993, works with the Yoders and 11 other Amish homes to provide meals for groups of up to 12 people; for large groups, owner LaVonne DeBois also can arrange an Amish Wedding Feast for which one couple is chosen from the group to act as the bride and groom and two other couples serve as witnesses. She even provides Amish-made wedding clothes.

For those with a bit more time on their hands, AHT also offers a 12-hour progressive Amish meal tour that starts with breakfast at one Amish home, followed by a soup-and-salad lunch at another, and concludes with dinner and dessert at a third. Tour-goers get to visit various Amish cottage businesses between meals.

The Yoders are relatively new to the business, having served their first group of tourists in April.

But they proved to be hospitable hosts, answering each and every question our group -- some of whom lived as far away as Florida and Michigan -- threw at them and even taking us on a tour of the workshop and barn after dessert (choice of chocolate or strawberry pie).

And the meal was surprisingly good, if nothing fancy.

The most enlightening moment may have been the parting hymn John and Fannie sang at the end of the meal in a derivative of their ancestors' Low German speech.

I couldn't understand any of the words or even make out a tune, but the sincerity was unmistakable.

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These are some of the highlights from the communal meal served family-style at John Yoder's Amish farm near Becks Mills, Ohio. All of the recipes are adapted from the "Tastes of the Tour" cookbooklet ($7) published by Amish Culture Tours.

-- Gretchen McKay

This "fried" chicken is actually baked in the oven. But your family will never know the difference, thanks to a crunchy coating.

For chicken

• 8 or 9 pieces of chicken
• Salt
• Melted butter and oil for coating chicken

For coating

• 20 ounces Bisquick
• 1 cup chicken coating from bulk food store
• 2 1/2 cups "runion" mix (a bulk seasoning mix similar to Shake 'n Bake available at Amish country stores)
• 1/2 tablespoon paprika
• 1 1/4 pounds Gold Medal flour
• 1 tablespoon garlic salt
• 1 ounce seasoned salt
• 1/4 cup white sugar

Trim off fat, and salt the chicken overnight. Prepare coating by mixing dry ingredients together in a large paper sack. Set aside.

Roll the chicken pieces 3 at a time in some melted butter and oil and then drop into a sack and shake to cover. Place on a plate until all pieces are coated.

Fry to a golden brown in butter and oil. Set aside.

Pour a glass of water into the bottom of a roaster and cover with a piece of tin foil. Put chicken on top of tin foil and cover with another layer of foil. Take a pencil and punch 10 to 12 holes in the top layer of foil.

Place in a 350-degree oven, and bake for 2 hours.

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• 6-quart kettle of potatoes
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 ounces cream cheese
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 can evaporated milk
• Salt
• Milk

Cook potatoes in boiling water until soft. Mash real good. Slowly add butter, cream cheese, sour cream and evaporated milk, and stir well. Salt to taste. Slowly add enough milk to make potatoes creamy. Stir real good.

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• 1 1/2 cup Sprite
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons ClearJel thickening agent
• 1 tablespoon light Karo corn syrup
• 3-ounce package strawberry Jello
• 3 ounces cream cheese
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 cup whipped topping, plus additional for garnish
• 2 cups sliced fresh strawberries
• 9-inch pie shell, baked

Bring Sprite, sugar, ClearJel, Karo and Jello to a boil and cook until thickened. Add strawberry Jello mix. Cool, then add 1 cup fresh sliced strawberries. Set aside.

Cream together cream cheese, powdered sugar and whipped topping. Pour into baked pie shell, and top with strawberry mixture. Garnish the pie with additional whipped topping and remaining strawberry slices.

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The Amish generally don't drink alcohol. But they do enjoy this sugary fruit punch.

• 2 packages cherry Kool-Aid
• 2 packages strawberry Kool-Aid
• 1 small can frozen orange juice
• 1 cup ReaLemon juice
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 quarts water
• 1 quart 7-Up

Mix ingredients together and stir well. Serve over ice.

Makes about 2 gallons of wine.

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Chili peppers and spicy seasonings such as cumin don't typically come to mind when one thinks of Amish food. And indeed, as Lovina Eicher writes in her cookbook, it took some real nerve to try jalapenos, or "those peppers that'll burn your throat out." A growing number of Amish, though, are incorporating Tex-Mex dishes into their daily menus.

• 1/4 cup cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup (or more) shredded Cheddar cheese
• 8 jalapeno peppers, halved and seeded
• 8 slices bacon, cut in half crosswise

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a jelly-roll pan with aluminum foil.

Put the cream cheese and Cheddar cheese in a small resealable plastic bag. Seal the bag and knead until the cheeses are well combined. Cut off a bottom corner of the bag and use it to pipe a generous portion of the cheese mixture into each of the jalapeno halves.

Wrap a piece of bacon around each jalapeno half. If you prefer to cook them on a grill, use a toothpick to hold the bacon in place. Place the peppers on a rack in the jelly-roll pan, cheese side up. Bake for 20 minutes or until the bacon is crisp.

Serves 4.

-- "The Amish Cook at Home" by Lovina Eicher with Kevin Williams (Andrews McMeel, $29.99)