Like most Mennonite and Amish cooks, Laura Jean believes in using fresh seasonal produce in her cooking. A popular source for fruits and vegetables—for other Sarasotans as well as Mennonites—is Overholt’s Produce Stand on Bahia Vista at Kaufman Avenue. Owner Vera Overholt keeps the stand open from December through April, and shoppers can find everything there from fresh, sweet local strawberries to the best Northern apples.

But Laura Jean Helmuth can find plenty of fresh bounty right in her own back yard. The Helmuths’ brown eggs come from their own hens; her husband milks the goat. Their garden produces lima beans, yellow wax beans, English peas, red beets, beefsteak tomatoes, spinach and chives and parsley. They even have a “fruit cocktail’’ tree, a rare variant that yields peaches, plums, pears and nectarines, and they cultivate blueberry bushes as well.

“Almost all of my recipes have been passed down in the family,’’ Laura Jean says, and you can tell she is happy about that. Each recipe means something to her and comes with memories of people and celebrations past. They are part of—and tell—her family’s history.

While we wait for the cobbler to bake, Laura Jean tidies up the kitchen and gets things ready for lunch. I can’t wait. In addition to the fresh peach cobbler, she’s making egg salad sandwiches with homemade mayonnaise on homemade whole wheat bread. The eggs have just come from the hen house, and the fresher “they are the harder it is to get off the shell,’’ Laura Jean explains, as she shows me how to make the sandwich right on the plate.

When we sit down to eat together, I am amazed at how sumptuous this simple meal is, from the whole-grained bread to the sublime cobbler that bursts with flavor.

Earlier, Laura Jean made whole-wheat biscuits from a family recipe, and she and Jacob will have the biscuits with gravy, fresh green beans, tomatoes and celery for dinner that night. And, of course, some of the cobbler, she says with a smile. Jacob loves desserts.

The Helmuths are members of a Mennonite order that dresses in the “plain” old-fashioned way. For more modern Mennonite orders, dress can mean slacks and jeans for women and shorts during the summer—but the key elements are still simplicity and modesty.

Sarasota has about a dozen Mennonite churches, and whatever variant of religion they follow, fellowship is the key to their worship and community. That’s inspired a delicious tradition: the “carry-in.” After Sunday services at Mennonite churches, people often come together to share a potluck lunch in their fellowship hall.

I’m lucky enough to attend a carry-in at the Ashton Mennonite Church. The church holds these on the first Sunday of each month; during the summer they might have as few as 60 participants, but during the winter the number goes to about 110, says the church pastor, Rev. Martin Birkey.

A few days before the carry-in, I chat with Rev. Birkey and we start comparing notes on our favorite things at Sarasota’s Mennonite and Amish restaurants. I tell him about discovering Troyer’s peanut butter pie, and he confesses he likes Yoder’s version even more, although he lavishes praise on Troyer’s turkey and stuffing. He praises some of the cooks in his congregation, including Barbara Beiler, an “excellent cook” who often brings roasted meats or fresh-baked wheat and sourdough breads.

On the day of the carry-in, I’m amazed when I see the bountiful counter in the church meeting room, loaded with dozens of yummy-looking casseroles and vegetable dishes, salads of every description and yeasty-smelling homemade breads and rolls.

Barbara isn’t here today; an illness in the family kept her at home, but she sent along a roast with carrots and potatoes that draws raves for its succulent flavors. Someone else has prepared an elk pot roast, smiling people bring back their empty plates for second servings of it; while the brown-butter mashed potatoes that Naomi Schlabach made vanish in minutes. I help myself to a hearty portion of Ella Yoder’s chicken tortilla casserole, a creamy-cheesy concoction that defined the words “comfort food,” made from a recipe that’s been handed down through her family for decades. A salad boasts real, vine-ripened tomatoes; and I can’t resist more comfort food, in the form of scalloped potatoes baked in sour cream and topped with cheddar cheese.

The dessert table makes me wistful for the days I could eat anything and not gain an ounce. The peach delight with cream cheese and graham cracker crust that Sally Eisner made is all gone by the time I got there, but I do snag a slice of coconut cream pie and some heavenly blueberry cobbler.