Little House on the Prairie gets all the fame, but if you want to read a great story about eating locally, seasonally, and ecologically, Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder is a must-read.
My son and I have been enjoying reading this series (his first chapter books!) together, and I have to tell you: even though I taught Little House in the Big Woods to third graders for two years, I am discovering some parts strike me in a totally new way. Now I understand exactly what Ma is doing when she renders lard, for example.
As we worked through “Big Woods” I was having conversations in my head with all of you each time a traditional food or way of preparation came up. It was such fun to read about how it was really done 150 years ago! Just for kicks, I thought I’d share with you all the food gems you’ll find:
- An entire year’s worth of life, including lots of detailed descriptions of completely seasonal food.
- Seasonal vegetables galore, including preserving the harvest for the winter, an absolute necessity!
- Deer and pig meat in the fall, then “no fresh meat” for the spring and summer (to let the animals fatten up).
- Using the WHOLE pig: rendering lard, head cheese with the brain, making sausage from the scraps, roasting and eating the tail, making a balloon from the bladder.
- Making lots of butter from the cow’s cream…and I just LOVED the way they talked about the yellow cream from the good grass in the summer and how Ma colored the butter with carrot juice in the winter, so it would be pretty. No artificial colorings there!
- Maple syrup and maple sugar in the spring. They ate their fill, then saved it for later to be used sparingly, and as nearly the only sweetener. Pa also found a bee’s nest tree and brought home lots of raw honey! The “store sugar” was the white stuff, and it was very expensive and just for company, as was white flour in Little House on the Prairie.
- Cheese-making in the summer when the milk was plentiful. They skimmed the cream to make butter, but not all of it. Pa told a story about Old Man Grimes, whose wife skimmed all the cream, and he was so thin drinking her whey that he blew away in a strong storm. They understood the value of good fats!
- Their “food to go” when they took their one excursion to town included: bread and butter, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, and cookies. I wish we in our culture had some concept of such simple meals. We have no tolerance to eat for subsistence, but it seems every meal must have some extravagance, spice, or tantalizing sweetness.
- Always fried food in a bit of lard, never butter.
- When they harvested the grain in the fall, they had to make very sure that the oats didn’t get wet at all. I couldn’t help but take note of that after this discussion on biblically prepared grains.
- I wish there would have been more talk of the bread baking. I couldn’t tell if they used yeast or sourdough, but Laura often described the bread in a meal as “salt-rising bread.” Anyone know what that was? They also often made corn cakes with cornmeal, water and salt (only?). I have no idea if the corn was treated for that, but…
- The process by which Ma made “hulled corn” at harvest time is one of the more complicated in the entire book:
- Burnt hardwood and saved the ashes.
- Shelled the corn off its cobs.
- Put corn and ashes into a big kettle of water and boiled it for a long time,until the corn began to swell and the skins split open.
- Dipped the corn into cold water, rubbing and scrubbing until the hulls came off and floated on top of the water.
- Changed the water and repeated, over and over, until all the hulls were washed away.
- Stored the “soft, white kernels in a big jar in the pantry.” They ate hulled corn with maple syrup for breakfast, fried in pork drippings or with milk. AND Ma never got a drop of water on her dress. (I would never fit in, thank you very much.)
- What is hulled corn? Did they dry the corn then, or can it? Was it served warm with milk, or was this like the precedent to boxed cereal? I’m fascinated!
I find myself nostalgic for a simplicity I never knew, a time when a pair of homemade mittens and one candy stick were an exciting, filled stocking at Christmas, and getting a new doll was really something extra special, beyond expectation, even for that holiday.
I wish Laura and Mary’s mother and father had written a book called “How we Trained our Children to be so Loving Even Though they had no Other Children to Learn from” and I think daily of a meal the girls are served on the prairie as they take a covered wagon out west: a piece of leftover cornbread with molasses. My kids would say, “That’s IT?! One thing?” And then they would say, “This is yucky,” about the molasses. Laura said there “was nothing more she could want,” she was so happy.
How life has changed in the last 150 years!
And in the Present…
With those X thousand processed food items on the grocery store shelves and all the conflicting research and opinions surrounding food, eating has become more complicated than ever, from farm to table.
We have such gadgetry.
For example: Verizon let me test out their Droid, one of those incredibly cool phones that lets you do everything with the touch of a finger on a screen.
While my children have enjoyed “Poke-a-Mole”, a “Whack-a-Mole” game in miniature, I searched the apps for kitchen and food shortcuts. I could organize my recipes in countless different ways, download and sort coupons, and count everything from fat to calories and beyond. However. I find over and over that as a Real Food practitioner, much of what the world offers in the field of food and nutrition just isn’t a good fit for me. (Side note: I had a conversation about fat with the nutritionist for the Grand Rapids Public Schools last night. I felt totally inadequate, but at least she’s recently gotten rid of the margarine!)
I found one really fitting app called “What Additives?” that could coach me right in the store how to decipher the long words on the sides of packaged foods. I brainstormed a few other helpful “real food” apps for food shopping that don’t exist yet. We’re an untapped niche!
- The Dirty Dozen – find which produce you should buy organic
- Safe fish list – I have a pocket guide in my purse, but it failed me today when ocean perch and Norwegian haddock weren’t on any list
- Farmer’s Market Organizer – compare prices per pound at various farmers’ stands; use GPS to remember where your favorites are and the best deals. Compare with grocery store choices.
- Fermented foods calendar – what do you need to feed when?
What “Real Food” apps do you think the Droid or iPhone should develop to support real shopping and eating?
A quick call for help: anyone know how to reverse engineer Stove Top Stuffing mix for Stephanie here?
Don’t forget, the Spring Cleaning: Get the Junk Out! Carnival begins next week with the “get the antibacterial cleaners out” theme. Plan to link up or comment here at KS to win a prize package from Cleanwell.
And a fun note: one of the first carnivals I remember writing a specific post for that fit perfectly was Heavenly Homemakers Little Green Project. I shared how I save green buying green with reduced produce section tips. Laura is running it again – link up anything about saving green, eating greens, going green, your green thumb, or green crafts. This year I chose to highlight an old, old post, but one of the pillars of Kitchen Stewardship: God’s call to us to take care of the environment. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
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I’d love to see more of you! Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter or get KS for Kindle.
If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.
Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money. If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.
Photo credits from kawaface and Krista76.
Disclosure: I was not expected to write about the Droid, even though Verizon let me test drive it for a while. They had no strings attached; I am just fascinated by it!
Find more Real Food stories at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
I also remember studying The Long Winter in the 4th grade–where they talked about making do on what they’d stocked up until April when supply trains could finally break through the snow. Unforgettable.
Thanks for the reminder. As for salt raised bread . . .I’m wondering if it’s similar to buscuits/soda bread?
.-= Simple in France´s last blog ..What do YOU gain by living simply? =-.
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I loved the Little House books as a child as well, and recently read my niece’s copies. I too was struck with the food preparation descriptions, but also with their attitude towards possessions. When the girls receive a present, they are so thankful because gifts are few and far between. After reading how Pa oiled his boots every evening, I sheepishly oiled mine right away, a task I had been meaning to do for quite some time.
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Right on Katie! I was just reading Little House in the Big Woods to my 3 yr old a couple days ago and noticing again their food prep. It’s amazing and totally inspiring. The funny thing is, Farmer Boy is what got me onto my circle of blogger moms that I follow regularly. I was looking for a recipe for whole wheat donuts (since Almanzo’s mom makes donuts all the time) that I could maybe modify for soaking and in my searching came across Heavenly Homemakers, who led me to…., who led me to …., who lead me to …. who lead me to you. it was crazy! But I am so thankful for those silly donuts, since now I know some other moms who think like I do about nutrition and chemicals and life.
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It was the Little House series of books that paved the way for me to wholeheartedly accept Nourishing Traditions. The question in my mind was, “How could the pioneers and early settlers eat the very diet we’re told not to, but without all the diseases we’re told this diet causes?” Nourishing Traditions had the answer!
Laura addresses bread baking more in the later books in the series, about making “light” bread and feeding their sourdough starter. But Katy, you need to get The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker. There’s a description of how to make salt-rising bread in it, page 75.
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Wonderful post. I just bought the first Little House book to read to my 5 yo. I never read them, so I am looking forward to it as much as she is!
I would also love to have a “stove top” stuffiing recipe because that is one of the last boxed items that I still rely on. It is in my favorite meatloaf recipe, so I either need to find another recipe, or a clone recioe for the stuffing mix. Thanks for putting that out there!
.-= Stacy´s last blog ..Have you checked out the new Simple Living Media sites? =-.
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Katie Reply:
March 18th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
Stacy,
Katie
We found one at Tammy’s Recipes!
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I’ve been reading the Little House series to my kids for about a year. I think my son’s favorite book was Farmer Boy just because of all the food descriptions. I’m slowly trying to work in more simple meals. I love to cook complicated stuff and be creative…but not every night! So we have real baked beans and cornbread sometimes. And we eat seasonal veggies for the most part cause its cheaper, and let’s face it, tomatoes in January are less than appetizing.
Now I’m curious about that Little House cookbook. Maybe a birthday or mother’s day request.
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Here is a link for a website about salt risen bread. http://home.comcast.net/~petsonk/
The hulled corn sounds a lot like hominy.
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I also recommend Barbara M. Walker’s Little House Cookbook. I’m not sure that L. Ingalls-Wilder was always so happy though. An English professor friend of mine researches her books and life, and has spoken about the darker life of the family revealed through letters. I do love the books! I must have read them a dozen times as a child.
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Just a note on that corn question you had – the process is called “nixtamalization” where the individual coverings of the corn kernels are stripped away. This is a centuries-old process, which makes a lot of nutrients in the corn more available to the human eating it. This was invented by the Native populations of the Americas, and handed over to the settlers. The Southerners still use it, as do more traditional Central American populations, and Mexicans. This process is typically for dent and flint corn types, not sweet corn varieties that you eat off the cob.
The initial result is hominy.
Southerners go a step further and grind it, making hominy grits. Grits are amazing!
Most grits are made with white corn, although yellow and blue grits aren’t unknown. Hominy is also eaten as a dish itself, but most Southerners I know have never had it.
After the Civil War, there was such a level of hunger in the South, since most crops had been destroyed. There was no food stored. The corn shipments from elsewhere were ground straight without the nixtamalization process. Once the hunger issues got settled, the South got stuck with a new problem – malnutrition. The nutrients were not available for digestion in the unprocessed corn.
The Central Americans and Mexicans eat the hominy directly, but they also grind it very fine. If you’ve ever tried to make corn tortillas with straight cornmeal, it didn’t work very well. Same with tamales. The reason is that the process alters how the corn cooks, and ground hominy is needed for tortillas and tamales. The ground version is called corn masa, masa de harina, harina de maiz, and a few other variations. Bags of this can be found at a lot of grocery stores in the mexican foods section, or in Hispanic markets. You can also get bags of whole dried hominy or canned hominy in the same stores.
Some mills, even high-quality prestigious ones, don’t know the difference. Bob’s Big Red Mill offers “Yellow Corn Grits, also known as Polenta”. Bob’s a little wrong there. They are not the same. Bob is actually selling coarse corn meal, which is used to make polenta, but that is not the same as hominy grits.
I highly suggest making some quality grits, hominy, tortillas, tamales, and polenta! There are so many recipes on the web and most of them are very whole foodsy. They also complement SO many things!
My favorite polenta recipe is here:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/11/creamy-polenta-with-goat-cheese-heaven-on-a-plate-part-2/
Like grits, polenta will set when cool. Slice polenta, wrap with bacon or pancetta, and pan-fry. Heaven.
Good basic grits recipe:
http://southernfood.about.com/od/gritsrecipes/r/bl51110c.htm
You can leave out the cream and do milk instead, or add more stock, or use all water. The main thing is to start with this general amount of liquid. USE A LID! The corn napalm really hurts.
NOTE: ‘quick grits’ are a lie. They’re ground smaller to cook more quickly, but they DO NOT cook in 5 minutes like the package says. It takes 20 minutes, minimum. Keep adding water as it gets absorbed. Test frequently after 15 minutes or so – you want the grains to be al dente. If it’s still too crunchy, add a bit more liquid 1 cup at a time. Good grits like those from Anson Mills or Callaway Gardens will take nearly an hour, due to the larger grain size. They will also need more liquid.
Grits are amazing with herbs or cheeses added. Shrimp and grits, chicken and grits, and catfish and grits are all fabulous entrees. Grits are mainly used for breakfast now, but they make a great side item, too. Each batch like the recipe above will make a ton of prepared grits – just spoon the warm grits into a muffin tin and let cool. Then freeze the whole shebang. Once set, pop the gritsickles out and put them in a ziplock bag or airtight container in the freezer. This way, they are in easy-to-reheat individual portions. (this works great for oatmeal, too)
Anyhow, hope this helps.
.-= Jenna´s last blog ..Csa box =-.
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Katie Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 12:02 am
Jenna,
Katie
What amazing information! Thank you! I have always been intimidated by nixtimalization, because shoot – where do I get the lime or lye or whatever it is? After reading how much work Ma went through, it’s not something I want to do at home!
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Kate Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 12:09 am
Hi Katie,
I ordered my pickling lime here:
http://www.mrswages.com/
super fast and easy to use!
Jenna, your post made me hungry just reading it!
Cheers!
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Also, here is more info about how to process your own corn and why:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2004-04-01/Make-Masa-Nixtamalize-Your-Corn.aspx
.-= Jenna´s last blog ..Csa box =-.
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I love the little house books!!! I love how you pulled all of that out of the books!
.-= Jen@ After The Alter´s last blog ..Psychic Readings =-.
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I think you can find Mrs. Wages pickling lime in grocery stores and am pretty sure I saw it in Walmart.
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Wish list for apps?
I want one of those nutrition/calorie things that will take what I give it of whole ingredients and cooking methods, then give me the nutrition information of the whole dish, in whatever size I consider a serving portion.
I want a meal planner linked with a grocery list, with which I can do REAL cost comparisons.
I want a list of all sources for Real Food, defined by location. One that I can add to!
I’m sure there are more that WILL occur to me.
.-= bibliotecaria´s last blog ..end of publishing as we know it? =-.
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That farmer’s market organizer sounds very useful
.-= Nate @ House of Annie´s last blog ..Belacan Fried Chicken =-.
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Aha! ::major light-bulb moment!:: I always did like that book best out of the series… but never could pinpoint exactly why (I haven’t read them in numerous years). — Now I know! Now I am going to have to find my copy and reread it! Thanx!
)))
.-= Tiph´s last blog ..Friday Funnies: A real mom’s spa day… =-.
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My Dad grew up in a very poor family in West Virginia, and salt rising bread was a staple in their household. Store bought yeast was an unaffordable luxury for them, and a home made ‘raisin’ was free. When I was growing up (I’m 41 now) Pepperidge Farms made a commercial salt rising bread, and when we were not making our own bread that is what we bought. It tastes great… nothing like sourdough or normal white bread. Unfortunately it also has a very strong and distinct odor. I stopped taking sandwiches to school the first time someone asked me why I was bringing rotten food for lunch! I have tried a few times to make my own salt rising bread with no success, but I haven’t given up. I suspect that my Grandmother’s wood burning stove probably helped a lot with maintaining a proper temperature for the starter and I just haven’t found the right incubator yet.
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We just finished listening to the audio of Farmer Boy. I was so inspired. It was like listening to a documentary about cooking, farming and life.
Not to mention the amount of food Mrs. Wilder cooked! *whew*
a
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I looked up salt rising bread a few years ago because my MIL mentioned it. She said it smelled terrible but was the best bread.
I’m from MO and I ate hominy all the time growing up. Yummy. What I don’t understand is how did she keep it in a jar in the pantry? Did she dry it first?
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Heather Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 2:00 am
I think she probably did. I’m in St. Louis, & was in the international food store tonight. They had bags of dried hominy in the Mexican aisle. (Really cool grocery store–each country has its own aisle)
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Jill Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Where is that in St. Louis? I’m there frequently and I’d love to check it out.
.-= Jill´s last blog ..Patrick’s Day =-.
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Heather Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 6:31 pm
The store is called Global Foods. If you are coming in to St. Louis via 44 Eastbound, get off at Lindberg. Head north on Lindberg, through the downtown Kirkwood area (where you cross the RR tracks). Once you’re through that bit, you won’t go a whole lot farther before you see Global Foods on your left. There is a Walgreen’s right next door to it, and, if you get to the Manchester Road intersection, you’ve gone too far. It may actually be a bit closer to 40 than to 44, but probably not by much. Give yourself plenty of time to browse. They have a truly amazing array of different things, and deciphering packages slows down shopping. Their selection of spices is very good (& the prices are great), and they have such yummy things as palm sugar (coconut sugar), as well as a ginormous selection of tea from all over the world.
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Jill Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Great! I know about where that is.
.-= Jill´s last blog ..Patrick’s Day =-.
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Loved this! Linked to it, too.
.-= Lenetta @ Nettacow´s last blog ..Enormous Toddler Bib/Napkin =-.
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There’s a paragraph in “By the shores of Silver Lake” about sour dough, fwiw, in the Christmas chapter. Laura teaches Mrs. Boast the basics in a few sentences, if you’re interested.
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What a happy post! I was left with the same impression when we read the Little House series with our kids over the summer. We have definitely adopted the simple, nourishing meals concept since then, and although we don’t have a pig, we have started raising sheep and I am excited about the idea of raising our own meat and wool.
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Sometimes I think it would be positively lovely to grow up in another time. When it wasn’t considered strange to make everything yourself.
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I loved the Little House books. I have been having fun cooking recipes all the books! I was posting them on my blog till my sourdough starter was killed by a friend.
I just bought a new one and can’t wait to start cooking from them again!
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How ironic- I just had the “Little House Cookbook” and was reading it from the library! I decided that we should really get our own copy for our bookshelves! Such interesting information about the foods that they ate back then.
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Farmer Boy makes me so hungry. I think they ate a lot better than the Ingalls family did, though of course they eat more sugar too. They even have a fermented food, like watermelon rind pickles or something, at almost every meal!
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Thought provoking post, thank-you. We often forget that food is about sustenance, and not every meal has to be a gala taste explosion. You’ve inspired me to eat a few more simple meals, and enjoy their simplicity. Bread and cheese, and who could ask for more?
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I’m not sure if “The Little House Cookbook” is still in print, but it’s a great addition to the set of books. I think it contains every recipe mentioned in the series — not sure how completely authentic they are, but there’s at least solid ideas of what it meant to cook as the Ingalls and Wilders did.
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I know this comment is over a year late, but regarding the “salt-rising bread” issue, we may be coming at the definition of “salt” from a too modern perspective.
From an article from 1935, wherein an anthropoligist is reflection on his craving for salt while living with Eskimos in the winter of 1908: “he was delighted to give me the salt, a half-pound baking-powder can about half full”.
Baking powder and baking soda are both sodium bicarbonate. Sodium bicarbonate is a salt. Therefore, salt-rising bread could mean any bread of the quick variety that uses sodium bicarbonate as a leavening agent.
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Katie Reply:
May 19th, 2011 at 12:07 am
Oh! That’s so neat – makes a lot of sense, too! Thank you!
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What else could I say? « More Than Rubies // Nov 21, 2011 at 11:53 am
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One Step Closer to Little House on the Prairie | A Box of Pandoras // Jan 31, 2012 at 11:31 pm
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I agree that these are wonderful books and have some fascinating descriptions of traditional cooking, but they are not good examples of a healthy diet. Many of the meals described have no vegetables or fruits at all.
Laura’s parents raised four daughters, three of whom became diabetic and none of whom was particularly fertile, so the evidence that their diet was healthy isn’t very compelling. Of course, they ate better when they had the resources (money, proximity to town, good harvests) than when they didn’t!
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