Once upon a time, not too many years ago, a little girl lived in the Greater New York Metropolitan Area in a little yellow house made of wood...
I love cooking, I love Laura Ingalls Wilder, so now (at the suggestion of my mother) I have undertaken a task somewhat a la Julie & Julia--to cook things from the Little House series. Laura wrote very vivid descriptions of all the cooking she and Ma did. For many years I've joked about finding an empty tree at my grandparents house (in the Big Woods of Maryland) and smoking some meat. Maybe I will still try that someday (MAYBE) but for now, I'll begin at the beginning and accomplish what I can. That means skipping all the butchering activities and starting with something very simple: butter. If I were born in the 1800's, I would probably be able to do this by myself by the time I was eight, but, alas...well, I'm only ten years behind.
Wow, Hallie!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! Here I am in the frontier country of MacIntosh County, North Dakota, right now (settled 1885-1890), and you're starting this project! Here in ND, there are few echoes of pioneer cooking (except maybe that some of the restaurant food isn't made to high culinary standards...), but echoes here and there of the German-Russians who settled the area: kugel in the supermarket, German burger at the burger stand (hamburger with coleslaw on top), and others. I'll try to make a list.
Looking forward to seeing how this blog develops! Dad
So Julia had a time frame to make it really frentic - are you going to finish this summer? Maybe you could get some independent study history credit for it.
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