Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Classic Stories Book

For Laura Ingalls Wilder fans, The Little House Cookbook is a no-brainer, must-have, geek fest. As a Laurafan, I've been salivating over Ma's vanity cakes and sourdough biscuits since 1972, pining for those heart-shaped cakes sprinkled in white sugar. Chapters often feature a quote and original illustration by Garth Williams form the "Little House" series. Even the font and point size are the same. Comfort and nostalgia abound.

An admitted "Bonnethead," I read with the intention of holding a pioneer-themed dinner party. My first read made me think that Ma Ingalls was not just being modest when she said, "Hunger is the best sauce." Salt Pork. Cornmeal. Codfish. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Laura Ingalls Wilder always had the knack of making even lettuce with a sprinkle of vinegar and sugar sound like black truffle risotto, but The Loftus General Store wasn't exactly Whole Foods. I wanted the fun of a pioneer meal and food people would enjoy.

What I discovered, while looking for recipes that wouldn't give my guests heart disease, was a good read. Barbara Walker not only knows how to cook, she is a food historian'her bibliography is four and a half pages long. In each chapter, she locates recipes within their historical context and explains every ingredient. We all know that women cooked over an iron stove, but did you know that they didn't have baking soda? I didn't. I learned that tomatoes only became sweet at the turn of the century, and that Laura (who became a renowned poultry farmer in her own right) lived to see "poultry raising change from a gentlemen's sport and farm wife's pocket money to two separate industries, egg production and meat production." Today poultry farmers use different breeds for "layers" versus "fryers."

Laurafans will love how Walker takes on recipes that demonstrate Ma's resourcefulness during lean times. She recreates the Green Pumpkin Pie Ma baked when there were no apples to be found. Blackbirds decimating the corn crop? There's Ma, rebounding with blackbird pie. (Now Blackbirds are endangered, so Walker recommends substituting the new aviary pest, Starlings). She explains how to bake "Long Winter" bread, which the Ingalls family subsisted on during eight months of prairie blizzards. I admit that while reading about these recipes I probably wasn't going to make them, but I did enjoy thinking about making them.

So The Little House Cookbook is fun to read, but The American's Test Kitchen taught me that the key to a useable cookbook, versus a pretty one, is that the recipes actually work. Walker gets big kudos for writing up the recipes so that you can recreate them. For each dish, she first describes how a pioneer would have prepared the food, and then details how to adapt these recipes to the modern kitchen. One of my favorite quotes comes from the recipe for Stewed Jackrabbit with Dumplings, "If you can't find a hunter to give you a skinned rabbit (he will want the pelt), look for a farm-raised rabbit at a German butcher shop. (Hasenpfeffer is a favorite German dish)." Thus, I learned a little more about pioneer life, German culinary culture AND the Laverne and Shirley theme song.

And as for my party? I had my fantasies. Roast Suckling Pig. Mincemeat Pie. Husk Tomato Preserves. In the end, though, I only used Walker's book for the iconic Apples 'n' Onions to the letter. I cheated and used baking soda for my cornbread and biscuits. Instead of subjecting my guests to Salt Pork (kind of gross), I put out a plate of fried bacon. I did remain true to the pioneer spirit, shopping at the Farmer's Market for jellies, butternut squash and berries. I opened a jar of homemade watermelon rind pickles given to me by a friend's mother. After slaving over my brand new gas oven all day, I had an appreciation for Ma and what she went through. In the end, I like to think she would have approved of my innovations. And I have no doubt that if Ma could have run to Kroger for a ham instead raising, butchering, and curing the meat herself, she would have been all about it.