Recipe For A Balanced Mom - An Inspirational Cookbook Book

Hot dog, this book was fun! It uses documents from the Federal Writer's Program(part of the WPA) to document regional American cooking after canning was introduced, but before fast food and frozen tv dinners became a way of life. I wish this book has been published before my father died. The first sections after the introduction are about Vermont and my father was born in Bennington in 1929. This is the food he grew up with. I remember him describing butternuts and stopped at elderly ladies' homes who sold Victorian style dinners from their living rooms. He said one winter night, on Valentine Street, when it was snowing, he say a man in a sleigh pulled by a horse. That was a rare sight, but it still happened.

Several of the dishes were really interesting and I would like to know how to cook them in modern kitchens. The Vermont picked pumpkin and pickled butternut recipes looked especially appealing. I wish I knew how the "Spanish" of the Southwest cooked their dried vegetables(esp pumpkin and cucumber). Lastly, I would like to know how to make the sourdough pancakes that show up over and over again.

There were all sorts of lost flavors I would like to try. I have never tasted a native persimmon and have only seen the Asian varieties for sale. My father used to hunt pheasant in Pennsylvania, which apparently was popular in Nebraska, but I have never tasted it.

There were plenty of other things that I am glad we have left behind, or are trying to. The extreme racism in the Southern sections turned my stomach. There was also a condescension and hostility towards outsiders epitomized in Eudora Welty's essay that I disliked. Men seemed to work very hard at proving they were men(see the multiple entries about `oysters').

There were long descriptions of Native American food traditions and the America of days gone by had a lot more seafood. New England ate more vegetables than I imagined. There were several dinners and suppers listed that were either vegetarian or used very little meat.