The single most-asked question I get about cooking is, upon learning of my extensive cookbook collection, “Why do you have so many cookbooks? Do you cook out of all of them?” The answer is definitely “no,” but still, I do read them—all of them.
Cookbooks are not the only source of literary food, however; fiction is also a great vehicle for food writing. Let’s face it, people eat. And eating is a subject of great interest even to those who purport not to like it. Perhaps they are even more interested in food—that’s a whole other subject. But to those of us who love to eat and find a deep connection between meals or dishes of our lives and the feelings surrounding those events, books with food descriptions or recipes are delicious reading.
Take this excerpt from Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder:
“He stopped just a minute in the pantry door. Mother was straining the milk, at the far end of the long pantry; her back was toward him. The shelves on both sides were loaded with good things to eat. Big yellow cheeses were stacked there, and large brown cakes of maple sugar, and there were crusty loaves of fresh-baked bread, and four large cakes, and one whole shelf full of pies. One of the pies was cut, and a little piece of crust was temptingly broken off; it would never be missed.”
Farmer Boy was my oldest son’s favorite childhood book—he read it time and time again. I can envision his young, growing boy hunger which almost, but not quite, matched Almanzo’s. It makes me smile and transports me back to those days when I fed three hungry boys.
Another writer of juvenile fiction, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings who wrote The Yearling and an adult autobiography called Cross Creek, cemented her place as one of the finest regional writers to emerge during the 1930s. In Cross Creek she wrote a chapter called “Our Daily Bread” that proved so popular with readers that she published a cookbook: Cross Creek Cookery. It has been called “not a cookbook in the traditional manner, but…a mouth-watering, evocative, and charmingly conversational discussion of cooking at Cross Creek” (Rawlings, Cookery, back cover).
The preface of the cookery book has an overview listing of “Cross Creek Menus.” A breakfast of “orange juice, very small crisp-fried Orange Lake bream, grits, cornmeal muffins, kumquat marmalade, strong coffee and Dora’s (Dora was Rawlings’s jersey cow) cream: and “camp dinners” consisting of “fried fresh-caught Orange lake fish (bream, perch, or bass), hush puppies, cole slaw, coffee and …lemon pie.”
The title of the final passage of Cross Creek Cookery is based on a Biblical text, Proverbs 15:17, “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” The section revolves around a discussion of Rawlings’s philosophy of cooking and eating. There are two elements necessary, she says, for “successful and happy gatherings at table.” The first involves the food that, “whether simple or elaborate, must be carefully prepared, willingly prepared, imaginatively prepared” (217). With food and guests in place, one can begin the process of pursuing sustenance and fellowship. Here is the way Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings suggests it should go:
The breaking together of bread, the sharing of salt is too ancient a symbol of friendliness to be profaned. At the moment of dining, the assembled group stands for a little while as a safe unit, under a safe roof, against the perils and enmities of the world. The group will break up and scatter, later. For this short time, let them eat, drink and be merry. (217)—Cooking By The Book: Food in Literature and Culture by Mary Anne Schofield.
All this talk of pie makes me hunger for that old-fashioned favorite of mine—make this the long way—it’s worth it.
Lemon Meringue Pie
1 ½ cups sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch
3 Tbsp. flour
¼ tsp. salt
1 ½ cups hot water
3 slightly beaten egg yolks
1 Tbsp butter
½ tsp grated lemon peel
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 9-inch baked pastry shell, cooled
Never-fail meringue (recipe follows)
In saucepan, mix 1 ½ cups sugar, cornstarch, flour and salt. Gradually add hot water, stirring constantly. Cook and stir over moderately high heat till mixture comes to boiling. Reduce heat; cook and stir 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat.
Stir a moderate amount of hot mixture into egg yolks, then return to hot mixture. Bring to boiling and cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add butter and lemon peel. Slowly add lemon juice mixing well. Pour into pastry shell. Spread meringue over filling; seal to edge. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool before cutting.
Never-fail meringue
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch
½ cup water
Combine and cook on stovetop or microwave until thick.
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp sugar
Beat eggs until soft peaks form. Add salt and sugar gradually and beat until stiff. Combine with cooled cornstarch mixture.
Cookbooks are not the only source of literary food, however; fiction is also a great vehicle for food writing. Let’s face it, people eat. And eating is a subject of great interest even to those who purport not to like it. Perhaps they are even more interested in food—that’s a whole other subject. But to those of us who love to eat and find a deep connection between meals or dishes of our lives and the feelings surrounding those events, books with food descriptions or recipes are delicious reading.
Take this excerpt from Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder:
“He stopped just a minute in the pantry door. Mother was straining the milk, at the far end of the long pantry; her back was toward him. The shelves on both sides were loaded with good things to eat. Big yellow cheeses were stacked there, and large brown cakes of maple sugar, and there were crusty loaves of fresh-baked bread, and four large cakes, and one whole shelf full of pies. One of the pies was cut, and a little piece of crust was temptingly broken off; it would never be missed.”
Farmer Boy was my oldest son’s favorite childhood book—he read it time and time again. I can envision his young, growing boy hunger which almost, but not quite, matched Almanzo’s. It makes me smile and transports me back to those days when I fed three hungry boys.
Another writer of juvenile fiction, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings who wrote The Yearling and an adult autobiography called Cross Creek, cemented her place as one of the finest regional writers to emerge during the 1930s. In Cross Creek she wrote a chapter called “Our Daily Bread” that proved so popular with readers that she published a cookbook: Cross Creek Cookery. It has been called “not a cookbook in the traditional manner, but…a mouth-watering, evocative, and charmingly conversational discussion of cooking at Cross Creek” (Rawlings, Cookery, back cover).
The preface of the cookery book has an overview listing of “Cross Creek Menus.” A breakfast of “orange juice, very small crisp-fried Orange Lake bream, grits, cornmeal muffins, kumquat marmalade, strong coffee and Dora’s (Dora was Rawlings’s jersey cow) cream: and “camp dinners” consisting of “fried fresh-caught Orange lake fish (bream, perch, or bass), hush puppies, cole slaw, coffee and …lemon pie.”
The title of the final passage of Cross Creek Cookery is based on a Biblical text, Proverbs 15:17, “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” The section revolves around a discussion of Rawlings’s philosophy of cooking and eating. There are two elements necessary, she says, for “successful and happy gatherings at table.” The first involves the food that, “whether simple or elaborate, must be carefully prepared, willingly prepared, imaginatively prepared” (217). With food and guests in place, one can begin the process of pursuing sustenance and fellowship. Here is the way Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings suggests it should go:
The breaking together of bread, the sharing of salt is too ancient a symbol of friendliness to be profaned. At the moment of dining, the assembled group stands for a little while as a safe unit, under a safe roof, against the perils and enmities of the world. The group will break up and scatter, later. For this short time, let them eat, drink and be merry. (217)—Cooking By The Book: Food in Literature and Culture by Mary Anne Schofield.
All this talk of pie makes me hunger for that old-fashioned favorite of mine—make this the long way—it’s worth it.
Lemon Meringue Pie
1 ½ cups sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch
3 Tbsp. flour
¼ tsp. salt
1 ½ cups hot water
3 slightly beaten egg yolks
1 Tbsp butter
½ tsp grated lemon peel
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 9-inch baked pastry shell, cooled
Never-fail meringue (recipe follows)
In saucepan, mix 1 ½ cups sugar, cornstarch, flour and salt. Gradually add hot water, stirring constantly. Cook and stir over moderately high heat till mixture comes to boiling. Reduce heat; cook and stir 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat.
Stir a moderate amount of hot mixture into egg yolks, then return to hot mixture. Bring to boiling and cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add butter and lemon peel. Slowly add lemon juice mixing well. Pour into pastry shell. Spread meringue over filling; seal to edge. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool before cutting.
Never-fail meringue
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch
½ cup water
Combine and cook on stovetop or microwave until thick.
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp sugar
Beat eggs until soft peaks form. Add salt and sugar gradually and beat until stiff. Combine with cooled cornstarch mixture.
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