Customer Reviews

Prairie Cooks: Glorified Rice, Three-Day Buns, and Other Reminiscences (Bur Oak Original)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let's just put it this way, I read the whole book in one sitting. In fact, I couldn't put the book down. The author wrote short histories and included recipes to go along with the family history. Of course along the way, she told some mighty funny stories, especially about how one of her sisters managed to set the out house on fire. Really funny. I haven't laughed so hard while reading a book in sometime. A definite buy --- even if I haven't tried her recipes. Most recipes are common to Scandinavian cooking and Scandinavian American cooking.

This book was very dear to my heart as both my parents were of Norwegian descent and grew up close to where the author did in Western North Dakota. It's a wonderful portrait of what life was like in the rural Great Plains in the early part of the 20th century and a thought-provoking contrast to our lives today. And I never did get Mom's recipe for Glorified Rice so I was glad to find not one but several ingredient lists for this nostalgic dish!

This is the most wonderful cookbook for any American with roots from Scandinavia. My grandmother's recipes are in here, and they are recipes I can actually use! Grandma made great every day food, but her recipes aren't useful for the 20th century cook; amounts of ingredients were sketchy, and rarely was there a temperature or amount of time on the few recipes she left behind. Here, in this book, the recipes are complete!!

I was so desperate to find out some recipes that I asked a friend of mine who was the food editor at a well known national food magazine for help. She consulted her kitchen, and folks had no idea what I was talking about (adding baking soda to canned tomatoes to make tomato soup, for example) and scoffed at the concept. But here, in this book, that "recipe" and other simple fare like it are spelled out -- something that the top foodies in the country couldn't fathom.

Everything I've made has come out well and just as I remember it. This book is strongly recommended!