Customer Reviews

Prairie Home Cooking: 400 Recipes that Celebrate the Bountiful Harvests, Creative Cooks, and Comforting Foods of the American Heartland

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As a fellow native of Kansas City, I see Ms. Fertig's work everywhere- in newspapers, in bookstores, and on television. And like other Midwesterners, I admire her efforts to give our regional cooking the status it deserves. This book eliminates any doubts about the quality of Midwestern cooking. It has been a huge success locally, and the nationwide attention it is receiving is equally justified. Ms. Fertig mixes ethnic dishes such as Bratwurst with Caramelized Onion and Apples with modern classics like Vegetable Garden Pot Roast to yield a truly well-rounded image of the Midwestern culinary tradition. For those skeptics out there, one bite of the heavenly Blue Cheese and Toasted Pecan Spread will convert you! I've had the pleasure of attending some of Ms. Fertig's cooking classes, and her penchant for humor and storytelling are clearly reflected in her book. I strongly recommend it for any avid cooks who wish to get in touch with their roots. This is the epitome comfort food.

This is a lovingly researched and written work about heartlandcookery. I attended a reception for the author of this book and tasted several outstanding recipes including: Church Supper Chicken and Wild Rice Hot Dish, Sour Cream and Onion Kuchen, Winter Garden Vegetable Salad, and Sour Cream Raisin Bars. These were as good as anything my grandmother used to make, which is high praise. I've had great results and compliments on some of the recipes that I have made:Blue Cheese and Toasted Pecan Spread and the Smoked Goat Cheese on Field Greens salad. The German Cheese Tart is one of the prettiest and best-tasting desserts I've ever made! I've also enjoyed reading the text of the book, too. I think the author's recipes and instructions are clear and have found nothing in error. I highly recommend this book.

What a wonderful cookbook about a part of our country that is dismissed by others on either coast as not worthy to consider writing about. Ms.Fertig's delightful stories, recipes, and resources make this book a gem. I have tried many of the recipes, among them - Hearty sausage and kale soup, wild mushroom pot pies, braided cheddar ale bread - and found them easy to follow and, what's more, Delicious!! I have purchased 5 of the hard-cover books for Christmas presents for my friends and nieces.

Judith M. Fertig's "Prairie Home Cooking" is a wonderful compendium of heartland recipes that will make you feel like a modern-day Laura Ingalls Wilder in the kitchen. It is the kind of book you want to sit down and devour while sitting on the couch, drinking a cup of tea and nibbling at a homemade oatmeal cookie.

The recipes are wide-ranging, taking their cue from the many immigrants who settled the American west and midwest. There are many German and Scandinavian recipes here, which is in keeping with the immigration percentages, but there are lots of Native American, Russian, Italian, and other "flavors" in the mix as well.

Sara Love's superb illustrations deserve special mention. These block print pictures lend such a homey, heartland atmosphere to the book and complement Fertig's comfortable-as-old-slippers voice beautifully. This book is a treasure!

I bought this book on a whim when I belonged to a cookbook club about 8 or 9 years ago. I was not very familiar with food from the American heartland and was curious. Being practically a life long vegetarian, I wasn't sure if this book would hold any interest for me but I was willing to give it a go. In my mind, I always thought of midwestern food as being heavy meat based affairs. Sure, this book has meat, fish and fowl recipes but it is also loaded with recipes for great sauces, baked goods and veggie and grain side dishes that will interest all types of eaters.

The Gingerbread Waffles are divine. The first time I made them was when my grandson was staying for the weekend. He loved them! I've made them several times and they are consistently good. It's a wonderful surprise for weekend guests.

Lap of Luxury Chicken Pot Pie is awesome. Yes, I am a vegetarian and I substitute seitan or chickenless strips for the bird meat. I actually taught a cooking class at Whole Foods in Fresno, California using this recipe, the vegetarian version, of course. It was a hit.

Smoky, Spicy Barbarcue Sauce is another favorite recipe of mine. Last summer we had friends over for a vegetarian BBQ and we grilled veggie burgers, of course. I used this sauce and my non-barbarcue sauce loving friends were truly impressed. They liked it so much, one of them had to have the recipe before she went home that night!

We really love the Indian Griddle Cakes. The recipe has them paired with creamed chicken, but we like 'em with butter and pure maple syrup. Really, really tasty.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves to cook. It would make a really nice gift, too.

I got on to this cookbook through a friend who is also mad keen on Laura Ingalls wilder - (I love those books and have the little house cookbook. At first I thought this book would be more of the same - but this is so much more! Unrestrained by the limitations of Ma's cooking and other things described in the little house books - this is a wealth of heartland home cooking which is presented extremely well also.

This isn't a fancy book - there are no styled photos of steamy puddings and roasts - but rather it is simply presented with recipes following one another and illustrated with very tasteful line drawings where appropriate

The books presentation I really liked overall - (I thought I would say this quickly - while I love my lush Nigella-style books - I do like the simpler ones when they are done well.

The beauty of this book is it is all recipes and handy information about the cooking itself. The availability of items - the cooking of what was around (ie chokeberries etc) and some wonderful tips such as how to make your own sourdough starter - some excellent tips on how to do chicken and old fashioned pickles etc which you just don't see around much these days (watermelon rind!)

It is a good sized book, and for someone who lives in New Zealand, I found it stacked full of things which I wouldn't normally cook as we have an almost entirely indigenous and British heritage - there is little influence in our culture of the Scandanavian for instance which seems to be very strongly prevalent in the reipces. I say this because it might be that Mid West America still does many of these tasty recipes - but for me the delicious mixture of old fashioned recipes and exotic mixtures were fascinating

This book is definitely at the most accesible part of my cooking shelf and is thumbed through a lot.

I gave this cookbook as a Christmas present to a very good German friend of mine who loves to cook and we had fun noticing the similarities between the recipes in the book and the traditional recipes of Germany.

I love all of Judith's cookbooks. They are juts the right mix of history and authentic recipes. I live in the Midwest and she represents this part of the U.S. very well. Thanks for the excellent books!

This is an incredible value as it is just jam-packed with good, old time, recipes. Many of the favorites that both my Grannys made are in this book with various variations. I just love it and it brings back a lot of memories!! I got the book used-good condition and it is totally just like new... Definitely a keeper and exactly what I was searching from... Thanks!