Square Meals [Hardcover]

Jane Stern (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 337 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (September 12, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394531124
• ISBN-13: 978-0394531120
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #589,122 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Victory Garden Supper is one of our favorite recipes in SQUARE MEALS., July 11, 2008

By 

'MaryLou Cheatham "The Collard Patch" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Square Meals (Paperback)

Length:: 2:17 Mins

We love the recipes in SQUARE MEALS. We cooked the Victory Garden Supper Home Front Vegetable Plate, but we changed the ingredients to the ones we preferred. Of course as editors of The Collard Patch we included collard greens.

This cookbook contains some practical ideas for dishes to cook on a budget. Just as the people in our great nation learned how to cook great meals without spending very much, our people today can meet the challenges that face us because of shrinking grocery budgets. Here is a book to help survive the economic slowdown.

SQUARE MEALS with the great tastes of yesterday has many retroactive dishes that we enjoyed in our childhood and in our early adult years, when we wanted to eat well while living within small budgets. I confess that we tend to eat spicier foods these days and that it may be necessary to give some of the old standards some pep.

The Chocolate Bread Pudding recipe is something I've been looking for, and I found it here. Also there are some good old-fashioned tuna casseroles. I remember enjoying Cherry Coke Salad as a teenager, and the recipe is here. I can't wait to try Lemonade Fried Chicken.

I highly recommend this book. It has good stuff in it. Also the text with the recipes fascinates us. This book is one of those interesting cookbook readers.

We have the 1985 edition, which is listed as unavailable; it is, however, available at Amazon Marketplace. There are newer editions.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tasty, fun and educational!, May 19, 2000

By 

Subwayhooker (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Square Meals (Hardcover)

Absolutely one of my favorite cookbooks of all time, Square Meals is fun to read and the recipes are delicious. Jane and Michael Stern clearly love food, love fun and love our culinary history. Several of my best dependable recipes are in these pages - Mom's Best Pot Roast, Perfect Mashed Potatoes, and Mary Jane's Rice Pudding with Cream. (I can't quite bring myself to prepare "Undescended Twinkies", however.) As a cookbook collector and an avid cook, I can tell you that these recipes stand the test of time. Long after truffle oil and wasabi mashed yams have lost their appeal, you will still pine for Deep Dish Apple Pie and the memories it conjures. And I hope your copy, like mine, is inscribed "from your sweet-lovin' daddy."

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a tragedy that this is out of print!!, November 4, 1999

By 

Mom of 4 (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Square Meals (Hardcover)

There are cooking cookbooks and reading cookbooks, and this is my all-time favorite reading cookbook. This is the kind of cookbook that it's fun to curl up with on a cold night, just to soak in all that good comfort food. Of course, there are many wonderful cookable recipes - the Cincinnati Chili, for example, is absolutely outstanding, and authentic. The roast pork with sinner stuffing is also superb. This is the antithesis to 90's low-fat nouvelle cuisine and other overly fussy fare. Fun illustrations, too.