A Trio of Cookbooks for Your Delectation

As of this writing, I have not made a single recipe out of any of these cookbooks. That does not prevent me from highly recommending them. All three of these are more than cookbooks in their separate ways.

The first one is The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Classic Stories by Barbara Walker. If, like me, you grew up totally obsessed with the Little House then this is the cookbook you need in your life. The Little House books are full of food references. Who can forget the huge meals Almanzo eats as a child on a farm in New York? The pies, the donuts, the pulled candy. While Laura’s meals were not as abundant the food still featured as a focal point in the books. This cookbook not only provides recipes for things such as buckwheat pancakes and biscuits but it also tells the reader how to roast a whole pig and how to make the bread the Ingalls family subsisted on during the Long Winter. Every recipe is discussed in detail and most include a quote from the books. I thoroughly enjoyed reading through this on a cold winter evening. I would love to try to make Ma’s vanity cakes or Laura’s wedding cake though I think I will skip the blackbird pie from Little Town on the Prairie.

The second cookbook is also book-themed. It is The Little Library Cookbook: 100 Recipes From Your Favorite Books by Kate Young. This cookbook started as a blog back in 2014. I used to read it regularly. Young posted recipes inspired by her favorite books. This cookbook is a compilation of recipes from that old blog. Each one is introduced with a little information about why the book and the recipe and important to Young. I am not familiar with all the books but that didn’t prevent me from reading about them. As with the previous cookbook, each recipe includes a quote from the relevant book. I was very pleased to see favorites of mine included such as the vanilla cake Anne disastrously bakes in Anne of Green Gables and Soup and English Muffins from A Little Princess.

The last cookbook I am featuring is Breadsong by Kitty and Al Tait. I am sure you will be surprised to hear that it does not have a book theme. I heard about this cookbook because I follow Kitty Tait on Instagram and I wondered how such a young girl had ended up owning a bakery. That curiosity led me to a newspaper article about the Taits which led me to the cookbook they wrote. The first half of the book is the story of the start of their baking project and eventually their bakery. The second half is Kitty’s original recipes. Kitty Tait, as a young teenager, struggled greatly with her mental health. Amid the doctors and therapy that her parents pursued to get her help, they also tried to spark her interest in just about anything. Baking bread was the only thing that stuck. When she was too depressed to take care of herself she would get up to take care of the bread dough she had started the night before. Slowly, Kitty and her dad went from baking for their family to baking for neighbors to selling bread out of their house to eventually having their own bakery. Kitty is very open in acknowledging that she still deals with mental health issues and that baking is a comfort and a coping mechanism but not a cure. I found the story of her struggles difficult to read but at the same time, it was wonderful to see the love and support she received from her family and friends. As someone with family members who battle mental health issues, I greatly appreciate when people are open and honest about their struggles. I haven’t tried any of the recipes mainly because I can’t eat American wheat so I need to source some European bread flour to do so. That being said, I plan on buying the cookbook. The recipes look delicious and very accessible.

Now, go mix some flour, sugar, and butter together and turn it into something magical. Few things make life so worth living.