I have always wanted to make Ma Ingalls Green Pumpkin Pie. Now that I actually have a recipe, I may devote a big chunk of this year’s veggie garden to growing pumpkins. (I don’t know where else I’ll find green ones). This book is more than just fun; it’s educational and a nice resource for understanding the ingredients used in 19th century recipes and how to recreate those recipes today.

The recipes in this cookbook are adaptations on recipes cooked by pioneer women. Because of this, they aren't necessarily recipes I would be interested in making today. What I did enjoy about the book though, is the history the author went into when writing about the different methods of cooking, about what types of fruit and vegetables were eaten in the 1800's versus what we eat now and the detail she used when adapting the recipes to modern kitchens. Unfortunately, I would not recommend this book to children. Though it seems to have been aimed at children, the level of difficulty of the actual recipes (canning, deep frying, etc...) do not really seem appropriate for kids. Also, even though I enjoy reading about the history of wheat and grains in the Midwest, and the difficulties of making a sourdough starter, I don't believe I would have enjoyed this as a child when I was reading the Little House books. It would probably be more appropriate for a child to read along with a parent. Despite all of this, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Walker's book, and would recommend it to anyone who loved Laura Ingalls Wilder's books growing up.

Happy B=Day Laura.

A few years back we did our Thanksgiving Day Dinner out of this. Featured some trout a friend of ours caught. Don't recall what=else ; but it was superior to the typically bland US menu for this most imperialistic of Holidaze. [still looking forward to that Corn=Fed Crow The Significant mentions on occasion]

We have had this one for years, ever since my boys and I were reading the Little House books aloud together. Reading it again brought back fond memories of making the “Pulled Candy” from Farmer Boy with Eric for a 4th grade book report. In the story, the candy pull was less-than-successful, but ours turned out pretty good and made us appreciate modern candy. This book is a delight to read, with excerpts from Wilder books, accurate historical information about frontier cooking ingredients and methods and Garth Williams illustrations from the original books. I’m looking forward to sharing this one again with my grandchildren.

I love the recipes

Perhaps rating this book so low is unfair, since I didn’t finish reading it.

I lost interest early on because it is literally written for old time cooking. Since my husband doesn’t hunt, I have no need for recipes using wild game. I also don’t have the stamina it would take to do so many things the old-fashioned way.

However, this is a fascinating look into frontier cooking. I can see how modern homesteaders might be able to utilize the research done by this author.

This was fun to read alongside the Little House series. The author did a great job of finding/creating recipes the modern cook can follow. Lots of historical details about food in the late 19th century.

For Laura Ingalls Wilder fans, The Little House Cookbook is a no-brainer, must-have, geek fest. As a Laurafan, I’ve been salivating over Ma’s vanity cakes and sourdough biscuits since 1972, pining for those heart-shaped cakes sprinkled in white sugar. Chapters often feature a quote and original illustration by Garth Williams form the “Little House” series. Even the font and point size are the same. Comfort and nostalgia abound.

An admitted “Bonnethead,” I read with the intention of holding a pioneer-themed dinner party. My first read made me think that Ma Ingalls was not just being modest when she said, “Hunger is the best sauce.” Salt Pork. Cornmeal. Codfish. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Laura Ingalls Wilder always had the knack of making even lettuce with a sprinkle of vinegar and sugar sound like black truffle risotto, but The Loftus General Store wasn’t exactly Whole Foods. I wanted the fun of a pioneer meal and food people would enjoy.

What I discovered, while looking for recipes that wouldn’t give my guests heart disease, was a good read. Barbara Walker not only knows how to cook, she is a food historian—her bibliography is four and a half pages long. In each chapter, she locates recipes within their historical context and explains every ingredient. We all know that women cooked over an iron stove, but did you know that they didn’t have baking soda? I didn’t. I learned that tomatoes only became sweet at the turn of the century, and that Laura (who became a renowned poultry farmer in her own right) lived to see “poultry raising change from a gentlemen’s sport and farm wife’s pocket money to two separate industries, egg production and meat production.” Today poultry farmers use different breeds for “layers” versus “fryers.”

Laurafans will love how Walker takes on recipes that demonstrate Ma’s resourcefulness during lean times. She recreates the Green Pumpkin Pie Ma baked when there were no apples to be found. Blackbirds decimating the corn crop? There’s Ma, rebounding with blackbird pie. (Now Blackbirds are endangered, so Walker recommends substituting the new aviary pest, Starlings). She explains how to bake “Long Winter” bread, which the Ingalls family subsisted on during eight months of prairie blizzards. I admit that while reading about these recipes I probably wasn’t going to make them, but I did enjoy thinking about making them.

So The Little House Cookbook is fun to read, but The American’s Test Kitchen taught me that the key to a useable cookbook, versus a pretty one, is that the recipes actually work. Walker gets big kudos for writing up the recipes so that you can recreate them. For each dish, she first describes how a pioneer would have prepared the food, and then details how to adapt these recipes to the modern kitchen. One of my favorite quotes comes from the recipe for Stewed Jackrabbit with Dumplings, “If you can’t find a hunter to give you a skinned rabbit (he will want the pelt), look for a farm-raised rabbit at a German butcher shop. (Hasenpfeffer is a favorite German dish).” Thus, I learned a little more about pioneer life, German culinary culture AND the Laverne and Shirley theme song.

And as for my party? I had my fantasies. Roast Suckling Pig. Mincemeat Pie. Husk Tomato Preserves. In the end, though, I only used Walker’s book for the iconic Apples ‘n’ Onions to the letter. I cheated and used baking soda for my cornbread and biscuits. Instead of subjecting my guests to Salt Pork (kind of gross), I put out a plate of fried bacon. I did remain true to the pioneer spirit, shopping at the Farmer’s Market for jellies, butternut squash and berries. I opened a jar of homemade watermelon rind pickles given to me by a friend’s mother. After slaving over my brand new gas oven all day, I had an appreciation for Ma and what she went through. In the end, I like to think she would have approved of my innovations. And I have no doubt that if Ma could have run to Kroger for a ham instead raising, butchering, and curing the meat herself, she would have been all about it.

Well and honestly, I do have to admit that I feel rather massively reading pleasure conflicted with regard to parts of Barbara M. Walker’s The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Classic Stories. Because yes indeed, while I have of course totally appreciated and also enjoyed the historical frontier, pioneer food trivia and the Little House on the Prairie series recipes (even though for the vast majority, I am far more interested in reading about than actually attempting to prepare them), that the author, that Barbara M. Walker also and equally presents an attitude of in my humble opinion extreme unfriendliness, even occasional rabid fury towards nature, towards wildlife in general, and yes, that animals such as blackbirds, the extinct passenger pigeon, jackrabbits and so on and so an are often simply deemed to be pests to and for farmers (and really nothing else) and bien sûr therefore also deserve to be culled and exterminated en masse, this really does tend to rub me the wrong proverbial way.

For albeit that an attitude such as the above might well make historical sense for Laura Ingalls Wilder and her contemporaries, while I can to a certain extent even much appreciate and even understand pioneer farmers and their families having such a mindset towards wildlife, towards the environment, and that the natural world and its animals are thus present on earth for humans to control and to cull as needed and wanted, that author Barbara L. Walker in my opinion still seems to have such an outdated and dangerous worldview in 1979 regarding her choice of words for those instances in The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Classic Stories which deal specifically with farming and with wildlife and obviously not just with regard to history either, this really does tend make me cringe angrily, frustratingly and with major annoyance.

And while I do find find most of the information presented and the general set-up of The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Classic Stories delightfully engaging and very much educational without being pedantic (and with the included bibliography being a much appreciated added bonus), for me, yes indeed, the constantly all round negative kill, kill, kill attitude Barbara L. Walker seems to often and not just historically sport towards animals deemed potential agricultural pests certainly does absolutely chafe and grate (and in particular that Walker’s wording about the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon seems to and for my reading eyes to indicate that its demise as a species was not only to be expected but acceptable, perhaps even necessary due to them being “pests” a viewpoint that especially for modern times is to and for me TOTALLY, UTTERLY VILE and not acceptable).

And in fact, considering how much this has oh so much bothered and infuriated me, the fact that I am still going to be rating The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Classic Stories with three stars and to also recommend the book albeit with caveats, is I think, rather generous on my part.

This magnificent revision takes an excellent thing (see original effusive review) and makes it even better. Now formatted like a gorgeous modern cookbook—glossy paper, beautiful photos, lovely fonts and improved layout—while retaining all the superb historical information and recipes, the 1979 edition has had its only deficiencies remedied. This book is at least a must-read—if not a must-own—for devotés of Laura Ingalls Wilder or those interested in the history of cuisine. (I've begun dropping unsubtle hints to my children that this would make a very good birthday gift for their mother.)

Original review:
Words almost fail me to properly describe the glories of this book. It belongs right up alongside Laura Ingalls Wilder's own volumes—which is about the highest praise I can bestow!—for its readable prose, its wealth of historical detail, and its cheerful, undaunted encouragement to recreate the food described in the Little House series with as much exactitude as possible.

This is a cookbook with authentic recipes for virtually every comestible described by L.I. Wilder. But it is also a book you can enjoy reading, as I did, cover to cover. It's divided into eight sections grouped around the source of ingredients—fields, gardens, barnyards, country stores, the wild—each with a substantial introduction. Barbara Walker absolutely knows her stuff, and she walks us through a rich and fascinating history of ingredients and their relevant farming or sourcing, storing, and cooking practices. She takes especial care to point out changes in these ingredients and practices from the 19th century until now (well, until 45 years ago, when the book was written).

The breadth of research and depth of knowledge showcased here is impressive and astounding and...it just makes me giddy with excitement! Here is all the background information I've ever lacked and always craved about the making of sourdough biscuits in Silver Lake or baked beans in Big Woods or ice cream (+ everything else!) in Farmer Boy. There are tantalizing instructions for making cheese, vinegar, soft bread, sausage, pork cracklings, eggnog, fried salt pork...so many things I can't wait to try—and I look forward to attempting most of these recipes in time. You come away with an excellent sense of how the Ingalls' and Wilders' domestic economies functioned, and I came away with much inspiration to apply to my own endeavors in cuisine and housewifery.

It's hard for me to express just how wonderfully informative this book is, totally apart from its practical instructional value. I learned that layer cakes were a distinctly American creation, as was a soft "keeping" bread including fats and designed to last from one Saturday home baking day until the next (as opposed to the harder, European, professional bakery loaf that would be bought every day or so because it dried out quickly without any fat). Buckwheat grows well in poor soil and takes less time to mature than rye and wheat. Modern hybridized blueberries behave differently when cooked than the wild ones foraged by the Wilders. The sun remains the best dehydrator of fruit and is used for that purpose even on a commercial scale in California. Turkeys are native to North America, but the domesticated varieties we eat today were imported from Mexico and bred in Europe before returning to markets in their homeland. These are just a few of the hundreds of enchanting, satisfying tidbits I learned in reading the book—little bits of information that give you the comfortable, warm feeling that you know and love the world better now.

A new and beautiful edition of this book, totally redesigned and with gorgeous photos, was published in 2018. I'm hoping none of the delectable historical detail has been cut out, and if I can find out that that's the case I'm planning to add it to my library. Whether the text has been reduced or not, I'm so pleased that such a worthy book has been updated to take its place beside the sumptuous full-color cookbooks that are typically published today. It richly deserves such treatment.

This book is great to skim through! It has tons of recipes which I didn’t read the minutiae of, but I loved reading the history behind them! Lots of things I didn’t know about this era and food- such a good holiday book as well. The illustrations are taken right from the original books, and there are excerpts as well. A cozy read, and fascinating! Found at my local library.

Prairie cooking for Little House fans. A nice companion to the series as here you will find the recipes from the Little House books, as well as cooking techniques and historical context. As a fan of the Little House series, I really enjoyed learning more about all that went on "behind the scenes" to put dinner on the table (no matter how meager it might be). From field or forest to dinner table was an involved process and a far cry from today's much simplified cooking. Really makes you appreciate the conveniences of modern times!