While this book is geared for younger people it's still a great read, especially for those that simply want the closest recipe to what our ancestors ate that is fairly easily made using today's ingredients and safety measures. I think it's great that she explains how to do some of the recipes using what is readily available to the majority of us for recipes that might be a little more difficult for us to make the same way Laura and her family did. (Salt rising bread is the one that comes to mind the most.)) I highly recommend this book not just for Laura Ingalls Wilder fans, but also anyone that's even mildy curious on how people ate before refrigeration and so many of our modern conveniences.

Excellent as a book to just read, with recipes that are good as well. The recipes are authentic, which is great, although this authenticity also means that they often call for such things as lard, starlings, a hare, green tomatoes, or other difficult-to-find ingredients. Before each recipe is an excerpt from the Little House books in which the recipe is mentioned, and there are lengthy introductions about cooking in the pioneer days. I highly recommend it, less as a cookbook than an enjoyable read.

This cookbook contains old-fashioned recipes like the ones Ma Ingalls and Mrs. Wilder used to make. The recipes included come from the text of the books and are accompanied by the passage from the novel and Garth Williams' charming illustrations. It includes rye and injun bread, maple syrup on snow, fried apples and onions and many more. I used to check this book out of the library all the time. I don't think I ever really used it but I liked learning about pioneer food. When the library weeded their children's non-fiction and I saw this book for sale, I grabbed it. It's a must have for any Little House fan.

The best thing about this book was that it had the recipe for Vanity Cakes. Something I'd been wanting to try to make since I first read On the Banks of Plum Creek as a child.

This book is wonderful. Well-researched, light-hearted and practical. The Little House books meant a lot to me - as a child I read them over and over. I can't wait to try a few of these recipes.

The only downside is that the book is out of print, and I am using a library copy. I'd love to find one of my own.

What a charming book! One of the best things about the Little House series are the delicious descriptions of the food. Salt pork, apple pies, pickled cucumbers - they’re all here in recipes. The author has edited them for modern ingredients and cooking techniques- still, I had serious respect for these cooks while reading the directions. Thank goodness for modern grocery stores and a bounty of food!

This is a cookbook that’s more than a cookbook. The author goes into detail about each recipe, with quotes from the book it was mentioned in, and also relevant information about cooking at the time.

Some notes as I read:

Even though I feel like I spend a lot of time cooking now, it’s nothing compared to Laura’s days. Caroline Ingalls and her pioneer sisters would have had little time for “finding themselves” or hobbies when one realizes the huge amount of time it took to prepare food and keep their houses clean.
Hunting their own meat was a stark reminder of how close we all are to the food we eat. There’s a recipe for blackbird pie, calling for “12 starlings, plucked and dressed.” I passed on this one. There’s also a lengthy description of how to roast a suckling pig, with the note “It is still worth doing.” We then read to “draw the head and back feet together with the butcher’s string and tie it… at the table, start carving by cutting off the pig’s head.” Wow. That would certainly change the tone of a meal.
I learned a few tips I hadn’t known, for instance, “old” potatoes are better for mashing than fresher ones, because they have a more mealy texture.
Several things kind of, pardon the expression, grossed me out. Drippings (fat from butchering animals) was often used as butter on bread. I’m even pretty repulsed by butter, so that thought of pure animal fat on bread was not appealing to me.
I made several recipes from the book. I’ll admit that it was a bit of a chore to find some we’d eat, with the pioneer reliance on animal products of all kinds and many ingredients deemed unhealthy today for our modern (and far less active) culture. It got to the point that when I’d announce, “This is from the Little House Cookbook,” my husband would cast a suspicious eye and ask, “Has it got lard in it?” Let’s face it, when we picture the Ingalls family around the table, we usually envision them smiling over dishes of steamed turnips, or perhaps happily chewing on a fried pig’s tail. What tasted good to them is not what might taste good to us.
Will I cook and bake from this cookbook on a regular basis? Probably not. But I enjoyed, and recommend, at least browsing through it for a closer look at the lives of pioneer women and the eating habits of those days, which are quite different from our own.

Being the laziest homemaker I know, I can guarantee that I'll never make anything out of this cookbook - too much work. But it was interesting to read about the foods and preparations present in my all-time-favorite series of books. :)

Absolutely delightful, even though I may never try any of the actual recipes the information about what was available to eat, and how it differed from what we eat now, and how the Ingalls family prepared their daily and festive foods is a wonderful source of fascinating - and even hands-on - additional information about Laura and her family in the Little House on the Prairie series.

I have the hard cover cloth bound version and it's full of book quotes, Garth William illustrations, beautifully food photography and explanations for the recipes. I've made a few things and it has been enjoyed by all.

Cookbook, food history, and a little bit of pioneer history. This book contains recipes for many of the things that the Ingalls family survived on as pioneers, including the bread they made with home-ground (with a coffee grinder) wheat, that was often their only food during the long winter. Sourdough biscuits, Laura's wedding cake, vanity cakes, and a whole lot of the foods Almanzo had as a kid (especially that time when their parents left them all at home for a week!) are featured here, as well as game, vegetables, and snacks like popcorn.

Many thanks to Cleokatra, who found this copy for me!

cute. Not especially useful