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Fifty years before the phrase "simple living" became fashionable, Helen and Scott Nearing were living their celebrated "Good Life" on homesteads first in Vermont, then in Maine. All the way to their ninth decades, the Nearings grew their own food, built their own buildings, and fought an eloquent combat against the silliness of America's infatuation with consumer goods and refined foods. They also wrote or co-wrote more than thirty books, many of which are now being brought back into print by the Good Life Center and Chelsea Green. Simple Food for the Good Life is a jovial collection of "quips, quotes, and one-of-a-kind recipes meant to amuse and intrigue all of those who find themselves in the kitchen, willingly or otherwise." Recipes such as Horse Chow, Scott's Emulsion, Crusty Carrot Croakers, Raw Beet Borscht, Creamy Blueberry Soup, and Super Salad for a Crowd should improve the mood as well as whet the appetite of any guest. Here is an antidote for the whole foods enthusiast who is "fed up" with the anxieties and drudgeries of preparing fancy meals with stylish, expensive, hard-to-find ingredients. This celebration of salads, leftovers, raw foods, and homegrown fruits and vegetables takes the straightest imaginable route from their stem or vine to your table. "The funniest, crankiest, most ambivalent cookbook you'll ever read," said Food & Wine magazine. "This is more than a mere cookbook," said Health Science magazine: "It belongs to the category of classics, destined to be remembered through the ages." Among Helen Nearing's numerous books is Chelsea Green's Loving and Leaving the Good Life, a memoir of her fifty-year marriage to Scott Nearing and the story of Scott's deliberate death at the age of one hundred. Helen and Scott Nearing's final homestead in Harborside, Maine, has been established in perpetuity as an educational progam under the name of The Good Life Center.… (more)
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Helen and Scott Nearing were vegetarians so it goes without saying that these recipes contain no meat. The recipes do contain both eggs and dairy products. What I didn’t know was that Helen Nearing was also very interested in raw foods so many of these recipes involve no cooking.
The first six chapters of the book contain no recipes at all and are more an explanation of Helen’s philosophy on life in general and on cooking specifically. The book is dotted with quotations (some short and some long) from a variety of older cookbooks (1800s and early 1900s).
The recipes contained in the book are very simple, healthy recipes. You won’t find recipes calling for boxed ingredients or exotic spices. Recipes sections include breakfasts, soups, salads, vegetables, herbs, casseroles, baked goods, desserts, beverages and even a section on storing and preserving foods.
Many of her recipes are written with the assumption that you have your own canned or fresh garden produce. Instead of stating a sixteen ounce can of corn in her ingredients’ list, she will state two cups corn, fresh cut from the cob. The herbs that she cooks with are fresh and not dried. Her sweeteners include maple syrup and honey instead of white sugar.
If you’re looking for a cookbook that focuses on healthy, easy to cook meals, I highly recommend Simple Food for the Good Life. These recipes are easy enough for a novice cook to make and would also appeal to anyone who is looking for a way to use up garden produce, get a start on using raw foods or just learn more about the Nearing’s way of life. This book should also appeal to anyone interested in the homesteading and preparedness way of life. It's filled with tiny tidbits of knowledge that we all need.
ISBN
DDC/MDS
641.563 |