This compilation of contemporary Civil War advice for home and farm is anexcellent source of information on how the South "made do" duringthose hard times. While Mary Elizabeth Massey's "Ersatz in theConfederacy," republished in the last few years by the University ofSouth Carolina Press, is a worthwhile history of home life during thosetimes, "The Confederate Housewife" goes further by quoting theexact recipes and nuggets of advice that appeared in newspapers andperiodicals like "Field and Fireside," "SouthernCultivator" and "Clarke's Confederate Household Almanac."
Reading these pages is like going back in time, when advice is needed torestore tainted meat ("take it out of the pickle. Wash so as tocleanse it of the offensive pickle . . . As you re-pack your pieces, itwould be well to rub each piece with salt."), get rid of mosquitoes("put a couple of generous pieces of beef on plates near your bed atnight, and you will sleep untroubled by these pests.") or dealing withbloated cattle ("a dose of thoroughwort with a little tansey willafford immediately relief.")
If nothing else, it will make yougrateful for indoor plumbing, air conditioning and refrigerators.
Product Description
Combination cookbook and "how-to-do-it" guide, this receipt book provides for the first time a comprehensive, grass roots picture of what many Confederate housewives faces during those tumultuous years. Substitutes abound, as do ways to preserve food, care for crops and animals, make straw hats and squirrel-skin shoes, and cure everything from cancer to small pox to ingrown toenails. Half of the nearly six hundred entries here -- all published in journals or newspapers during the Civil War -- relate to the preparation and cooking of food and encompass both substitutes and standard fare, everything from snow corn cakes and cracker pie to walnut catsup and secession rice bread. Also included is advice on measuring land, estimating hay, and collecting opium for home use. "Some of these recipes may seem strange by today's standards others horrific (cures for cancer that use turkey figs, sheep sorrel, and dock root). Still others are helpful even today." -- Civil War Times
About the Author
John Hammond Moore is a former news reporter and history teacher. He is the author of sixteen books, eight of which deal with South Carolina where he makes his home.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Confederate Housewife: Receipts & Remedies, Together with Sundry Suggestions for Garden, Farm, & Plantation (Paperback)
No comments:
Post a Comment