The Country Kitchen

By Della T. Lutes

Book Overview

First published in 1936, Della Lutes's semi-autobiographical tale was widely acclaimed. Readers today will delight in her stories of life in late nineteenth-century rural Michigan, complete with... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0713525673
• ISBN13: 9780713525670
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: Bell & Hyman Ltd.
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 1.36 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Michigan's Laura Ingalls Wilder

This is quite an extraordinary book: a combination of "Little House on the Prairie" and one of my grandmother's old cookbooks. It was pressed on me by a friend whose reading tastes I don't normally share. I started reading "The Country Kitchen" to be polite, and ended up reading straight through to the end. Even though I wasn't even born until well after this book had gone through twenty-three editions, it had the power to evoke memories of my own childhood--at least the stories my grandfather used to tell me about his life on the farm. Della Lutes was born in 1872 and lived on a farm near Jackson, Michigan until she was sixteen, when she left home to teach school. She eventually became the editor of "American Motherhood," "Today's Housewife," and in 1923 the "Modern Priscilla" magazine. When the publishing firm she worked for went bankrupt during the Great Depression, Della became a freelance writer and produced "The Country Kitchen," which started out as a series of articles in "The Atlantic Monthly." Her book was named "The Most Original Book" of 1936 by the American Booksellers Association and was described by Christopher Morley as a 'gastronomical autobiography.' I don't know whether I'll ever try the recipe for "salt-risin' bread" or buy a quarter of beef to be "nicely ripened by hanging a couple of weeks or so in the woodshed," but I'll long remember the story of how Della's father entertained the Ladies' Church Aid Society by turning a baby skunk loose during their annual dinner. And then there's the story of Little Runt, who was fated to be the Thanksgiving pig, and Old Wart, the garden toad. Della's story wheels you through the complete cycle of seasons with all of the sights and smells of rural Michigan (you might not want to know what some folks used for home insulation, come late Autumn). This author deserves a place on your shelf right next to Laura Ingalls Wilder. She has saturated this book with the tastes and smells of a late nineteenth-century rural kitchen, bringing back recollections I never knew I had. Maybe it's got something to do with ancestral remembrance, since nearly all of our folks were rural up until the early decades of the last century. All I can urge you to do is read it and remember.

Little house on the Prarie in Michigan

This is quite an extraordinary book: a combination of "Little House on the Prairie" and one of my grandmother's old cookbooks. It was pressed on me by a friend whose reading tastes I don't normally share. I started reading "The Country Kitchen" to be polite, and ended up reading straight through to the end. Even though I wasn't even born until well after this book had gone through twenty-three editions, it had the power to evoke memories of my own childhood--at least the stories my grandfather used to tell me about his life on the farm.Della Lutes was born in 1872 and lived on a farm near Jackson, Michigan until she was sixteen, when she left home to teach school. She eventually became the editor of "American Motherhood," "Today's Housewife," and in 1923 the "Modern Priscilla" magazine. When the publishing firm she worked for went bankrupt during the Great Depression, Della became a freelance writer and produced "The Country Kitchen," which started out as a series of articles in "The Atlantic Monthly." Her book was named "The Most Original Book" of 1936 by the American Booksellers Association and was described by Christopher Morley as a 'gastronomical autobiography.'I don't know whether I'll ever try the recipe for "salt-risin' bread" or buy a quarter of beef to be "nicely ripened by hanging a couple of weeks or so in the woodshed," but I'll long remember the story of how Della's father entertained the Ladies' Church Aid Society by turning a baby skunk loose during their annual dinner. And then there's the story of Little Runt, who was fated to be the Thanksgiving pig, and Old Wart, the garden toad. Della's story wheels you through the complete cycle of seasons with all of the sights and smells of rural Michigan (you might not want to know what some folks used for home insulation, come late Autumn).This author deserves a place on your shelf right next to Laura Ingalls Wilder. She has saturated this book with the tastes and smells of a late nineteenth-century rural kitchen, bringing back recollections I never knew I had. Maybe it's got something to do with ancestral remembrance, since nearly all of our folks were rural up until the early decades of the last century.All I can urge you to do is read it and remember.