They sell you the whole vegetable, then sell you back the piece you threw out. I was raised plain, on a farm, in a house where near nothing got thrown out — and I have been writing down how it was done.
My mem cooked the whole vegetable. Peel, top, core, and the water it boiled in. My daed kept a garden that fed six of us through to spring with no freezer anywhere on the place.
Most of what they knew was never written down. It sat in hands and in habit, and when the hands go, it goes.
So I have been writing it out. What was done, how it was done, and what to watch for when it can go wrong. All of it was ordinary once. Now the same thing comes back to you in a bag with a label and a price on it.
I am not asking you to live like we did. I am telling you what we did, and you can take what suits you.
Beet tops, broccoli stems, cabbage core, potato peel, onion skins. The water off the beans and off the pot. Bones and drippings. Eggshell, coffee grounds, tea leaves.
Stale bread, soured milk, limp vegetables, honey gone hard. Seeds and pits worth keeping, and the pits that must never be eaten.
Tear-out page at the back: the Waste-Nothing Week.
No garden anywhere in it. Everything here works with food you carry home from the store.
Both books whole, and two sheets that are not sold on their own.
The Keeping Calendar. Month by month, what to plant and what to put by. Made to print and hang on a wall.
When It Goes Wrong. Telling good food from spoiled — smell, slime, fuzz, color, a lid gone tight. For the cellar door.
Whatever I write next goes to Library owners at no extra charge.
The garden first. What to plant when the cellar is the goal. Potatoes under straw. Tomatoes laid on their side. Bringing the harvest in at the right hour, which is the step most folks skip.
Then keeping it — 26 chapters. A root cellar without building one. Drying. Fermenting with the salt weighed, not guessed. Eggs in lime water. Butter and hard cheese. Soap from your own saved fat.
Then the year, month by month, and a straight account of what it saves.
Most folks come at this from one end. They start putting food by and find they never grew enough of the right things. Or they grow a good garden and lose half of it in the cellar by Christmas. The two halves only work together, and that is why they are sold together.
| The Forgotten KitchenKitchen | Grow It, Keep ItGrow It | The Old Ways LibraryLibrary | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $19 | $39 | $47 |
| Chapters | 7 | 39 | 46 |
| Pages, about | 40 | 220 | 260 |
| Kitchen thrift | Yes | No | Yes |
| Garden | No | Yes | Yes |
| Keeping and cellaring | No | Yes | Yes |
| Keeping Calendar sheet | No | No | Included |
| When It Goes Wrong sheet | No | No | Included |
| Future books | No | No | Free |
Not sure where to start? Take The Forgotten Kitchen at $19. It needs no garden and you can read it in an evening.
Canning is not in these books. That was on purpose. It is its own craft with its own tested times and its own equipment, and a loose chapter on it would be the most dangerous thing in the book. One chapter says why, and points you to where it is taught right.
Every method that can go wrong carries a safety line. Salt for fermenting is given by weight, not by handfuls, because that proportion is the safety of the method. Curing meat is taught to tested modern standards. The last chapter puts every safety rule in one place.
And nothing in here tells you what any food does to your body. I am not a doctor and I do not pretend to be one. These are books about method, thrift, and holding food through a winter.
If you mean to put food by this year, it is better to have the book now.
Get the Library, $47