Book Review: "The Prepper's Cookbook" by Deborah D. Moore

It's been a quite a while since I've posted a book review on this blog, but I recently read a cookbook that has been in my collection for perhaps a couple of years: A Prepper's Cookbook: Twenty Years of Cooking in the Woods by Deborah D. Moore.  I don't remember where I found this little gem, but it is available from retailers online.  Originally, I purchased this because the advertisement I saw said that it contained information on how to cook on a woodburning cookstove.  It does indeed.

Situated in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Ms. Moore's home is remote, and she has to be ready to be snowed in for days at a time.  Thus, she keeps a very well-stocked pantry that is a combination of home-preserved and store-bought foods.  Ms. Moore has also cooked on her Enterprise King wood cookstove for more than twenty years, so she definitely qualifies as an expert on prepper cooking.  For me, though, the best thing about this cookbook is that it is a modern collection of recipes that have all been regularly prepared on a woodburning range.

Ms. Moore has included a very wide variety of recipes in her cookbook.  With Harvest Chowder on page 19 and Pecan Chicken on page 165, she's got literally everything from soup to nuts.  The recipes vary greatly in their difficulty levels too: some are a lot of work; others are simple, but all are made with ingredients that could easily be a part of any well-stocked pantry and freezer. 

Before each section of the cookbook, Ms. Moore has placed brief essays on many different subjects.  This is where she includes five pages of information about cooking on a woodburning cookstove.  In such a short space, Ms. Moore does an excellent job of giving the basics.  The only thing she says that I would disagree with is that she advises cleaning all of the ashes off the top of the oven box.  I'm sure that on her stove that gives her the best baking results.  However, in both the Qualified Range and the Margin Gem, I have found that leaving at least a half inch of ash on top of the oven box is beneficial.  See, in these models of cookstove, the oven basically heats from the top down, so to create the most even heating, it is important to keep the flue on the bottom of the oven clean, but a layer of insulation on the top is good.  Other than that, Ms. Moore and I are largely in agreement about these wondrous appliances.

On a side note, I read a negative review of this cookbook online from a reader who said she was disappointed because the information about cooking on a woodburning range was so short.  I wish I could get a hold of her and direct her to my blog!

My only negative criticisms are that there was some kind of a printing error on one of the recipes, making it obviously incomplete.  I also did not enjoy some of the essays at the beginning of the different sections of the cookbook.  These are generally small, though, so they aren't a big problem for me.

When I read this book in the late summer, one of the recipes that really caught my eye was the one for "Canned Cole Slaw."  I did not grow any cabbage in my garden this summer, but I had everything else the recipe called for, and the idea of having cole slaw in a jar was intriguing.  I tried it, following the recipe to the letter.

On Sunday, October 18th, I opened a pint of it to see what it tastes like.  Following Ms. Moore's advice, I rinsed the slaw twice.  This allowed much of the sugar, vinegar, and celery seed to come off.  I then mixed some sugar and a little pepper into some mayonnaise and folded that into the slaw.  The end product was good, if a bit krauty, but even Ms. Moore says in her narrative that the recipe is not meant to be a substitute for fresh cole slaw, rather a close second during the long winter months when fresh produce is harder to come by.  

I'm looking forward to trying other recipes from this cookbook in the future.

Book Review: "Rediscovering the Woodburning Cookstove" by Robert Bobrowski

Where has the summer gone?  At the beginning of June, I had big plans to blog regularly over the summer and had hoped to get our summer kitchen moved closer to the house so that I could continue cooking over wood during hot weather.  We've made progress toward that, but it hasn't happened yet, and talking about it deserves its own post.

Today, I want to review the book Rediscovering the Woodburning Cookstove, written and illustrated by Robert Bobrowski.  Published in 1976 and originally retailing for $5.95, its ISBN number is 0-85699-130-9.  It was published by The Chatham Press of Old Greenwich, Connecticut.

A scan of the front cover or Robert Bobrowski's book.

For me, this book was an eBay find some years ago.  I no longer remember how much I paid for it, but I can guarantee it wasn't too much; otherwise, I wouldn't have bought it.  My copy is autographed by the author, but the message that accompanies the signature is so full of swear words that it probably actually detracts from the value of the book.

Rediscovering the Woodburning Cookstove is an album of information about various models of historic woodburning cookstoves sprinkled with some lore from the various cookstove users Bobrowski interviewed in compiling the stove biographies.  Directions for using a wood cookstove are present, but definitely take a secondary place to the historical information.

The most charming feature of the book is Bobrowski's artwork.  I counted no less than 107 hand-drawn pencil illustrations spread over the book's 95 pages.  Bobrowski also did a masterful job of choosing a wide variety of woodburning cookstoves to share with the reader.  From simple box stoves and the true original "cookstove" to various models of portable ranges to a beautifully rendered "set range," pretty much all styles of wood cookstoves known to man in 1976 are covered in this book.  (For a detailed discussion of each of these types of wood cookstove, see this post.)  Bobrowski also shares information about various equipment and accessories which are cookstove compatible.

Throughout the book, Bobrowski includes recipes which other cookstove owners shared with him as well as a few of his own.  The recipes are interesting, and several have a definite eastern United States feel, which is obvious to this Midwesterner because of the presence of fish and fiddleheads (forty-year-old cookbooks from the Midwest don't include fish recipes as a general rule).  Come to think of it, most of the brands of stoves featured in the book are also more common in the Northeast than in other parts of the country.

The only criticism I would offer is that the text of the book is handwritten in a somewhat calligraphic style, which can be truly difficult to read at times. I noticed that my reading was slowed considerably by this aspect, and I suspect that someone with eyesight more troublesome than mine would find the book quite challenging.

A scan of an interior page which shows the beautiful illustrations
and the difficult text.

I'm glad to have this book as a part of my wood cookstove media collection.  I've seen copies available for purchase online recently, so perhaps you too could land a copy.  

I'd like to close this post by quoting the text on the last page, which echoes my feelings about wood cookstoves and sums up my purpose with this whole blog:

"Not enough has been said here about the wonderfully solid presence of a wood cookstove, the feeling of social warmth it exudes and the companionable crackle of its fire.  No modern appliance can be its equal in this regard.  Whether in the daytime or at night, a wood cookstove fulfills a role above and beyond that of cooking and heating.  This quality is an intangible one and may be understood fully only through owning or using one regularly.  Many say that, after a while, this large inanimate object begins to assume a personality and become a friend, and from my own experience I must wholeheartedly agree."

P.S.--A big thank you to all of you readers who have kept this blog so busy over the summer!  I'm humbled by the awesome number of readers I have even during the off-season.

Book Review: Cooking on a Woodburning Stove by Andrew Roy Addkison

With the exception of yesterday and today, the weather in our corner of Iowa has been very hot and humid lately.  After almost forty years of hot and humid summers, you'd think I'd get used to it, but no.  Since the weather is not conducive to cooking on a woodburning cookstove (though I have cooked a couple of times in the summer kitchen), this is the perfect time of year to read about it instead.  So this is my first book review blog post.

First, let me say that there is actually a great deal of information about how to cook on a woodburning cookstove available in print form.  It's just that it is not so easily found as other information.  If, for example, you want a plethora of vintage cookbooks about microwave cooking, you have only to travel to your nearest second-hand store, and you will find a plethora of cookbooks from the late 70s and early 80s touting the ease and convenience of Radarange cookery.  I think microwaves are lovely--for reheating leftovers that were first cooked on a woodburning cookstove.  Beyond that, ours doesn't see much action.

Anyway, back to my point.  In my regular monitoring of eBay, etc., and on the occasional browse through an antique or secondhand store bookshelf, I sometimes find some interesting books about cooking on a woodburning cookstove.  One such find is a book called Cooking on a Woodburning Stove by Andrew Roy Addkison and illustrated by Carol Carlson.  Mr. Addkison published this book in 1980, and its ISBN number is 0-915190-28-1.

Mr. Addkison uses the first fifteen pages of this book to give brief but fairly complete instructions about how one cooks on a woodburning cookstove.  These pages have a generous helping of Ms. Carlson's pencil drawings, most of which are helpful.  However, a couple of the illustrations are unexplained by the text and I would have to admit that they are therefore confusing.

Mr. Addkison's text is for the most part very good.  The only thing that I could say in criticism is that sometimes Mr. Addkison uses the words "check draft" when he simply means "draft."  This creates a certain amount of erroneous meaning that I think was unintentional, but problematic just the same. 

There is a distinct difference between the two drafts.  The word "draft" is used to indicate the openings which let air into the stove that is intended to aid in combustion.  On older stoves, these are at or below the level of the grates.  The "check draft" is situated above the fire, often in the pouch feed door, and is intended to allow air to go across the top of the fire, retarding combustion and thereby cooling the cooktop and the oven as it travels between them on its way to the chimney.  Anyway, one can tell that Mr. Addkison enjoys cooking on a woodburning cookstove, and his words reflect that. 

The latter part of the book is comprised of 150 recipes, the instructions for which are written expressly for using a wood cookstove.  While I haven't tried any of the recipes specifically, one of the things that I appreciate about them is that, for the most part, they call for pretty basic ingredients which one would often find in a fairly well-stocked but basic pantry.  The recipes do sound appealing, too.

Right before the index, Mr. Addkison includes information on procuring a wood cookstove or just a woodburning heating stove.  The general information is still all right, but the list of retailers is nearly obsolete after 35 years.

All in all, I think this book was worth purchasing if just for the recipes.  I'm particularly looking forward to trying the recipe for mustard crusted leg of lamb.  If you already have a copy of this book, let us know what you think in the comments below.