Cooking with Pooh. (Yes, there's an "H" on the end!)

My sister knows I've always been a fan of Eeyore. (There's a shock, right? Who would ever guess that this grump would love another famous grump?) I imagine that's why she sent The Pooh Cook Book (Virginia H. Ellison, 5th printing, August 1976), even though there's no need to bother on my account.

As Eeyore would say, that cover "sure is a cheerful color. Guess I'll have to get used to it."

Of course I was excited to see recipes that referenced the original stories, like this recipe for Haycorn Squash (named after Piglet's love for "haycorns").

(Each recipe includes a relevant quote, too!)

...or the Mastershalum Leaf Sandwiches.

Luckily, thinly sliced cucumbers are an acceptable substitute for those who don't live in the country and have nasturtiums/ mastershalums that their moms will let them decimate. (I imagine most kids being pretty disappointed by nasturtium flavor, too, though I have no actual experience with nasturtiums, mastershalums, or even kids, for that matter.)

The recipes also invite kids to do things the old-fashioned way. I was surprised that one recipe invited children to make butter from scratch.

Then I was even more surprised to see that the kiddos could make not just butter from scratch, but a compound butter! Of course, you always need to find ways to incorporate hunny/ honey into a Winnie the Pooh cookbook.

And if it looks as if the book puts a little more trust in young cooks' interests and abilities than most children's cookbooks do (like the ones that, say, mostly give instructions for elaborately-constructed salads from canned fruit and cottage cheese). A few recipes, like this Pea-Bean Alphabet Soup, take hours.

Granted, several hours of the time are just soaking the beans and peas in water, but the book trusts the kids not to lose interest and forget about the project altogether by the time the beans are presoaked. Then the recipe trusts the kids not only with simmering, but simmering for two hours! And remembering to add the alphabet noodles in the last ten minutes! And to pull out the soup bones, remove any mean on them, and return it to the soup! Virginia H. Ellison really trusts kids' patience and ability to avoid burning themselves/ spilling a half gallon of soup all over the kitchen.

She even trusts them to make a two-crust pie!

And not only is the top crust expected to fit, but it should be decorated too, with Woozle and Wizzle tracks! I, a grown adult woman, cannot make even a presentable bottom crust, as evidenced by the Pieathalon. (Or a passable filling, for that matter, as evidenced by the same recipe, but I'm choosing to focus on the crust.) In short, Virginia H. Ellison has a lot of confidence in kids, which probably seems nice to some people and overly optimistic to us grumps. After all, as Eeyore says, "We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it." Thanks anyway to my sister, for amusing this grump.