When I saw Old Homesteader Main Dish in Lower Deer Creek Mennonite Cookbook (Kalona, Iowa, 1977), I was amused by the vague specification that this is a main dish, and I also assumed that it would be some kind of recipe made out of basic ingredients people would have had back when Iowa was still in the process of becoming a state. Maybe it would be something full of organ and/or heavily salted meats, root vegetables, cornmeal.
And then I saw it was an appropriate recipe to help celebrate canned food month, full of canned tomatoes, kidney beans, and Campbells chili beef soup. I guess the "Old Homesteader" this refers to is not the guy who rode his horse to the general store a few times a year to stock up chewing tobacco and molasses, but the old guy in the 1970s who didn't want to have to do any more cooking than necessary. Even after nearly a decade of perusing old cookbooks, I still have trouble figuring out just where they're going. I think that's part of why I love them so much.
Well, I guess at some point during the year old homesteaders would have to rely on canned goods and dry staples to get through the winter. The modern equivalent is just easier. Plus, who wants to eat what homesteaders really lived off of back in the day?
ReplyDeletePeople can get surprisingly nostalgic for things they have not experienced. (It's probably easier that way!)
DeleteNow I'm picturing someone laying those mushy canned tomatoes on a cutting board one at a time and (getting as close as one can to) chopping them. Jamming scissors into the can is cheating, you know.
ReplyDeleteWell, the only shears the old homesteaders owned were for the sheep, so best not to use them on the tomatoes...
Delete2 tablespoons chili powder sounds shockingly reasonable.
ReplyDeleteExcellent point! Usually, these types of recipes call for something like opening the container of chili powder in the general vicinity of whatever you're cooking and then praying that you didn't accidentally make it too spicy. I guess the old homesteaders were made of sterner stuff.
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