The Little House Cookbook : Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Classic Stories
by Barbara M. Walker

Remember in Little House in the Big Woods when Ma made cheese? Laura wrote, "They loved to eat bits of the curd when Ma was salting it. It squeaked in their teeth."

If you're from Wisconsin or Minnesota you probably already know and love cheese curds as a delicious, nutritious snack. But elsewhere they can be difficult, or even impossible, to find. Here in California they're almost impossible to find--I have my mother ship them to me from a dairy in Wisconsin! I was delighted to find I can now order genuine Wisconsin cheese curds online.

available from Amazon.com

 Cedar Grove Squeaks Fresh Original White Cheddar Cheese Curds, Three 9-ounce Bags

• For Cheddar Cheese Curd lovers everywhere, this is a dream come true!

• Three 9 ounce bags of delicious, nutritious, squeaky white cheddar cheese curds

• Packaged in fun, resealable, and air tight bags.

More Varieties Available (though I'm reasonably sure Laura's Ma never made jalapeno flavored curds!)

Two chapters of Little House in the Big Woods are devoted to the sugaring-off of the maple syrup into maple sugar. This was the major source of sweetener for the Ingalls, who could scare afford the expensive, refined white sugar.

You can probably find real maple syrup at your grocery store if you hunt past the arrays of artificially flavored pancake syrups, but the real find at Amazon.com for me was to find real Maple Sugar. This is surpassingly hard to find and is absolutely delicious.

 Maple Sugar

Available from Amazon.com from The Baker's Catalogue. They say: "Our Pure Maple Sugar, made from 100% maple syrup, pours like granulated sugar -- but tastes like heaven (or Vermont; some think they're interchangeable). Wonderful on porridge, buttered toast, or in maple sugar shortbread. In 8-ounce bag, about 1 1/3 cups"

Sourdough bread was the type Laura's Ma made for them out on the prairie where yeast and baking powder were rare. Sourdough was a staple of pioneers who would treasure a good 'starter,' keeping and nourishing it for years, even generations. This sourdough starter offered by The Baker's Catalogue at Amazon.com claims a 250 year-long heritage!

Sourdough bread is available pre-baked in most grocery stores, though I've found most of the available varieties rather bland and really not too sourdough-like. The best sourdough will come from your own hand with a good starter. But if you're not the baking type, try some of the pre-baked varieties (San Francisco sourdoughs are usually best, with the richest flavor!): More Sourdough breads

 Sourdough Starter & Crock

Available from Amazon.com from The Baker's Catalogue. They say: "Our Classic New England Sourdough Starter is descended from ancestors which have been bubbling away right here in New England for over 250 years. Our ceramic wheat-motif 1-quart lidded Sourdough Crock is big enough to hold your starter between feedings, yet compact enough, at 4 1/2 x 7 inches high (with lid) to fit in the refrigerator."

More Sourdough breads and starters

"And three grains of parched corn lay beside each tin plate." So Laura described her family's Thanksgiving tradition of having parched corn in On the Banks of Plum Creek. I have never, before now, found parched corn and am very interested in trying it.

Parched Corn - Roasted Sweet Corn, 8 oz.

• 8 ounce bag

• Old time favorite

• Crunchy and lightly salted

The main gift the Ingalls girls got each year at Christmas was the rare treat of Christmas candy. Christmas candy now isn't the same (we have a lot more chocolate!), then it was usually peppermint sticks, or hard candies in bright colors and often in ribbon shapes, or flavors seldom seen anymore like horehound and sassafras.

 Old Fashioned Candy Sticks Peppermint [80CT Box]

• Delicious hard candy sticks individually wrapped in cellophane!

• Each candy stick is approximately 4 inches long.

• Unit Price : $0.15/stick.

Old Fashioned Sassafras Candy Drops, Bulk, 16 oz

• Made from pure ingredients and an old proven family recipe

• No MSG

• Old fashioned hard candies

• Our Amish Meadow Farms brand

Ribbon Candy Gift Bags 3 pieces of Ribbon per bag. 2 bags per order

• Christmas Candy

• Hand Made Candy

• Cinnamon, Peppermint, Cherry, Wintergreen or Clove

• Ribbon shaped candy

• Old Fashioned Candy

 Old Fashioned Horehound Candy, Bulk, 16 oz

Baked beans used to be a staple--a cheap source of protein that needed no preservation. Their nutritional benefits are still highly regarded. Making them from scratch was a long, slow project. This pre-made recipe sounds pretty close to that described in The Long Winter, though they're using beef for flavoring rather than salt pork. Salt pork was the common meat choice on the prairie because the high salt and fat content kept it preserved without refrigeration--you can probably get salt pork at your grocery store, though it's somewhat rare and you may have to ask at the meat counter, just make sure you parboil it before frying--that was a mistake I made the first time I used salt pork in Norwegian potato dumplings (a food treat from my family's history, not Laura's). I didn't boil it and so the salt pork was unbearably salty. Also, if you make your own baked beans from scratch based on the Little House books, you probably want to get navy beans or red beans rather than the more common pinto beans.

3 lbs. Original Barbecue Baked Beans & 3 lbs. Grandmas Zarda's Baked Beans - Kansas City's best barbecue with FREE SHIPPING!

• 6 lbs. serves 6-8 people.

• Grandma's bean is made with molasses, brown sugar and brisket for a "sweet bean" taste.

• Includes 3 Original Baked Beans and 3 Grandma's Baked Beans.

• We add fresh onions, brown sugar, chunks of 100% USDA beef and Zarda barbecue sauce!

• Zarda starts with the finest quality baked beans and then we work our wonders.

And how adventuresome are you feeling in the tastes of the past? The Ingalls often had to live off the land in a way we don't do anymore. A variety of rare and wild meats are available.

Fresh Venison and Venison Sausages

Wild Meats