I am re-reading Farmer Boy. This is a great look at early farm life. The detail is amazing. It is also a good look at early society and expectations. The amazing thing in it is the discription of food. On meal is discribed as "Sunday chicken pie". The author discribed this monstrous pie as being filled with gravy and "THREE fat hens". "Mother spread the crust and crimped the edges, and the gravy showed through the two pine trees she had cut in the dough. She put the pie in the oven with the beans and the rye'n'injun bread." "He felt a little bit better when he sat down to the good Sunday dinner. Mother sliced the hot rye'n'injun bread on the bread board by her plate. Father's spoon cut deep into the chicken pie; he scooped out big pieces of thick crust and turned up their fluffy undersides on the plate. He poured gravy over them; he dippedup big pieces of tender chicken, dark meat and white meat sliding from the bones. He added a mound of baked beans and topped it with a quivering slice of fat pork. At the edge he piled dark red beet pickles. And he handed the plate to Almanzo."

If that doesn't make you hungry nothing will! It is my opinion that historically people did more with the simple food they were able to raise. They treated their food better than we do today. It is amazing that the women had the time to go to the trouble of cutting pinetrees in their crusts with all they had to do. Yet if you read diaries and books of the time you see that people spent time on the little details. I mean these women had to sew by hand, do laundry by hand, haul their water, and even make their own cloth. Yet, these same women still took time to cut pinetrees in their crust for Sunday dinner. Amazing!

Little Bit Farm

-- Little bit Farm (littlebit@farm.com), March 09, 2002

Answers

Although I love to write, and I would have loved to have written "Farmer Boy", I did not write this book or the other's in the Little House series. These wonderful books were written by Laura Ingalls Wilder in the first part of the 20th century, about her and her husband's experiences growing up during the time of the expansion of the western frontier in the United States. They are wonderful treasures of history.

Little Bit Farm

-- Little Bit Farm (littlebit@brightok.net), December 08, 2003.

I re-read all the Little House books about every ten years. Each time I enjoy them more than the time before.

Nancy

-- Nancy in Texas (nancyr@ntin.net), March 09, 2002.

Hi Little Bit, after reading this thread, I decided to re-read the book. I had not read it for years, and I also was amazed. Looking at it now from an adult perspective, the amount of work was unbelievable. When I read the part where they sold 500 bushels of potatoes especially! That is a lot of potatoes!!!! The book gave me incentive to work harder that is for sure. Thank you...

-- Melissa in SE Ohio (me@home.net), March 13, 2002.

i love reading your books, there great ecspecially farmer boy i just want you to e-mail me and give me a list of the books you wrote

thanks a lot -E.M.R.

-- E.M.R. (emzoritt64@hotmail.com), December 08, 2003.