The Quilt Inn Country Cookbook

Aliske Webb

rather because the cookbook presupposes a completely different way of life than we

are used to now. Molokhovets assures us that we, too, can have fresh pears from our

orchard in the middle of Winter. How? According to Gift, each pear, carefully culled,

was placed in its own small individual copper saucepan with a lid and laid in the ice

house. (We don’t have one of those, either). Every two weeks a servant wiped off each

and every pear, and the saucepan it rested in. (You can understand a people who rose

up and demanded a revolution, if only to be taken off pear detail!)

And even more, close to the house was a store room of vast size, used to hold

food for the almost-always large family, guests, and hangers-on. Mushrooms were

grown in the basement. Lemons were lined up on the shelves, none touching a sister,

each to be wiped dry every fortnight. Kegs of sauerkraut hadto be poked once a week

with a pole to allow the dangerous build up of methane gases to escape. (Horrors! If

you missed a week of keg-poking...BOOM! Death by sauerkraut!) Cauliflowers strung

from the ceiling needed constant attention, and the windows were opened each

morning and closed each night. Even bacon had to be constantly rotated. And the cook

slept in the kitchen, on a foldout bed covered with a seaweed mattress. This was

necessary because cook was always preparing for the next repast. A simple dinner

took 24 hours to prepare, and who knew when the Cossack hordes would descend

upon the house (or your brother-in-law and his family!)

You may disagree, but our feeling is that a cookbook like A Gift To Young

Housewives is to be enjoyed as armchair travelling to the past, not as a “how to” for the

present. Thank you, Tamara, for sharing this wonderful nostalgic vision that is exotic,

thought provoking, unsettling and for forcing us to remember what was and why it isn’t

that way anymore.

Cabbage Pilaf

onion, chopped

cup long grain rice

cups cabbage, chopped

tbsp. tomato paste

tbsp. olive oil

Published by Bookmice.com

Country Cooking