5 Things I Learned About Food From the Second Chapter of Farmer Boy

 

Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder is very much the world as seen through the eyes of a little boy. Food and work play the biggest roles in his life, and of course this makes sense since they were literally working long, hard days for their food.

Throughout the book Alamnzo details the meals they shared around the kitchen table. His mother was an accomplished cook, as were most women of the day, and she lavished her love upon her hard working farmer boys.

What lessons about real food can we glean from these pages?

1. They ate A LOT

Earlier in chapter one Almanzo describes for us the lunch he and his siblings took to school in their lunch pail. "Eliza Jane opened the dinner-pail on her desk. It held bread-and-butter and sausage, doughnuts and apples, and four delicious apple-turnovers, their plump crusts filled with melting slices of apple and spicy brown juice."

That's a lot of food for lunch! Nowadays the typical school lunch would probably consist of a sandwich, a bag of chips, maybe a piece of fruit and a drink. The theme of heavy eating is protrayed throughout the book but is never described in such wonderful detail as in the dinner meal served in the second chapter.

Now bare in mind, this was not a fancy or special occasion, this was what was served for a typical dinner. There were slabs (note: not slices but SLABS) of tempting cheese, a plate of head cheese, glass dishes of jams and jellies and preserves, a tall pitcher of milk, a steaming pan of baked beans with a crisp bit of fat pork in the crumbling brown crust, a large platter of sizzling ham, mealy boiled potatoes with brown ham-gravy, bread and butter, mashed turnips, stewed yellow pumpkin, spiced watermelon-rind pickles, and pumpkin pie.

2. Their Diet Was Surprising Close to the Primal Diet

For those unfamiliar with the Primal Diet it is a diet related to the caveman diet or the Paleo diet in that it attempts to get humans a little closer to what we would naturally eat under the conditions of nature for which we were designed. Essentially the diet consists of getting the bulk of ones nutrition from animal meats and fats but that by volume, vegetables and to a lesser extent, fruits should take up most of the room on our plate.  Good fats, raw or fermented, full fat dairy products and spices should round off one's diet.

The Primal diet does not support eating grains or sugar, for which we are not well adapted. Now, mind you, I'm not claiming this diet of the Wilder's IS primal or paleo but what I am saying it's a lot closer than the modern diet most people are eating. 

Let's break down this meal. 

Meat - Ham was the featured product of this meal, big hunks of ham. The mealy potatoes were covered in brown ham gravy which in those days would have been made of organ meats from the pig along with a little butter, salt and flour. They also consumed head cheese which despite it's name is not actually cheese but is a cold cut meat made from the head of an animal (in this case most likely the pig).

Dairy - Slabs of cheese which would have been fermented from the milk of their cows.A pitcher of milk which also would have been fresh and raw.

That's a very protein heavy meal!

Let's continue....

Vegetables and Fruits - Here's where we see some volume! Stewed yellow pumpkin, mealy boiled potatoes, mashed turnips, watermelon rind, and various jams and jellies. Also they ate pumpkin pie which was not likely to have been like our pumpkin pie today but would have been more like a squash pudding and may or may not have contained a crust.

Grains - Bread and baked beans. Of course the baked beans would also have featured a lot of bone broth and/or meat as well as the pork fat mentioned and the bread (most likely whole grain, stone ground and naturally fermented as they did not have packaged yeast) was served with a generous helping of raw, grass fed, butter.

So we see a lot of protein in the form of meat and diary, second we see tons of veggies and some preserved fruits and last we see a bit of grains but not very much.

Contrasting that the an average American meal of say spaghetti with garlic bread and salad, or pizza or hamburgers and french fries or macaroni and cheese we can see that today we tend to load up on the carbs and the protein comes second, if at all.

3. Children Did Not Speak At Meals

"'Thank you.' Almanzo said. Those were the only words he was allowed to speak at the table. Children must be seen and not heard. Father and Mother and Mr. Course could  talk, but Royal and Eliza Jane and Alice and Almanzo must not say a word."

Seth and I tried this once at our dinner table, needless to say it did not go over well. I like speaking to my children at dinner so I don't mind them speaking but there are some nights when I wish this WAS our rule! *chuckle*

4. Preparing the Meal Was the Domain of the Women

While the boys and their father were out feeding the animals, cleaning the stalls and milking the cows, the women (Almanzo's two sisters and his mother) were in the kitchen preparing the meal. When Almanzo tried to sneak in he was quickly and sternly told to leave the kitchen. 

This split of domestic responsibilities has great advantage to all. The household can function smoothly, everyone knows who is responsible for what. There is never any squabbling about who was meant to do what, all duties are clearly laid out and what's more they are laid out in such a way as to benefit those who would be best at the chore.

The men and boys, with their ability to focus on one task and their strong bodies were perfectly suited to tending the livestock. The women who are able to multitask and who are more suited to nurturing activities I'm sure relished the chance to spend the evening in the warm kitchen preparing the meal. I know I would!

5. They Ate Seasonally And Ate What They Grew Themselves

This dinner happened in wintertime so as we can see butchered animals, root vegetables and squash were the featured items. In addition some immediately available foods such as milk and cheese as well as preserved food such as watermelon rinds, jams and jellies.

The pig would have been raised and butchered right there on their farm. The milk and cheese also came from their very own cows. The berries and fruits for the preserves would have been grown on the farm or gathered wild in the nearby wood and of course the squash and root veggies would have come from their winter garden.

There would not have been eggs in the pumpkin pie, as eggs are a seasonal food (chickens do not lay in wintertime). There were no fresh fruits or leafy green veggies which one would only eat in spring and summertime.

Compared to today this one family dinner seems like Thanksgiving! It is very rich, nutrient dense, full of animal fats and vegetables and lower on grains and sugar then a typical modern meal. It seems that unlike modern day athletes who rely on carbs to keep them going this hard working family who farmed their land from sun up to sunset (and often longer) was fueled on animal fats and vegetables.

Aside from Almanzo describing his mother as "plump" (which may have been the result of giving birth to six children more than anything else) no one in the family was fat nor did they suffer illness. 

Infact as we can see from this boyhood picture of Almanzo he was a good weight...

We can also see that all this "fattening" food did not catch up with him later as the handsome Almanzo stole the heart of the young Laura Ingalls (10 years his junior) and from this picture we can see they were both trim, healthy looking folks...

All the fattening food and meat still never caught up with old Almanzo. He lived healthy to the ripe old age of 92, running his own farm and horse breeding business and as you can see never did get fat....

So maybe high calorie, "fattening" animal products are not so bad for us after all? It seems like this was a very healthy diet that served the hardworking Almanzo and his family very well his whole life.

Food for thought...