Recommend an Old Style Book?

Sweet_Pea_2

I have just finished "A life stripped bare" by Leo Hickman, which is about his and his families challenge to spend a year living ethically.
Although its primarily about green issues I was struck by how Old Style it is, composting, veg boxes, growing your own veg and herbs, making your own cleaning products,second hand clothes and slow cookers all had a mention. I really enjoyed it.

zar

All the river cottage cookbooks are great and are quite OS in the seasonal approach/local/no waste etc rather than aiming to be totally self-sufficient. I think the meat book is especially fantastic but it is expensive. I've found the pages with the picture of the animal and then photos of different joints and what you can do with them to be especially useful. (This is because we got half a pig from hubby's work but we were on holiday when it came back from the butchers so his boss just froze it all in huge big lumps. So when we want some pork we go the freezer and get something out, and then once its defrosted we have to identify it from the photos and them work out how to cook it. :rotfl: This sunday the piece I got out turned out to be a 5kg leg joint - and there's only 2 of us!)

The many books on self-sufficiency are pretty good as you can take the bits you need/are suitable for your lifestyle and leave the rest. The classic self-sufficiency book by John Seymour is interesting and quite a good reference volume.

I have a large cookbook collection, almost all of which is second-hand. Its a mixture of recipes from other cultures (e.g. a few Indian cookbooks, Italian etc) and old good housekeeping cookbooks from the 50s to today as these are really useful for traditional British recipes often using cheaper cuts of meat etc.

With so many good books out there, I hope the OS book will still add something a bit different - I've certainly learnt a lot from this forum and it will be good for the ideas to get a wider audience.

shetitasatic

Thanks for reminding me - I looked on my shelves and re-found Making Ends Meet by Patsy Kumm ( pub 1972) and Tuppenny Rice and Treacle - Cottage Housekeeping 1900-1920 by Doris Coates (pub 1975) This last one is great, it includes recipes for cleaning products using ingredients I've never heard of!

It also includes a recipe for Rook Pie - "skin and draw the rooks, taking care not to break the gall- bladder"!!!!

I also found Goodbye Mrs Beeton - the cost cutting cookbook by Barbara Steele (pub 1974)

I guess these are all probably out of print but worth looking out for

Mr_Proctalgia

I have just bought a 1959 "Kitchen Encyclopedia" so if any one needs recipes for Whale Meat, Sheeps brains or heads, bible cake, posset, chitterlings, dripping cake, fat rascals, giblet pie, sherbet powder, turtle soup etc etc. In fact most of the internals of various animals ar usable in this book.
The frighening thing is that I was actually alive when this was published, I cannot remember eating Whale, but my old grand dad used to sort it to make petfood until the late sixties. All in all a facinating read for 50p.

ocemeer

I'd go with 'A greener life' clarissa dickson wright and johnny scott
of clarissa and the countryman fame
It covers all sorts of things from gardening and keeping chickens tohow to make your own soap and candles.
even the cleaning bit is very os (don't be put off by the greener bit in the title)
Apart from being an absolute treasure trove of information its a really dry witty read (if you appreciate their eccentricities)
dont know how much it was as it was a bday present because of my os tendencies.

I'll second the Meat book of Hugh F-W absolutley brilliant especially the oxtail stew I finally got my DH eating offal..... (i think i got it relatively cheap at £6 but charity shops are a good browse for things like that)

Curry_Queen

Uh-oh!!! I think I've wandered into this thread by mistake ... not looking at any of the book recommendations, honest ... will back out slowly with my eyes closed and shut down the computer right now :whistle: :rotfl:

moggins

Curry_Queen wrote:

Uh-oh!!! I think I've wandered into this thread by mistake ... not looking at any of the book recommendations, honest ... will back out slowly with my eyes closed and shut down the computer right now :whistle: :rotfl:

Yeah right

BusyGirl

I love my new money saving life and I really enjoy reading all of your ideas. There are quite a few books on the topic on Amazon and I wondered if you could recommend any of them. I do already have 'The Tightwad's Guide' and I am waiting for Martin's new book to be published.
Thanks

(Sorry if this has been posted in the wrong place)

thriftmonster

More With Less cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre - I use this a lot - but it's really for cooking from scratch only - I love cooking so I'm biased. Maybe someone else feels differently??

Doodles

BusyGirl wrote:

I love my new money saving life and I really enjoy reading all of your ideas. There are quite a few books on the topic on Amazon and I wondered if you could recommend any of them. I do already have 'The Tightwad's Guide' and I am waiting for Martin's new book to be published.
Thanks

(Sorry if this has been posted in the wrong place)

Hi, a couple of my favourites are "Miserly Moms" - its an american book but I really liked the ideas in that. Did you mean "the Tighwad's Gazette" by Amy Dacycson (can't spell her surname)? If so, you should like the miserly mom one.

Another book I loved is "The Money Secret" by Rob Parsons (he's an english author).

I'm an Alvin Hall fan too and I preferred his "money or your life" book, but its been a few years since I read that so I'm not sure if any of the advice might be a little out of date.