Simple cooking of wholesome food for the farm home

From the librarian's dossier · AI-generated, grounded in the scanned text

This 1913 bulletin from the University of Texas Extension Division presents simple, economical cooking instruction aimed at farm families. Written by Jessie Pinning Rich, it blends basic nutrition science with practical kitchen guidance, explaining how food substances such as carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and mineral salts function in the body before moving into concrete recipes and preparation methods. The book covers a wide range of everyday farm fare: milk and cheese dishes, eggs, various meats including beef, mutton, chicken, pork, and ham, soups, vegetables, sauces, breads, desserts, and cereals. A distinctive feature is its attention to fireless cookers, a slow-cooking method presented as an economical technique well suited to rural households, with recipes for meats, soups, beans, and dried fruits. Throughout, the text emphasizes proper cooking temperatures matched to different food substances, careful vegetable selection and washing, and the retention of nutritional value during preparation. As an extension bulletin rather than a general trade cookbook, it reads as part instructional pamphlet, part domestic science primer, reflecting the era's effort to bring emerging nutritional knowledge to rural communities. Modern readers will find it a compact, practical snapshot of early twentieth-century farm home cookery, grounded in the applied science and economy that extension programs of the period sought to promote.

The book is organized into two broad sections. Section 1 opens with foundational material on nutrition and the roles of food substances in the body, then moves into cooking temperature principles before presenting recipes for milk and cheese, eggs, meats, soups, and early vegetable dishes. Section 2 continues with vegetable cookery, sauces, potato dishes, salads and dressings, bread making with yeast and baking powder, desserts, cereal cookery, and a dedicated segment on fireless cooker recipes. The overall arrangement moves from general nutritional principles toward increasingly specific categories of dishes, mirroring the instructional structure typical of an extension bulletin.