A Prairie Cookbook: Memories and Recipes From the Midwest

Dear Reader,


In Our Story, I describe the immigration of my ancestors from Sweden to South Dakota in the late 19th century. Prairie Cookbook and Memories expands on that narrative. Dozens of recipes copied from cards and scraps of paper that date from those days were used to satisfy the hunger of pioneering families in the Midwestern United States.

I wish to frame your expectations before you read this book. These aren't recipes from the Old Country. They're recipes from the Midwest from the turn of the last century. You'll find better recipes on how to make ox-tail soup, for example, on the internet and in other books. If you read this book for culinary how to instructions, you're missing the point. Rather, my goal is to open a window into a vanishing world. This book provides another dimension to understanding the life of our ancestors. These recipes are as simple and as unpolished as those who worked the land. And yet they invoke an atmosphere that memoirs may not fully capture.

I've also include in this book photographs and memoirs written by those from those days, primarily in the first two decades of the 20th century. My grandmother Emma Wik's memoirs are in Our Story. The writing of three of her children in this book supplement Emma's memoir Sweden to America: A Story of Pioneering on the American Frontier.

Despite the hardships they faced, the people of the plains had high ambitions and ideals. In 1918, Emma's husband died and yet she saw eleven of her children go to college before and during the Great Depression. Many of her children went on to become educators and some got advanced degrees. Emma's children also had strong literary skills, some of whom went on to write articles and books. Emma's children also bore the middle names of writers and poets, an indication of the importance that education had to that family. My father's middle name, for example was Tennyson, perhaps also because he was the tenth in the family.

These memoirs help provide the context and greater insight in which these meals were lovingly prepared, for children, grandparents, and field hands, and for holidays, weddings, funerals, and daily life. Both these recipes and the memoirs paint a picture of an important time in the history of our nation and give us insight into the character of the homesteaders of the Midwest.


Prairie Cookbook has about 27,000 words and over forty recipes.


Table of Contents


Chapter One: Bread and Bread Making
Chapter Two: Immigration to America
Chapter Three: Griddle Cakes and Waffles
Chapter Four: Cereals and Cereal Products
Chapter Five: Happy Days On The Farm
Chapter Six: Soups and Chowders
Chapter Seven: Salads and Salad Dressing
Chapter Eight: Relishes and Sauces
Chapter Nine: Meats
Chapter Ten: Memoirs From the Midwest