Experience the exciting and heartwarming world of the March sisters and Little Women right in your own kitchen. Here at last is the first cookbook to celebrate the scrumptious and comforting foods that play a prominent role in Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel Little Women. If your family includes a Little Women fan, or if you yourself are one, with this book you can keep the magic and wonder of … are one, with this book you can keep the magic and wonder of the beloved tale alive for years to come. Do you wonder what makes the characters so excited to make—and eat!—sweets and desserts like the exotically named Blancmange or the mysterious Bonbons with Mottoes, along with favorites like Apple Turnovers, Plum Pudding, and Gingerbread Cake? Find out for yourself with over 50 easy-to-make recipes for these delectable treats and more, all updated for the modern kitchen.
From Hannah’s Pounded Potatoes to Amy’s Picnic Lemonade, from the charming Chocolate Drop Cookies that Professor Bhaer always offers to Meg’s twins to hearty dinners that Hannah and Marmee encourage the March sisters to learn to make, you’ll find an abundance of delicious teatime drinks and snacks, plus breakfasts, brunches, lunches, suppers, and desserts. Featuring full-color photos, evocative illustrations, fun and uplifting quotes from the novel, and anecdotes about Louisa May Alcott, this is a book that any Little Women fan will love to have.
more
The Little Women Cookbook by Wini Moranville and Louisa May Alcott is an excellent and adorable Little Women inspired collection of recipes.
Some were mentioned casually, and in more detail, throughout the book, others the Author researched and added to the list to compliment the above mentioned. Ms Moranville painstakingly found recipes that were common, realistic, and used during that time in New England.
Those recipes were mentioned in their original form and also with modern modifications to make it easier and more palatable to today’s tastes.
Interspersed throughout is text from the beloved classic referencing some of the recipes and foods written into novel.
What the reader is left with is an excellent collection of recipes with also excerpts from the novel that bring back such wonderful and warm memories.
5/5 stars
Thank you Quarto Group/Harvard Common Press for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.
This was a truly lovely cookbook that will take you back into the classic read Little Women. Filled with homey feeling recipes directly from the classic any true fan will be transported into the book and come out the other side excited about cooking some tasty food. It was a great celebration of Little Women and will have you picking it up again just so you can find the recipes mentioned throughout. The author did a.beauty job and even included fabulous illustrations, and quotes from the stories. It is a well rounded cookbook and the recipes are easy to make. I gave the Gingerbread cake a try and it turned out beautifully. I’ll be making it again for the upcoming holiday season. I look forward to trying more recipes and to returning to the classic, it is definitely a.favored read!!!
For one hundred and fifty years readers have identified with the March sisters. Louisa May Alcott drew from her family members and life, making Little Women a beloved story with relatable characters.
Set during the Civil War, with Mr. March at war far from home, the March sisters and their mother struggle to obtain their basic needs. Food insecurity impacts their home and the community. The novel begins with the preparation of a Christmas breakfast feast which the girls valiantly donate to an immigrant family. The women content themselves with a meal of bread and milk. The book ends with a meal as well, a picnic supper.
Wini Moranville, “writer, cookbook author, and lover of historic and heirloom recipes,” was asked to write The Little Women Cook Book in conjunction with the 2019 Little Women movie.
With charming illustrations and quotations from the novel, it is a delight. I enjoyed revisiting the novel through the lens of communal meals. Well-chosen quotations from Little Women keep our attention on the inspiration source for the recipes.
Wini researched American cookbooks from the mid 19th c. Some foods from the novel, like the pickled limes traded between schoolgirls, would not appeal today, so Wini gives us “Pickled Lime” Sugar Cookies.
Milk-Toast was a simple meal of warm milk poured over buttered toasted bread, perhaps seasoned with salt or sugar and cinnamon. I recall my grandfather, born in 1905, enjoying it as a dessert from his country childhood.
From the passage, “The omelet was scorched, and the biscuits speckled with saleratus”, Wini gives two recipes, omelets and Maple-Cornmeal Drop Biscuits, and a history of baking powder.
Other recipes from the past include:
“Meg was already covering the buckwheats…”~Buckwheat Pancakes
“It was too bad to laugh at the poor little jelly pots.”~ Meg’s Currant Jelly Sauce
“We’ll have lettuce and make a salad.”~ Jo’s Lettuce Salad
“…and Amy made lemonade…”~Amy’s Lemonade
Also appearing are Mr. Bhaer’s Chocolate drops; Bonbons and mottoes, candies wrapped in papers printed with riddles and sayings; Jo’s Gingerbread; the apple turnovers from the picnic; and Meg’s Plum Pudding.
Where the novel is silent on specifics, Wini turns to recipes popular during the time period.
Newlywed Meg uses a popular cookbook, The Young Housekeeper’s Friend. Indian meal–cornmeal–was popularly used in many dishes. Wini offers us Indian Meal Griddle Cakes, with a version with blueberries that caught my attention.
Meg also has Mrs. Corneliu’s Receipt Book and Wini shares Meg’s Macaroni and Cheese from that book. It is very like the recipe I have used all my life.
The recipes are tempting!
I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
I thought that this was a wonderful cookbook for any fan of Little Women to have and enjoy but I also thought it would be a welcome addition to any cookbook collection. This cookbook offers a good range of recipes. Some are based off the book, while others merely pertain to the era. There are breakfast, lunch, dinner, beverages, desserts and some party/special occasion recipes included. I feel that these recipes require a variety of cooking skill levels from very basic to moderately advanced. This cookbook has charming graphics, delightful quotes and attractive photographs. If you are a true devotee of Little Woman or are looking for another addition to your collection, I highly recommend this entertaining and beautiful book.
The Little Women Cookbook
Tempting Recipes from the March Sisters and Their Friends and Family
by Wini Moranville; Louisa May Alcott
Little Women is a classic even today. It has been made into movies and lives on long past the time it was first published. Food is integral to life and it was also part of the March family’s life, too. In this book the author has presented recipes based on information in Little Women and also from information she gleaned from cookbooks of the era. She has modernized the recipes for today’s cooks and yet…if you really think about it…cooking methods and ingredients may change a bit over time while still maintaining the comfort and history they have provided through the ages.
I am a cookbook collector and remember the books Louisa May Alcott wrote. I loved Joe perhaps best of all and remembers of the family so enjoyed her book, too, when I found it. Louisa May Alcott was more than the writer of Little Women and this book provides you with what more she was. There is a photograph of the house she wrote in, mention of her life and books and homes and orchards.
This book has information with and within each chapter that is educational and interesting. Illustrations are beautiful and I thoroughly enjoyed looking through and imagining creating the recipes. That said, I also have eaten many of the recipes mentioned growing up in the Midwest (I am 67) and remembered as I read the milk toast my mother served…especially when I was sick and the oatmeal I ate then and still make today and then others like buckwheat pancakes, griddle cakes, sandwiches, pot pies, macaroni and cheese and cookies. The fun bits added were how they browned macaroni and cheese long ago since there were no broilers and why blanc mange is not made the same now because we have easier ways to do it.
Anyway, this was a fun book to read and I can see families having it to cook from if they watch Little Women or read it together. I can also see teachers who might use the book in classes also having integrated cooking lessons using this cookbook.
Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I recommend it? Yes
Thank you to Quarto Publishing Group – Harvard Common Press for the ARC – This is my honest review
5 Stars