Review for Eating It Up In Eden

Reading Date:   August 15, 2009, 3:30 – 5:00 PM

Location:  Butteville Store

Author:  Richard Engeman

Title(s):  Eating It Up In Eden:  The Oregon Century Farm and Ranch Cookbook

The Oregon Companion:  An Historical Gazetteer of the Useful, the Curious and the Arcane

Review for Eating It Up In Eden:

On a long Sunday drive in Oregon farm country, aren’t you tempted to stop at a Century farm and ask them how the last 100 years have been? Oregon can proudly identify 19 farms that have been in continuous operation for over 150 years! In a clear, succinct, amusing style, Richard Engeman opens that Century farmhouse door and peaks into the kitchen, finding scads of pictures, recipes, tips, and practical solutions that have exemplified Oregon farm and ranch life over the last 150 years. This beautifully published book is a welcome addition to a cookbook collection as well as a car companion.

Today urbanites are turning to farm families for tips on growing, harvesting, and preserving the bounty of Oregon’s Eden. Appealing to every beer-swilling snail trapper is the liquor-laden instruction from an 1860’s cookbook “To Catch Wild Ducks”:

….soak wheat in strong alcohol and scatter where they eat and

take them when they are drunk

Engeman sorts through it all and produces a wonderful historical retrospective of farm family recipes and household solutions that can be used today. The book has an eclectic choice of historic photos, quotations, and the definitive county listing of Century family farms. Celebrate Oregon’s bounty with Eating It Up in Eden.