It Makes Me Hungry!

Every time I read "The Long Winter" I get so hungry that I am compelled to go into the kitchen and make myself a snack. Laura Ingalls Wilder was very good at describing frontier food, so good that I once checked "The Little House Cookbook" out of the library so that I could try those fried apples 'n' onions for myself. (They are wonderful, by the way.) But of all the "Little House" books, it is "The Long Winter" that evokes the most hunger, real or imagined, for the Ingalls family nearly starved to death that winter and the little food they had is vividly described - not to mention the Christmas feast in April, when the train fianlly came through!

The book begins with Laura and Pa "making hay while the sun shines." Driven by a sense of urgency, Pa feels the need to get all of the hay in,especially after an old Indian comes into the general store and predicts a severe winter, one that will be fraught with blizzards and will last seven months. Laura, now thirteen, and Carrie, almost ten, have just started school in De Smet and are making new friends. Worried about the possibility of the old Indian's prediction coming true, Pa moves the family from the claim shanty to the store building in town, just before the onslaught of the first blizzard in October.

From then on, it snows almost without stopping. The Ingalls family and many other families in town begin to run out of supplies, including kerosene and wheat. Pa and Laura are able to keep the family warm by twisting hay into sticks to burn in the stove, but there is nothing to eat except coarse brown bread for days on end. The cold is mind-numbing and the hunger terrible, yet, as always, the Ingalls family use their love and ingenuity to see them through until spring. It is in this book that Almanzo Wilder makes his first appearance since "Farmer Boy", as he and young Cap Garland make a dangerous and daring journey to buy the wheat that will keep the town from starving.

It was not until I was 14 or 15 and was reading this book for the fifth or sixth time that the Ingalls family came close to dying during that winter. Somehow Laura always managed to overshadow the fear and hardship with her warm and wonderful depiction of family life. Still, there is some sense here of the desperation they felt, and the saddest part of the book is when Pa realizes that his hands are too stiff and raw to play the fiddle. When the Ingalls and their friends have their belated Christmas celebration, the most joyful moment comes when Pa at last plays the fiddle again.

I am constantly amazed by Ma's ability to make a meal from practically nothing and to make food last for days.At one point in the story, Pa is able to buy four pounds of the last beef in town, and Ma does wonders with it, just as she is able to make beans, bread, potatoes, and salt fish seem like a banquet. Pa has a talent for providing for his family, but there is also more than a hint of their reliance on God, and that's one of the most positive things about this book - and the series as a whole. The Ingalls are survivors, but they have faith, too. You'll love this book, but it will probably make you hungry for bread and gravy!