Nearing - Simple Food for the Good Life

Copyright 1980 Helen Nearing; copyright 1999 The Good Life Center.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States.

Original edition published by Delacorte Press/Eleanor Friede, 1982.
Second edition published by Stillpoint Publishing, 1985.
First Chelsea Green edition, 1990.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nearing, Helen.

Simple food for the good life / Helen Nearing.

p. cm.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-60358-054-0

1. Cookery (Natural foods) 2. Vegetarian cookery. I. Title.

TX741.N4 1999

641.5'63dc21

99-19979
CIP

Chelsea Green Publishing Company
Post Office Box 428
White River Junction, VT 05001
(800) 639-4099
www.chelseagreen.com

Dedication

To the Good People, Young and Old, Abroad and at Home, who tasted, tucked in and consumed my Fodder through the Years, and asked for Recipes, which I rarely had, and finally persuaded me there was a Place among the thousands of Cookbooks throughout the World for one as idiosyncratic as this.

by Barbara Damrosch

"You're not going to like this book," Helen said, handing me a copy of Simple Food for the Good Life. We had been friends and neighbors since 1991 when I started farming down the road with my husband Eliot Coleman. We visited often and shared several passions, notably books and gardens, but in the kitchen we were different creatures altogether. Helen was the reluctant cook, evenby her own definitionan anti-cook, famous locally for serving her workers and visitors "horse chow," a sort of proto-granola featuring raisins, lemon and raw oats. I, on the other hand, cooked for the sheer pleasure of it, and always tried to spoil Helen a bit when she came over for supper. She ate my gooey lasagnas but pronounced them "rich" and "fancy." One night, shocked that I planned to use only the hearts of the steamed artichokes I was tucking between the pasta layers, she scraped every bit of yumminess from the base of every last discarded leaf and added it defiantly to the mixture.

As it turned out, I heartily enjoyed Simple Food for the Good Life. The bookworm in me loved the abundant quotes, and I was even drawn to Helen's style of cooking, not in spite of its simplicity but because of it. As a cook she was way ahead of her time. Long before the trumpets started to sound for fresh, organic, whole, real foods, Helen was off in the woods serving them up straight from the garden. And while many current cookbooks pay homage to the idea of starting with good, fresh ingredients, eaten in their proper season, Helen's makes these the entire raison d'etre. As such, her book is a touchstone I keep on my shelf to remind myself of what really matters in cooking. I also find myself using Helen's recipes, for she was a better cook than she would admit, with a good instinct for seasonings. Yes, horse chow is in here. But so is an inventive gazpacho flavored with olives, and turnips glazed with maple syrup. There are excellent tricks for thinning and thickening soups, and the ideanew to meof making a winter succotash from dried lima beans and corn.