So how did they do it? First of all, they hardly ate meat or sweets. Pa would go out and hunt when he could, but that was chancy. The girls usually got a stick of candy (ONE STICK) in their Christmas stocking, and Ma would make a pie or some other baked goodie as a VERY occasional treat.
Every day meals, though, were usually pretty monotonous. They were biscuits, bread, or cornbread, some sort of bean main dish, maybe bacon or sausage, tea, coffee, milk (if it hadn’t blown out of the pail), homemade butter (from the milk, when possible), and maybe molassess to flavor the bread. That was pretty much it.
The Ingalls were wheat farmers mainly, but they usually had a kitchen garden, too. So they might have potatoes, carrots, onions, etc. But many times it seems as if things didn’t work out too well for them weather-wise, so they didn’t get much from any of their crops. Then it was mostly beans, beans, beans. And some sort of bread.
- Ideas for Frugal Living
She does admit in her post that she doesn't know if it is the healthiest of diets or not, but she can tell us by quoting a book she had with that information how long each of them lived.
Pa 1836-1902, 66 years old
Ma 1839-1924, 85 years old
Mary 1865-1928, 63 years old
Laura 1867-1957, 90 years old
Carrie 1870-1946, 76 years old
Grace 1877-1941, 64 years old
So there you have it. Laura lived to see the advent of the home television set. No idea if she herself ever had one though, but that would be another story anyway. I have often lived on a similar diet as the one above. The author of the quoted post is right it can be monotonus but it gives us the nourishment that we need.
---
go ahead share your thoughts with me now, my ears are open. I'm always eager to hear what you think.
follow me on Twitter and facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment