For example, if memory serves, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy includes a chapter that mentions watermelon rind pickles and explains how they made ice cream in a bucket of salt and ice. Yum!
When you were young, were there any books that tickled your culinary fancies?
ALL of the little house books have wonderful descriptions of simple, home grown foods. I've been reading them from a very early age, and I still pick up Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years at least once a year and go over them.
One book that had food references in it that bewildered me was "Harriet the Spy" and her complete devotion to tomato sandwiches, and nothing else. I couldn't understand it at all, and it drove me nuts because even when I was young, I was aware of how many different kinds of great foods there were out there. In "Sport" there's also some food discussion that's interesting from the perspective of a kid who never has enough food because his Dad's poor. That struck me, as well.
And there was, of course, "How to Eat Fried Worms" (a book I can't stand to read at all), and the Henry books (like "Henry's Babysitting Company") had interesting food stuff in them, too.
