Cynthia D. Bertelsen

It is no surprise that this phenomenal book was a finalist for the Indie Book Awards. Part memoir, part cookbook, I am not exaggerating when I say that there are photos on just about every page. Gorgeous photos. Family photos, historical photos, mouth-watering food photos.
Author Cynthia Bertelsen married into the Bertelsen family. Originally from Norway, they immigrated to the United States in the 1850s and settled in western Wisconsin. This book is a celebration of that pioneer spirit, the American dream, the grim determination to keep going even when crops fail and the winter wind rattles the linoleum slab up off the kitchen floor. It is the story of love and respect of a young bride for the farming family she has married into. This wondrous kaleidoscope of anecdotes, recipes, and charming side notes (like a page on the history of dill or a long-gone pickle factory), will warm your heart, make you hungry, and remind you how hard farmers work to harvest the food that we take for granted in the grocery section.
The recipes range from simple farm-life staples like porridge and cream bread; traditional Scandinavian dishes like goulash, lutefisk, and rommegrot; church supper offerings; meat dishes like smoked salmon quiche, chicken pot pie, turkey croquets; and traditional vegetable dishes.
Then there are desserts. LOTS of desserts! If you have a sweet tooth, you won't want to peruse this on an empty stomach!
I'd recommend this book to any foodie, especially one keen on history.
As one who married into a Danish family, yea though I don't speak more than about three words in Danish, tak, the printout of the Norwegian Grace Lyrics (almost the same in Danish) took me back to many lovely family meals:
I Jesu navn går vi til bords
Og spiser, drikker på ditt ord
Deg, Gud, til ære, oss til gavn
Så får vi mat i Jesu navn.
Amen.
I'm not even Danish, and this got me all sentimental.
This would be a lovely gift for anyone interested in Scandanavian-American culture/history/food.


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I've been looking forward to reading this book for a long time. Finally got to it. Was surprised to find that it is illustrated with color photos. Bonus! This slim volume is rich with information that is bound to turn you into a mycophile, if you aren't a mushroom lover already.

Sitting down with it, I did a quick inventory of my relationship with mushrooms. What do I know about them really? After a soaking rain on my property, a dozen or so different varieties emerge from the ground and on trees. I've attempted to identify them, but without confidence. I have a nervous interest in hunting them, with a fear that I'd screw up and eat the wrong one.

Learning to cook on my own, my post-college roomie, one of five siblings, introduced me to the standard casserole layering: meat, Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, veg, potato. She put tater tots on top instead of mashed potatoes. The mushroom soup helped cook the meat and bind the layers adding a bit of flavor but mostly disappearing. I laughed and cheered to turn the page and find a photo of the iconic can of Campbells in the book and a description of exactly that casserole, the go-to for an easy, quick, fortifying, one-pot meal for a large family.

When I was a kid, there was only the one mushroom available in the supermarket. The white ones. My mom sauteed them in butter with a bit of white wine or fried them up. I recall when portobello mushrooms hit the scene. The portobello replacing the burger. Tasty!

This handy book offers up a history of the mushroom across cultures and continents. The mushroom has been looked on by some with derisive suspicion and others with appreciation for an extra food source in times of scarcity. Fun to see mention of mushrooms crop up in literature as well as cookbooks and travel stories.

Our understanding and appreciation of the mushroom is still evolving. Mushrooms have been introduced as a packaging material; for medicinal value; for environmental purposes.

If you happen to be a foodie, references to famous cookbooks either including or excluding mushroom recipes is of interest. There are recipes at the back, antiquated and modern.

Know a mycophile? This'd be a great gift.





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Family saga/historical fiction is not one of my go-to genres to be honest, as there is always struggle, betrayal, hardship, family karma, etc. Just not what I go to for reading for pleasure. And In the Shadow of Ravens has all that in bucketloads. I made the exception out of curiosity wondering how Bertelsen would handle fiction. She's gifted in writing food-oriented non-fiction. Also, the subject of witches and witchcraft piqued my interest. This is a well-plotted saga of one woman, a good witch, who, in her youth, turned down a suitor. Said suitor cannot take the rejection with grace, instead sets out to hamper, harm, destroy her. Why? It starts with his bruised ego. The basic misunderstanding about healers. Fear. Distrust. He just can't let it go. The meat of the book (ha ha--there's a lot of cooking references) is the kinship of women as family and friends. I was pleased that while we have the one evil male character, there are good men, too. This is not a male-bashing book. I close the book feeling melancholy about how humanity can be so narrow-minded, ignorance, jumping to wild conclusions to justify fears that lead to horrible, destructive, violent choices. How can someone who goes to a healer to help with sickness, childbirth, etc. turn on that same healer as a witch and fervently condemn said healer as the exact opposite? A wicked pariah? It happens all the time. It usually has precious little to do with the healer and all to do with the accuser. This will be one of those books that settles on my heart and lingers for a long time. This being said, there is hope, too. The book ends with new beginnings and hope.… (meer)