CIVIL WAR COOKING: The Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia by...

CIVIL WAR COOKING: The Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia by Mrs. E. F. Haskell, edited by R. L. Shep L. Shep / PO Box 668, Mendocino, CA 95460: $29.95; 445 pp., paperback original) and THE BEST OF THE OLD FARMER’S ALMANAC: The First 200 Years edited by Judson Hale (Random House: $9.95; 244 pp . , illustrated, paperback original). Originally published in 1861, Mrs. Haskell’s manual of household management offers revealing insights into American rural life during the second half of the 19th Century. Intended for young brides, the text offers such prim adages as “We should hear less complaints of servants if mistresses would oftener do their duty to those under them” and “A cheerful-tempered lady will, in the end, make a more finished housekeeper than one who habitually gives way to gloom.” But it’s difficult for modern readers to imagine anyone facing such a laborious existence without a certain amount of gloom: Baking bread in a wood-burning stove required hours of preparation; soaking, boiling, rinsing and ironing the laundry took three days. The women who read “The Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia” also knew “The Old Farmer’s Almanac.” Since 1792, the Almanac has supplied millions of Americans with information on the weather, tides, phases of the moon etc. Hale, who inherited the editorship of the annual publication from his uncle, offers an entertaining, informal survey of 200 years of anecdotes, recipes, maxims, advertisements and folk wisdom: “Plenty of berries or acorns indicate a severe winter ahead. Thin and delicate onion skins mean a mild winter.”