book review: More-with-Less

This is a book I have wanted since I first spotted it on a friend's cookbook shelf. Thanks to a Christmas giftcard, it's now on my own cookbook shelf. It looks not just at the how of frugality in cooking, but at the why. And while I don't agree with absolutely all of it, it's sure a good place to start.

"More-with-Less", written/edited by Doris Janzen Longacre, and now in its 25th Anniversary Edition, is a Mennonite cookbook, put out with a purpose of "deconsumption", of using a moderate amount of food in a world where many go hungry.

The cookbook came about when the Mennonite Central Committee asked its members to look at their lifestyles, and to try to spend and eat about 10% less. The members were enthusiastic about the idea, but stymied at exactly how they were supposed to do this.

"More-with-Less" was the answer to that how. It's half cookbook, half philosophy-of-consumption book, with long introductions to each section, and quotations that begin with things like "I'm impressed with what Zambians eat that North Americans throw away ..." sprinkled throughout the recipes.

Many of the recipes are international, but real international, not the ethnic-inspired-with-lots-of-expensive-ingredients-thrown-in-so-Americans-will-eat-it sort of international recipes I find in other cookbooks. No, this is the cookbook you want if you've ever looked longly at those huge, cheap bags of rice and beans and cornmeal in the store, wishing you knew enough about cooking to know what to do with them.

One of the best parts of this cookbook is the "Gather Up the Fragments" section at the end of each chapter, which is full of suggestions on what to do with the sort of leftovers that chapter's recipes produce. The egg and cheese chapter, for example. has ideas for hard cheese, moldy cheese, leftover whites and leftover yolks. (That chapter also has complete instructions on making your own cheese from scratch - wow!)

The two cookbooks More-with-Less reminds me of most are the missionary cookbook my mother-in-law gave me, which has instructions you could follow in any country you happen to find yourself in (i.e., how to cook without common American prepared foods) and the old fifties cookbook I bought used, that has instructions for the basic-ist of basics, like how to make coffee without a coffeemaker.


We used this (our own copy!) for the first time this Saturday, with our pancakes. We've been having pancakes with jam or honey for awhile, because after our last bottle of fake maple syrup ran out, we just didn't bother to buy anymore. But I looked up syrups in More-with-Less, and pretty soon we had hot, yummy, strawberry syrup for the pancakes: just sugar, water, cornstarch and some chopped-up frozen strawberries. The syrup was ready before the pancakes were.


Cooking is a big part of homemaking; homes are made for people, people have bodies, and those bodies have to be feed. And as a Christian homemaker, I want all of my work, even my cooking, to be done in a way that pleases the Lord. As one of the readers quoted in the book says, "for Christians, even the simple act of cooking a meal can be a testimony of faithfulness." Waste not, want not. And the whole idea behind this book is that what you save from being wasted can be used to fulfill other people's want. I like that this book doesn't see spirituality as separate from practicality. I like the way it makes frugality and faithfulness march hand in hand.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica