Real “country living” means really having the right
and opportunity to grow both food plants and animals. A block of
apartments plopped into the middle of a cow pasture 10 miles from
the supermarket isn’t real “country.” It’s guaranteed commuter clog
and developer’s profit (buying cheap agricultural land and turning
it into urban-density, perpetual-rent housing). If you can’t even
have a garden you’re in phony country. This book is about real
country living – growing your family’s food, both plant and
animal.”
* Carla Emery, The Encyclopedia of
Country Living
Many urbanites
dream of life in the country: the simplicity of clothes drying on
the line, of eating fresh-gathered eggs, and turning vegetables
from the garden and chicken from the henhouse into dinner. But
country reality can be 12-hour work days, vulnerability to weather
and insects, and living far from the conveniences of a laundromat,
a bakery or a good library. For rural wannabes who take the plunge
(and for those who like to dream), Carla Emery’s Encyclopedia of
Country Living is an invaluable textbook of how-to’s: how to make
onion rings with home-grown onions and home-brewed beer; how to
wash clothes with a bucket of warm soapy water, a flatbed pickup
truck and a bumpy dirt road; how to kill a chicken without
shuddering, remove the giblets and use its feathers to stuff a
quilt. Each section of this ninth edition includes simple words of
encouragement and advice. Emery, a mother of seven children and
longtime “rural housewife,” also offers recipes from readers and
friends in this well-organized guide to dropping
out.
The Encyclopedia of Country Living, by Carla
Emery: Sasquatch Books, 1998. 858 pages, $27.95,
paper.
* Rebecca Clarren
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The real thing.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
