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It’s Time to Get Back to How Our Great Grandparents Cooked
Raising and feeding 12 children has certainly taught me a thing or two about stretching a dollar and making every bit of food count. Over the years, I’ve found myself leaning into the old ways — the same methods our great-grandparents used long before grocery delivery apps and drive-thru dinners existed.
Strategic shopping, gardening, food preservation, and using what you already have aren’t just trendy “homestead” ideas — they’re survival skills. Our great-grandparents knew how to make a full meal out of what looked like scraps, how to save seeds from one season to plant the next, and how to fill the pantry for winter without spending a fortune.
Too many of us have forgotten those skills. We’ve grown comfortable with convenience — tapping a button to have food dropped at our doorstep or running to the store for one missing ingredient. But if 2020 taught us anything, it’s that the world can stop in an instant. When that happens, the most valuable skill you can have isn’t how fast you can place an order — it’s knowing what to do with what’s already in your kitchen.
Today, I found a bunch of apples that had seen their better days — a little wrinkly, a few brown spots — they definitely needed to be used up. With my daughter Sarah’s help, we peeled them, cut them, and washed them. I added some sugar, cinnamon, flour, salt, and butter, then threw together a pie crust with flour, salt, a dab of butter, some lard, and water.
Some of the apples went onto my wood cookstove and simmered throughout the day, filling the house with the most amazing smell and making the best applesauce. The rest went into that pie crust for a warm, fragrant apple pie. The leftover crust was cut with cookie cutters and topped with a spoonful of homemade strawberry-rhubarb jam to make mini tarts.
And because nothing goes to waste here, the apple cores and peels went into a jar with water and sugar to start a batch of apple cider vinegar. No waste. Everything was used. Everything tastes exquisite — all made from things most people would have thrown away.
Low on groceries? North Country friends, go talk to your neighbors with apple trees. Many have apples scattered all over their yards and would love for someone to take them away. Foraging used to be common — let’s bring it back.
I want to help you rediscover that confidence in the kitchen — to make amazing, hearty, budget-friendly meals using what you have, even the ingredients most people might toss out. Cooking “the old way” isn’t about working harder — it’s about working smarter, wasting less, and getting back to the roots of what food was meant to be: nourishing, simple, and shared around the table.
So, let’s roll up our sleeves, dig into the pantry, and start cooking like our great-grandparents did. You’ll be amazed at how far a little creativity, and a lot of heart can take you.
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