food for a barn raising...

When I cook I don't really use recipes or cookbooks regularly. It's more or less when I'm making something new, or baking [which in my book is practically science], or I just look through them for inspiration. I particularly love Amish and Mennonite cookbooks. It's the kind of food my mom and granny used to make. They weren't Amish, but they were plain county folk. Simple recipes from scratch that used the ingrediants from the farm. Another great thing about these types of cookbooks is they always have a miscellaneous section in them for odds and ends. Things like how to dry sweet corn, how to make hand lotion, how to keep worms off growing cabbages. But my favorite has to be "Food for a barn raising" As I'm sure most of you know that a barn raising was quite an event back then. all your neighbors and friends came over to help and of course, there had to be food.

Here is a list I found:
115 lemon pies
500 fat cakes{doughnuts}
15 large cakes
3 gallons applesauce
3 gallons rice pudding
3 gallons cornstarch pudding
16 chickens
3 hams
50 lbs. roast beef
300 light rolls
16 loaves bread
red beet pickle
pickled eggs
cucumber pickle
6 lbs. dried prunes stewed
1 large crock stewed raisins
5 gallons white potatoes
5 gallons sweet potatoes

enough food for 175 men

I love this!