Homesteading, with MaryJane Butters... maybe.

A little over a month ago, I wrote a piece about this Nitty Gritty Foodbook, with which I fell in love, on a whim. Ok, maybe it wasn’t love, but I definitely developed a strong crush on Herdt’s book. In my earlier essay (titled “Homesteading?” and posted on 7 February 2007), I mentioned MaryJane Butters’ book as -- I imagined -- a sort of contemporary version of Herdt’s work. I realized that I would have to spend some time with the MaryJane Butters book before I’d be satisfied on this subject.
So I went to the handy-dandy online library catalogue for my local public library. I discovered that they did not own this thing, so I ordered it through inter-library loan (I love ILL) and within a few days I had the book in my hands.
This thing – a fat quarto volume with many, many, many color photos – is called MaryJane’s Ideabook – Cookbook – Lifebook: For the Farmgirl in All of Us. Published in 2005 by Clarkson Potter, it’s really a piece of work. I admire it in many ways, but I wish it didn’t leave me gnashing my teeth.
MaryJane has some good ideas, all predicated on the wacky concepts that people should live closer to the land and more tightly within their communities. (I can deal with the community thing, but have no interest in the land part.) She wants us all to eat organic, grow our own food as much as possible, and basically try to pretend that we’re living in Kansas circa 1947, but plus the internet. I dunno. I’m not sure I’m so hip to this.
Things that annoyed me about this book (I’m sure I’ll forget several):

n the constant quoting of poetry, especially “inspirational” poetry by women who probably shouldn’t ever have been published in the first place, let alone be quoted in public
n the overwhelming tweeness of the whole damn thing. It starts before the dedication pages (pages! Plural!) but you could start there and already feel bile rising, though I’m sure the women this book is dedicated to are lovely people I’d be happy to have a beer with any day
n MaryJane’s occasionally cockamamie notions, which I really feel are often damned near indefensible. She raised her children, in recent decades, without a toilet – using an outhouse – for no good reason, as far as I can tell. Why? Why? Indoor plumbing is our friend!
n Her idiotic use of quotation marks. She uses them constantly when they’re really not needed. Page 83: “I teach a “fresh” approach that makes it a snap.” Why is ‘fresh’ in quotation marks there? It’s just uncalled for. The book is filled with cutesy, pseudo-homey touches like that and they make me want to scream.
n Her insistence on calling pickled things fermented. Sure, it’s the same thing, but I feel there’s something deceptive here. Especially when you consider that in 1947 Kansas, the good womenfolk would’ve talked about pickling things, not fermenting them. And she tells you to use “super-clean” hands when you’re canning. Do you need to be told this, if you’re the sort of person who’s going to take up canning in the first place? Like you’re gonna scrub the bathtub, floor, and toilet with your bare hands and then, without pausing to wash your hands, say, “Gosh, I gotta get those cukes and green beans into their brine! Whoopsie, there ya go, little fellers!”
I mean, really.
I’ve got to go calm down. Part two will follow.