Three Women Who Made a Dent in Changing Food Habits

Another Way for week of July 14, 2023

Three Women Who Made a Dent in Changing Food Habits

Thirty years after the end of World War II, a Mennonite woman launched a cookbook, More-with-Less, which went on to sell nearly two million copies (so far). She had a lot of help with it but the idea for it came from her head and heart. (See below for a drawing or a free sampler from the More-with-Less cookbook, as long as supplies last.)

The author and organizer of this significant cookbook, Doris Janzen Longacre, was a young mother who had spent time as a church relief worker in Vietnam and Indonesia through Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). One evening her family and another which had also served overseas as volunteers with MCC, gathered to share an evening meal and their conversation turned to global hunger. They discussed how MCC had asked churches to examine their own food habits and challenged them to eat and spend 10 percent less. That led to Doris’ brainchild for a recipe book reminding cooks and others that “how we cook can change the world.”

I received Doris’s cookbook as a wedding gift, the year the book was launched. Doris was about 11 years older than me and just 39 when she unfortunately succumbed to cancer.  

Forty years later, the publishers of More-with-Less cookbook updated and relaunched that cookbook with major revisions, a project spearheaded by Rachel Marie Stone. Rachel is an award-winning food writer who researched and shared the story of how this classic got started, around a picnic table. At first, the eventual publisher of this cookbook was reluctant to publish a cookbook that “didn’t have a cake on the front” and feared it would not sell enough to break even.

I liked this quote from Stone: “Decades later, Doris’s wisdom is still relevant. She championed simple food, well-prepared from whole, fresh, quality ingredients and eaten with gratitude.” I was excited to help relaunch that cookbook in 2016 as a managing editor for Herald Press.

More recently, I discovered an essay by June Mears Driedger, whose name I had often heard in Mennonite circles but never knew her story of how she came to the Mennonite church through the More-with-Less cookbook. I doubt she was alone in that journey. In a nutshell, June had been teaching at a school in the Dominican Republic:

“Although our midday meal was cooked by a Dominican woman, we were responsible for making our own suppers in the school kitchen. One evening, while looking for a recipe to make mayonnaise for my tuna-salad sandwich, I grabbed the More-With-Less Cookbook off the shelf, found the recipe, made the mayo, and then began reading the introductory section while eating the sandwich. 

“’This book is not about cutting back,’ it declared. ‘Put dismal thoughts aside. This book is about living joyfully, richly, and creatively….’”

“My heart was warmed by the writer’s sensible, matter-of-fact tone and her nonjudgmental, multicultural perspective. An hour later I was still reading the introduction. I wanted to know the writer behind the words—who was this woman who advocated such a countercultural approach to cooking, food, and life?” (From The Other Side website.) 

I recently read a non-fiction book called Unbroken by bestselling author Laura Hillenbrand, an amazing but difficult story of one man who was a prisoner of war during World War II and suffered in every way possible. His story of beatings and starving—and later, forgiveness—after surviving various POW camps in the Far East struck me deeply. Now, just looking at packages of rice in the grocery store, or pictures of recipes using rice on the front of a cookbook turn my stomach—because so often the POWS were given rice that was infested with maggots. (I know, now I’ve spoiled your supper.)

May we all eat our meals with more appreciation and gratitude as we try to cook and prepare healthy foods, and mindful of all those all over the world who do not have enough good food for growling bellies.

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The 2016 edition of More-with-Less (320 pages) will be given away in a drawing August 12, 2023.

Six non-winners will receive a “preview sampler” with 12 recipes.

To enter, comment here on my blog!

Or send your entry to Another Way, P.O. Box 363, Singers Glen, VA 22834, or email anotherwaymedia@yahoo.com. I must receive it by August 12, 2023.

Another Way is a column by Melodie Davis, in syndication since 1987. She is the author of ten books, most recently Memoir of an Unimagined Career. Another Way columns are posted at FindingHarmonyBlog.com a week after newspaper publication.