About:
My Father’s Smokehouse: Stories and Recipes from Fishcamp by Vivian Faith Prescott is a memoir by the author of her life in Alaska. Ms. Prescott is an award-winning author and poet from Wrangell, Alaska.
- 252 pages
- Publisher : Alaska Northwest Books
- Language : English
- ISBN-10 : 1513128612
My Rating for My Father’s Smokehouse – 3
Buy My Father’s Smokehouse from Amazon.com*
More Books by Vivian Faith Prescott*
Thoughts:
This was a well written book, with interesting family stories, Lingit culture, and a few recipes. The author writes about her life in Alaska, being passed knowledge from her father, and passing it down to her children and grandchildren.
One of the most fascinating aspects of My Father’s Smokehouse by Vivian Faith Prescott was reading about food foraging. The way the author and her family go about to forage everything from spruce tips (the author’s favorite) to sea lettuce and everything in between is fascinating. I have no idea what to eat, and if stuck will probably live on grass or other vegetation I’ll see other animals eat.
Maybe?
The book consists of very short chapters, a few pages at the most. At the end of each chapter the author provides one or two recipes which were mentioned in the short passages. I was looking forward to try a few, but I don’t have access to many of the ingredients mentioned – and I’m not going foraging in Alaska anytime soon, unfortunately. The one recipe I would have tried is smoked salmon, a family favorite, which was not provided because of some family secret.
Learning about the Sámi and Tlingit cultures was another aspect which I found to be very interesting. The short tidbits about it sound fascinating, and I’m going to have to pick up a book or two to learn more.
The book was not what I expected, the short stories were well written and almost poetic. It seemed, however, a book written with future Prescotts in mind, and not necessarily the larger audience. Important as it is for them, and possibly Alaska, it simply did not speak to me.
Buy My Father’s Smokehouse from Amazon.com*
More Books by Vivian Faith Prescott*
Zohar — Man of la Book
Disclaimer:I got this book for free from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program
*Amazon links point to an affiliate account, the money is usually spent on books
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