Up a Country Lane Cookbook

Birkby, a Shenandoah Evening Sentinel columnist and onetime radio show host in Iowa, draws together her favorite recipes and offers us a context for them: the 1940s and '50s. For her the context is best characterized by what she knew home to be: ``a barn, hog shed, corn crib, equipment shed,'' other outbuildings, ``a small, white, single-story house'' much like others once scattered across the Midwest, and her neighbors. In plain prose that tells us just what it needs to, she considers various country ``heritages''--her own and her friends'--and trots out the food that figures in them: ``White Fluffy Frosting,'' fried chicken, homemade noodles, blueberry salad, oatmeal pancakes. The author takes her backward look straightforwardly, and explains what was involved in raising a clover crop, and in baling hay. Also discussed, methodically: the labor of laundry (including a wringer), the advent of storms, the work of auctions, and what happened on Sundays (``the children would tumble in the soft grass''). Though not sentimental, hers is an affectionate record of living simply. It has a commonplace integrity that can seem, in our era, like fantasy. (Nov.)