Why I Love The Nourished Kitchen Cookbook

I’ve been a big fan of the blog Nourished Kitchen for a long time and I’ve always been tremendously impressed by Jenny McGruther’s work ethic. Not only does she share incredible recipes on her blog (many of which I have cooked), over the years she’s created online cooking classes and meal plans, as well. Now she’s also written her first book for print, and I am so excited to share it with you.

The Nourished Kitchen cookbook is a love letter to traditional foods. In Jenny’s words, traditional foods are the foods of our great-great grandmothers-the foods of gardens and farms. Indeed the book begins with a chapter called from the garden; subsequent chapters focus on the pasture, the range, the waters, the fields, the wild, the orchard, and the larder. This is an innovative way to organize a cookbook, and I adore it.

The central tenet of Jenny’s approach is that nourishing foods meet the following criteria: they are sustainable, balanced, traditional, and involve community. Jenny is deeply committed to these principles; they inform how she puts meals on her family’s table and how she lives her life. But while she is passionately devoted to traditional foods, something I appreciate very much about her blog and this book is that her writing lacks the dogmatic tone I sometimes see from folks involved in the “real foods” movement. Also, I also often see elitism in conversations about food quality (stuff like: “if you are not eating like us, you are eating wrong”), but there is no elitism in this book. Quite the opposite, in fact: Jenny is all about sharing, and thus reviving, the beautiful, delicious, and honestly pretty simple, food traditions of our past.

I love that this book is very much about balance. There are recipes for grains/breads and beans, fruits and vegetables, fish, muscle and organ meats, dairy, eggs, traditional fats and sweets. Foods are featured in their raw, cooked, and fermented states…and everything looks glorious: Jenny’s photos are absolutely stunning. (In this post are photos I took of a few of the recipes I’ve been making from the book).

Sourdough starter in process…the recipe is in the book

Bonny Clabber (“soured”/strained raw milk sweetened with molasses) in process…the recipe is in the book

Having read Nourishing Traditions years ago, I have been familiar with the Weston Price nutritional philosophy for a long time. It has very much inspired both my cooking and my nutrition/health knowledge (as is evidenced on this blog and in my book One Simple Change). Jenny’s recipes pay homage to the philosophy, yet her take is somehow fresh and hers alone (I don’t know anyone besides Jenny who can make a food like broiled kidneys sound quite so appealing!).

Because of the wonderful recipes, the incredible photographs, and all of the health-promoting wisdom contained within the narrative of the book, I know I will be turning to The Nourished Kitchen frequently in the future. I hope that you will buy the book, too, so you can enjoy all it has to offer. You will not be disappointed, I promise you that.