Plain but Wholesome

Brock Cheney teaches writing and literature in Utah's public schools and has worked at several living history muse-ums in Utah and Colorado. He lives in Willard, Utah, where he keeps a vegetable garden and bakes bread in his wood-fired brick oven.

"Interesting and engaging to read. It decodes and explains many references to food in the historical record of the Mormon pioneer period."-Benjamin C. Pykles, historic sites curator "Unique and well rounded. For foodways scholars, it is another building stone in the field. General readers, Mormon and non-Mormon, will enjoy it because of the stories it tells."-Sandra L. Oliver, author of Saltwater Foodways and Food in Colonial and Federal America "Written in a schlarly but engaging manner-easy to read, engrossing and authoritative. Readers will glimpse the real lives of pioneers, rather than glorified or overly sentimental versions. Foodways scholars will welcome its addition to the field, and history buffs will appreciate the detail and thoroughness of the book."-Deseret News "Stories and quotations make the recipes and menus come to life."-Association for Mormon Letters "Plain But Wholesome: Foodways of the Mormon Pioneers is a good first foray into early Mormon food culture. It will leave readers hungrily thinking about the centrality of food to everyday life and the massive ways food culture has shifted over the past hundred-plus years."-Novo Religio "Plain by Wholesome brings to light important new sources on pioneer foodways as it paints a fuller, richer picture of the way food production shaped daily life and even place names." -The Journal of Mormon History