Gramma Kilburn's Kitchen

About the Book

“Gramma Kilburn’s Kitchen” is a unique look at farm life in Vermont, as seen through the soul of the farmhouse, the kitchen. Author Jane Philbrick has compiled an intriguing collection of anecdotes, diary entries, memoirs, and authentic recipes collected from one specific, but very typical Vermont farm, which remained in her family for almost a hundred years.

Divided into seasons, the book describes daily life on the Griswold-Kilburn farm from 1848 to 1946, as noted by three generations of women who, with their husbands as hardworking partners, went about the complicated task of running a self-sufficient business.

‘The Farm’ was the center of life, a place where children were reared, animals were tended to, and farm hands and family members were well fed from Gramma Kilburn’s kitchen. The recipes preserved here provided sustenance for harvest time workers, whose thirst was slaked by chilled ‘switchel’, for the children who clamored after Gramma’s delicious donuts and candies, for the men who rose before dawn expecting a hearty breakfast, and for the many friends, relations, and guests who were made welcome at ‘The Farm’, from the early days when the American Revolution was still within living memory, right up through the Second World War.

Readers will not only get an affectionate portrait of Vermont farm life over the centuries, they’ll also be able to summon up the tastes and smells from real farm recipes and seasonal menus, and revisit a world that now exits only in memory, and in the hearts of all those who were loved – and fed - by Gramma Kilburn.

About the Author

Jane M. Philbrick was born at home in Vermont, and has lived in New England all of her life. She attended Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont and Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, and now lives in Ogunquit, Maine, where she continues to research 19th Century farm life.