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Letter Re: Two Book Recommendations

Mr. Rawles,
I have just finished "Hard Times" by Studs Terkel, an oral history of the Great Depression, and recommend it to SurvivalBlog readers. It is a fascinating chronicle, a series of narratives from people who lived through it from all walks of life, and it really communicates a sense of what desperate times can be like. Most Americans have forgotten this and little is taught in schools. For example, there are several narratives that dealt with a farmers uprising in Northwestern Iowa. Apparently a local judge was too quick to bang the foreclosure gavel and a mob had his head in a noose before being talked down. The book also gives some rather harrowing accounts of what a financial collapse is really like and how it affects folks.

I am also in the process of reading "My Side of the Mountain" [by Jean Craighead George] to my seven year old son. I'd forgotten how wonderful this book is, chronicling the efforts of a 12 year old boy to live off the land in upstate New York. It provides a lot of information about edible plants and ways to get by in the wild, and has really captured my son's imagination. One interesting thing I had not recalled: the protagonist is able to derive salt by boiling hickory chips. Are you familiar with this method? I might give it a try, living in a region with few natural sources. Thanks, and keep up the good work. - Charlottesvillain
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JWR Replies: That lore on hickory chips may or may not be well-founded. At first glance, I would think that the natural concentration of salt in hickory wood or bark would be so low that it would take a huge volume of hickory to boil down just a small quantity of salt--hence highly labor intensive. I have read that hickory is used in preserving some hams. Perhaps what the book's author referred to was lore about a method that had been used to recover salt, after salt-curing hams. That seems quite plausible. If any readers can either amplify or refute the foregoing, please let me know via e-mail, and I will gladly post it. (I highly value the vast breadth and depth of knowledge that is collectively held by SurvivalBlog's readers!)

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