10/12/2026
Many camp menu favorites are found in the More-with-Less cookbook, written by Doris Janzen Longacre. Items such as the French Bread, Oatmeal Bread, Creamy Tomato Soup or Honey Milk Balls all come to mind, especially when the book falls open to those soiled tattered pages. In celebration of the book's milestone 50th Anniversary, former DCC directors and longtime investors of time, love, and energy, Glen and Lois Oesch, recently shared their More-with-Less story at Salem Mennonite Church:
I'd like to share a little story about Glen, me, and a cookbook: the More-with-Less Cookbook.
Glen and I first met its author, Doris Janzen Longacre, during our years at Hesston College, where she served as the dietitian. We bought our first copy when I was a stay-at-home mom with our first child. For those five long years, I was the family cook. We were living on one teacher's salary, so I was trying hard to be frugal. I read everything in that book, not just the recipes. I found it interesting, and it was a real help to someone who, honestly, didn't particularly like to cook.
Then, in the fall of 1979, our family set out on a new adventure. We agreed to serve as co-administrators of Drift Creek Camp. It didn't take long to discover that we were not given a complete picture on camp's finances before we said yes. Soon, some very big bills began to arrive. The monthly increase in the diesel bill alone, just to run the generator, was more than camp's entire monthly income.
When I was handed the financial books, the person said to me, "I sure hope you don't let camp go under." At the time, that comment puzzled me. It didn't puzzle me for long. Some of you may remember that the '80s were a hard time, when many businesses and nonprofits went bankrupt. We had to make drastic changes, quickly and in many areas, for camp to survive. Of course, that included the food we served to groups. So, our More-with-Less Cookbook came to camp with us, and it stayed there for a very long time.
This is what our first More-with-Less looks like now. (see photo) For those of you in the back: it has no covers, some pages are loose, and many of them are brown and stained from years of use.
We made all our salad dressings from this book, and many kinds of bread. For quite a while, every group that came got the Garden Supper Casserole. We made it with day-old bread, and instead of the meats the recipe suggested, we used turkey hindquarters that we had to prepare ahead of time. Thankfully, most people really liked it! And when we still received government commodities, the kids got lots of peanut butter balls for snacks, at least those without allergies.
This book was used hard.
It was our go-to cookbook for all twelve years we were at DCC. The camp leaders who followed us, used it too, and it was still there when Tony and Brenda arrived. Glen then served another twelve years as Food Service Manager. Brenda had the wisdom to buy a new hardback copy, so Glen felt free to bring our old one home again.
So, what do you do with a fifty-year-old cookbook with no covers and brown pages? Apparently, you bring it to church!
This year, the More-with-Less Cookbook turns fifty. For our family, and for Drift Creek Camp, it became part of how God carried us through some very lean years. This book has earned its keep. It taught us a better way to live, one where having less means we have more to give.
The apostle Paul understood this. He reminded the church in Corinth how God fed his people with manna in the wilderness, and everyone had enough. In his words, "the one who gathered little did not have too little." (2 Corinthians 8:15)
Every time we cooked a dish from another part of the world, we sat, in spirit, at the tables of people we may never meet. We were reminded that we belong to a much larger family. That's a lesson worth keeping, even if the pages are falling out. I'm grateful for this book, and even more grateful for the God who provides.
