They Mocked Her Strange Potato Cakes—Until Hunger Came

Chapter 1 — The Crooked Little Cakes

In the mountain village of Bellweather Hollow, everyone knew that potatoes were meant to be eaten simply.

Boiled.

Mashed.

Or roasted whole beside the fire.

No one had much patience for strange recipes.

That was why the villagers laughed whenever young Eliza Hart carried her little basket of crooked potato cakes to the market.

The cakes were nothing like the golden, round fritters sold by the wealthier families.

Eliza’s were thin in some places and thick in others. Some were oval. Some looked as though they had been stepped on.

Children gathered around her stall and giggled.

“Look at that one!”

“It looks like a stone!”

“My dog wouldn’t eat that!”

The adults laughed too.

Eliza never argued.

She simply turned the cakes over on the iron pan and waited until both sides became crisp.

Her family owned only a small patch of rocky land behind their cabin. That year, their potato harvest had been terribly poor.

There were barely two baskets.

Her father wanted to save every potato for winter.

But Eliza had an idea.

She boiled only a few potatoes, mashed them carefully, then mixed them with grated turnip, a handful of oats, chopped wild onions, and just enough flour to hold everything together.

Instead of making one thick cake from one potato, she stretched the mixture into several thin cakes.

One potato could become three.

Sometimes four.

Her father had stared at the first batch.

“You’re making food disappear into thin air,” he had muttered.

“No,” Eliza replied with a small smile.

“I’m making it multiply.”

He shook his head.

But that evening, the family ate twelve cakes from only four potatoes.

Her little brother had even asked for another.

Eliza knew then that the recipe might carry them through winter.

What she did not know was how badly the village would need it.