Which came first, the community potluck or the community cookbook?
When I think about it, I imagine one community’s potluck led to sharing handwritten recipes on note cards and scrap bits of paper that were later kept in a recipe box. I imagine that recipe box filled with collected bits of flotsam and jetsam was later transformed into a meticulously organized and handwritten notebook of favorite recipes. Then, I imagine some enterprising housewife carefully reproducing her own notebook multiple times to hand out to friends and family at future potlucks. Although the first known publishing of a community cookbook came from a group of women raising money during the Civil War, I imagine community cookbooks had a humbler beginning at the table of a potluck.
When I think about it, I imagine one community’s potluck led to sharing handwritten recipes on note cards and scrap bits of paper that were later kept in a recipe box. I imagine that recipe box filled with collected bits of flotsam and jetsam was later transformed into a meticulously organized and handwritten notebook of favorite recipes. Then, I imagine some enterprising housewife carefully reproducing her own notebook multiple times to hand out to friends and family at future potlucks. Although the first known publishing of a community cookbook came from a group of women raising money during the Civil War, I imagine community cookbooks had a humbler beginning at the table of a potluck.
From those humble beginnings, a whole industry arose. Community cookbooks were the source for sharing cherished recipes and secret cooking tips. These later gave way to curated and edited formal cooking ‘instruction manuals’ that guided readers in producing repeatable dishes through standards and instructions. Now, with entire sections dedicated to cooking and food, bookstore shelves are adorned with celebrity cookbooks that come with memoirs, the food adventure novel and the behind-the-scenes celebrity tell-all. All books laced with a few select recipes to support the story.
With this evolution, selling cookbooks has become a thriving industry, especially when compared to the sales of other printed books. At the same time, the fact that cooking at home is on the decline is in sharp contrast to our obsession with buying cookbooks. Although I regularly cook all my meals in a week at home, I know I am guilty of buying the hottest, new cookbook only to leaf through it while sitting on the couch watching a rerun of SVU as I absently gaze at the glossy photos of beautifully plated dishes. I will survey recipe ingredients and add a few promising dishes to the ‘must make that’ file of my mental archives – a place filled with lots of great ideas that will never surface again. Then, as I ponder purchasing yet another enticing cookbook, I will hesitate for a moment to consider the many others on my shelf that I have yet to cook a single dish from.
When Serious Eats delivered the idea of a cookbook club to my inbox, it was that pile of underutilized cookbooks that I had in mind. So, I accessed my mental ‘must make that’ archive and created the Boston Area Cookbook Club. The idea is to combine aspects of a traditional book club with aspects of a potluck to help us cookbook lovers cook, share and taste the dishes from our impulse cookbook buys. Like a traditional book club, each meeting focuses on a cookbook selection (or in our case, a cookbook theme). Unlike a traditional book club, the guided dialogue is replaced with filling our plates with recreations of dishes from the selected book as made by our fellow attendees. The discourse on the literary prowess of the author is replaced with a discussion on how well we liked the recipes and whether we felt we succeeded in bringing the author's vision to life.
At each meeting, there are always several dishes that never made it into my ‘must make that’ file. Inevitably, I find myself enjoying every bit of it, marveling at the thought that I dismissed such a tasty recipe during my own casual browsing. I often pick up tips on where to find ingredients, what make good substitutes or how to improve the recipe or instructions. And like those potlucks of our parents and grandparents, we also find ourselves connected with other people who love all aspects of food from selecting their ingredients, to browsing for recipes, to cooking, cooking again and cooking again for perfection, to eating and sharing and breaking bread together, to telling our stories about our food. No, not every dish is a success and no, not every book is a keeper, but the sense of community I get from the cookbook club is both.
My grandmother would tell me this isn’t anything new. She did this every weekend in her hometown. Nonetheless, it is fun to think how the cookbook club brings the community potluck full circle: From a book made of a collection of recipes shared at a community gathering, to a community gathering that shares a curated collection of recipes in a book.
Kimi is an engineer and chef, two disciplines that are natural partners. With both a MS Mechanical Engineering from MIT and a MA in Gastronomy from Boston University, she focuses on creating innovative food experience design and educational programming for a diverse Boston metro audience including hands-on culinary classes, gardening and homesteading workshops, and do-it-yourself demonstrations. Additionally, she has led talks, workshops, brainstorms and discussions on food, local food engagement, food system issues, food technology and sustainability, adding cooking demonstrations and hands on components. She has spoken at conferences including the Aspen Ideas Festival and for programs at Brandeis University and Sloan School of Management.
Kimi is also a Culinary Consultant & Cooking Instructor. Follow her blog No Return Ticket or find Cooking with Kimi on Facebook and Instagram.
Kimi is also a Culinary Consultant & Cooking Instructor. Follow her blog No Return Ticket or find Cooking with Kimi on Facebook and Instagram.
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