Introducing COOKING UP COMMUNITY
Introducing COOKING UP COMMUNITY
Our Summer 2024 issue, guest-edited by Kelli Kimura, with Amanda Herbert
Dear RP Readers,
We’re delighted to share our Summer 2024 issue on COOKING UP COMMUNITY, guest-edited by Kelli Kimura, with help from our own Amanda Herbert. Below, the editors share their inspiration for an issue on community cookbooks, and we preview the exciting posts you’ll find linked up on the Recipes Project home page. Enjoy!
INTRODUCTION
Community cookbooks occupy a special place in studies of food and culture. Broadly, cookbooks are useful material objects which summarize the influence of culture on food, reflect shifts in culinary popularity, track changes in culinary techniques, follow advancements in technology, and underscore domestic ideologies. While recipes can be made in unique ways in different kitchens, cookbooks also standardize what is produced in kitchens and how. And as community cookbooks specifically seem to offer a unique, coveted glimpse into the food worlds and habits of one specific culture, community, or family, they are more than just manuals: they serve as important storytellers and memory-keepers. They are also gaining increasing attention, with the Library of Congress digitizing a special online collection of Community Cookbooks from across its holdings; and recent radio programs and museum exhibitions highlighting the contributions of community cookbook writers and readers.
Community cookbooks foster senses of togetherness and belonging, but they can also be exclusionary and limiting. Building on the literature of scholars like Carolyn Morris and Arjun Appadurai, the Summer 2024 issue of the Recipes Project encourages all of us to think about community cookbooks’ ability to both reflect and influence, help and harm.
The posts in this issue push the boundaries of what a community cookbook both was and can be, from hand-bound, spiral-ring Parent Teacher Association (PTA) fundraisers, to newer, digital manifestations on social media; and from exercises in map-making, to tools for grappling with legacies of colonialism. Our authors explore community and recipes from the nineteenth century through to the modern day, and in places like Kolkata, Los Angeles, and Atlanta; Garhwal in Uttarakhand, Emscote in Warwickshire, and Pasadena in Texas. Perhaps not surprisingly, the modern Midwestern United States is a particular focus, but even as they delve deeply into the cultures and cookbooks of Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Lexington, and Milwaukee, our contributors show us how community cookbooks can offer avenues for people to write, think about, and share information on topics like immigration, the ethics of the meat industry, abortion rights, and the politics of hunger. Join us as we think deeply about community, and how we build ties — and maybe break them — when we eat together.
IN THIS ISSUE…
Community Cookbooks as Mapping Resources, by Suzanne Zoe Joskow
‘An Extravagant Touch’: Emscote Primary School’s Charity Cookbook, by Bethan Davies
“It Tastes/Smells like Home!”: Memory, Food Nostalgia & the Immigrant Experience, by Annima Bahukhandi
A Connecticut Yankee in Texas, by Meli Alexander
In Search of Meat Substitute Recipes in Historical U.S. Community Cookbooks, by Jennifer “JJ” Harbster
Stovetop Solidarity: “Recipes for Semi-Starvation” and Antipoverty Organizing in American Cities, by Kimba Stabler
“Pain au Levain”: Reproductive Rights, Recipes, and Community Cookbooks, by KC Hysmith
The Imagined, Implied, and Authentic Audiences of an American Settlement House Cookbook, by Kimberly S. Baker
Handbook for Everyday Cooking: Leela Majumdar’s Infusion Approach, by Anigba Maihti
Teaching with Community Cookbooks, by Jolie Braun
And coming soon, Iconic Japanese-American Dishes in Community Cookbooks, by Ayumi Takenaka
We hope you enjoy this collection of posts that extends our understanding of the community cookbook, and as always, if you know someone who might enjoy receiving The Recipe Project’s content in their inbox, we hope you’ll share our newsletter!