The public is invited to experience the joy of cookbooks, and the food and the cultural connections they reflect, at two events Friday, Sept. 19, at the Norway House in Minneapolis.
Both events feature Dr. Karla Knutson, an English professor at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, and community cookbook scholar.
Event One:
10:30-11:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 19
Norway House, 913 E Franklin Ave., Minneapolis
Longtime Twin Cities food journalist, philanthropist, and culinary leader Sue Zelickson will host a conversation with Dr. Karla Knutson about how cookbooks reflect culture and the joy of sharing food.
Zelickson shaped the Twin Cities food culture for decades, highlighting food trends and restaurants on WCCO and KSTP. She founded organizations to support food professionals as well as the Kids' Cafe, which operated in Boys and Girls Clubs to feed children and to teach them cooking.
Zelickson will conduct a friendly, informal interview with Knutson, who is researching how community cookbooks reflect the period, location, and culture of those who contributed recipes to them.
Knutson's research was inspired by a copy of “The Joy of Sharing,” a 1985 church cookbook from Velva, North Dakota, that had once belonged to her grandmother. While searching for a recipe for scalloped corn, she came across a recipe for microwaved bacon-wrapped liver.
“It was a recipe so far removed from my culinary expectations that it seemed like I’d unearthed a time capsule,” Knutson recalled.
This sparked her interest in how recipes tell us what is happening in the larger community and how food was prepared, eaten, and thought about in the past. Even how a recipe is written changes with the generations. Knutson is now writing a book about community cookbooks and commensality — the experience of sharing food with others.
Together, Zelickson, the author of 10 cookbooks herself, and Knutson will explore how community cookbooks record, often unintentionally, how different generations think about food and friendship.
Tickets are $13 to $16 and can be purchased at eventbrite.com.
Event Two:
1-2:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19
Norway House, 913 E Franklin Ave., Minneapolis
Join Dr. Karla Knutson, professor of English at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, for a combination of research and recipe swapping. Participants should come to this roundtable with their favorite community cookbook recipe — or the whole cookbook!
Knutson will discuss how she analyzed the recipes in her grandmother’s Lutheran church cookbook and what they revealed about the culture of the time.
Her academic premise is that community cookbooks reflect and create commensality —the sharing of food with others — in ways unique to the genre of cookbooks. Since the writers are also the audience, these texts differ from other cookbooks with unknown general audiences.
Knutson is cooking her way through her grandmother’s 1985 community cookbook, originally published by the women’s group at a Lutheran church in central North Dakota.
For those interested in learning more about how cookbooks’ recipes reflect the lives of the contributors, their Norwegian and German heritage, and 20th-century food trends in the Upper Midwest, Knutson writes about the recipes on her blog and in “Vintage Dishes,” her monthly column in The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead newspaper.
Surrounded by a sea of Jell-O (and beet!) salads, hot dishes, microwaved mains, and bars, Knutson is currently writing a book about her findings.
Participants will learn about these findings and how Knutson analyzes the recipes before sharing and analyzing their own recipes. People should come to this roundtable ready to listen, talk, and share.
Tickets are $13 to $16 and can be purchased at eventbrite.com.
More
Events at the Norway House: NorwayHouse.org/Calendar
Dr. Karla Knutson’s blog: blog.cord.edu/karlaknutson/