Early this summer, I was invited to a book club meeting as their guest. They had chosen to read “Northern Harvest: Twenty Michigan Women in Food and Farming” by Emita Brady Hill. The book shares the oral history of women in our area who, for the most part, worked out of the spotlight but had a profound effect on the positive changes in our local food scene.
Discussion of the book that night was lively, and I was inspired by the intelligence of the women there. What I also found interesting was the variety of responses to the recipes. Each of the women featured in the book provided a recipe, published at the end of their chapter.
The book club members individually selected a recipe to make and share that evening. Some followed the recipe to the letter, others adapted it slightly, and there were a few who had questions about an ingredient or method of cooking. The meal was delightful, but on the drive home, my mind returned to how each person interpreted the recipe they had chosen.
Merriam-Webster defines recipe as “a set of instructions for making something from various ingredients.” Pretty straightforward, right? We have come to expect a recipe to list ingredients first, then give step-by-step instructions from start to finish. How a person construes that recipe can be a whole other story.
“Martha Stewart’s Entertaining” was the first cookbook I really dove into. I was 26 years old, living in Hong Kong, and my sister-in-law sent it to me as a Christmas present. .
