A Glimpse Of Recipes Past

If you’ve ever written a notation in a cookbook, or poured through the notations someone else wrote “Cookbooks in the Attic: Local Revelations,” is for you. On display at it's a collection of recipes and images from cookbooks owned by residents in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Walking through the galley is a journey through the past with food. There’s a recipe for applesauce from the Stanton Davis Homestead dated from the Great Depression, a delegate’s ribbon from an 1892 Prohibition convention, ration tickets from WII that were issued to a six-year-old boy from Noank and so much more.

“The cookbooks reflect our history,” said Suzanne Roy who put together the exhibit. “They mirror what was going on in society at the time.”

Roy said she spent about six months researching the recipes and images. Most of the collection is from local historical societies and museum such as the Stanton Davis Homestead, the Noank Historical Society and the Barnes Museum.

But Roy said the collection on display at McQuade’s is nothing compared to the collections our local museums hold. She said she hopes the exhibit is a way for people to take a quick peek, share their own memories and will inspire people to check out the history at our local museums.

“The more you look the more you find,” Roy said. “Look at the reasons they had them, why they sent recipes,” Roy said.

A description of “Cookbooks in the Attic: Local Revelations” at the exhibit reads “The images in this exhibit mirror the lives of real people living in our neighborhoods during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Their cookbooks show us Prohibition, world wards and Sunday night radio. What will cookbooks today say about us?”

Roy hopes visitors to the exhibit will voice their thoughts on that question in a guest book at the exhibit. When asked what she thought would happen to cookbooks Roy was unsure saying that while its easy to get recipes online on a phone or even iPad it’s not as easy to write what works and what doesn’t.