Key Ingredients

I just found this great website for a traveling Smithsonian Institution exhibition, "Key Ingredients: America by Food," on the development of food in America, directed there by a post in a NYTimes blog. It's going to 150 rural locations, none in NY, CT, or even TX. Huh. I guess I could travel down to NJ, or write my state cultural council to bring it here.

Anyway, the website includes 500 years of American food history and the best places for eating on the road (but only in those places where the exhibition is going, as recommended by the venues. Boo.)

But, like the NYTimes blogger, I think I like "The American Cookbook Project: Recipes and Stories from Across the USA." It reminds me of the Story project in Grand Central--you send in your story and your recipe. I can't wait to submit one, though can't imagine which family recipe I'll choose: my grandma's tipsy balls, which she put in her Methodist church cookbook without listing the alcohol, or the Charlotte Russe that I remember her making; my grandad's cooked apples, which he once showed me how to make and that he served with cream, or his coffee milk that he brought in precious demitasse cups with spoons to us in bed (my mom swears he made the best hamburgers, but no one knows how); my mom's mom's Shrimp Remoulade, which my dad loves for Christmas Eve; my mom's Orange Biscuits, which she ate at sleepovers with her girlhood friends and then made for my sister and me; my mom's Tex-Mex chocolate sheet cake that is a crowd-pleaser at any get together; my dad's own salsa; THE family cheese dip (with or without beef and sausage); my Aunt P's pesto, the first one I ever had, which she'll make with any combo of herb and nut; the BBQ sauce recipe from the father of one of my dad's childhood friends (with whom I discussed the recipe at the wedding, no less!); Miss Betty's Red Beans and Rice, taught to my mom by her close friend; something from Mama's family with their roots in Thailand and China; my sister's black-eyed pea dip; my great grandma's forgotten cookies; my Aunt T's dewberry cobbler or hot buttered noodles, both of which she's given me lessons on; Mama's roast beef or turkey, which she has perfected over many holidays, or her egg/beef/radish omelette, that her mom made her, or the "goupy chicken," my English name for the first dinner she made me; or one of my own recipes--our orange marmalade cake that is Mama's favorite dessert, my bread pudding with hard sauce that is better than any other, my traditional 7-up lime jello salad from a high school friend, the toffee recipe I got from a friend in Chicago--all with a story. And those are just the ones I remember tonight.

Even if you don't participate in the project, at least check out the website and think about your own family recipes and their history. Share them with friends (hint: me!), submit them to a community cookbook like we have created at my church, post them online. It's worth preserving.