A recipe is much more than ingredients and instructions. It can impart a hidden history, provide tethers to forgotten tables, ignite curiosity and the thrill of creating something so delicious it must be shared.
There are the titans of recipe writing, and then there are the quiet names of those (mostly women) who used recipes to shore up their communities and extend the knowledge built inside their home kitchens. And both are on display at two new Minnesota History Center exhibits — “Julia Child: A Recipe for Life” and “Minnesota Cooks: Small Bites from the Collections” — opening Sept. 27.
The “Julia Child: A Recipe for Life” exhibit includes photos and artifacts from the chef’s life, including a photo from her childhood in California. (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
The exhibits, two years in the making, celebrate and examine Julia Child’s legacy and the wealth of culinary history found in Minnesota.
“We knew with our great Twin Cities food scene and our fantastic cookbook collection this was something that would really interest our audience,” said Annie Johnson, the museum’s manager.
The trucks carrying the traveling exhibit arrived a week ago, with crews setting up vintage TVs, a recreation of Child’s television studio kitchen and a blue pegboard adorned with culinary tools, similar to the one that famously hung in Julia’s home kitchen.
Inside the exhibit’s entrance, visitors are are greeted with a towering picture of Julia and Paul Child on a 1970 visit to the Twin Cities, where they chatted with Minneapolis Tribune food columnist Mary Hart while promoting Child’s television show, “The French Chef.”
“Years after her passing, her shows are still on TPT and PBS every weekend,” Johnson said, strolling past rare photos of Julia’s childhood in California, detailing her enthusiasm for the outdoors and the challenging relationship with her father’s opposing political views. Child dreamed of being a novelist, but it was years before she created her written masterpiece.
There are artifacts from her years with the Office of Strategic Services intelligence agency during World War II. It was then that she would not only develop a recipe for shark repellent, but also meet the great love of her life, Paul Child.
Dining and Cooking