Food for thought: Talk to highlight Kansas’ historic recipes

Louise Hanson, a librarian from Lawrence whose personal bookshelves are filled with more than 500 cookbooks, will present “Tasting the Past: Exploring Kansas Food Memories” at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 10 at Bethany Home Activity Center, 321 N. Chestnut St. in Lindsborg.

Community cookbooks are fascinating for Hanson, who reads through them to glean what Kansas’ earliest settlers were eating both every day and for special occasions.

“It’s a great source of primary material,” Hanson said. “Of course, at the time of settlement, they didn’t have a lot of choice about what to eat because of what was available.”

Kansans who immigrated from other countries did what they could to preserve their cultural heritage — whether they were German, Czech, Scottish, Swedish, Greek, etc. — by preparing and passing down recipes of dishes that reminded them of home.

In her presentation, Hanson will show pictures of recipes and people at ethnically centered celebrations.

“It’s an endlessly fascinating story to talk about food and how we try to reinvent ourselves and our identity,” Hanson said.