Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook: A reason to celebrate
By Amy Paradysz
Images courtesy Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook.
In a case of epic bad timing, Maine was poised to celebrate its bicentennial on March 15, 2020—just as we all hunkered down at home with bread, milk and toilet paper, as if a wicked bad storm awaited us rather than a pandemic. With the two-hundredth birthday celebrations now pushed back a year, one bit of hoopla is still relevant: the Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook, compiled and edited by Karl Schatz and Margaret Hathaway and published by Islandport Press.
“It’s an artifact of the bicentennial that will last a long time after the fact, just the same way that older community cookbooks are still used,” Schatz says.
The editors received 400 submissions—recipes, photos and food narratives—from residents of all 16 counties.
“Every morning we would open our email and see the incredible stories,” Hathaway says. “It was so affirming.”
The Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook, which released in June, re-imagines community to be not just the United Society of Shakers or the Ladies of the State Street Parish or some other community group, but all the people of the state of Maine. Old and young. Rural and urban. From here and from away. Hunters and vegans. Award-winning chefs and ladies who make “soggy green cake.”
Submissions also came from Mainers better known for governing the state, conducting experiments in space or writing bestselling fiction—and probably for good reason, given that Stephen King’s “Lunchtime Gloop,” involves adding a pound of greasy hamburger to two cans of Franco American Spaghetti (without meatballs).
Baked bean variations were in abundance—no surprise there. But the editors thought they would see a flood of chowders and instead got a bunch of lemon pies.
“Community cookbooks are built on aspirational and celebratory aspects of home life and on recipes that demand precision,” says Don Lindgren of Rabelais, one of the largest collection of rare and out-of-print cookbooks not only in Maine but in the United States. “Who is going to choose which blue ribbon pie to select?”
Another surprise was how many stories came in about times when food was lean, like “I Wish I Had a Hot Dog,” a Depression-era account of two sisters seeing whether a pickle wrapped in bread would satisfy a hot dog craving (it didn’t, but the story became part of family lore).
Considering the number of Maine families experiencing food insecurity in 2020, the cookbook’s release couldn’t be better timed: $2 of every book sold for $20.20 will go to support organizations fighting hunger in Maine. Meanwhile, more of us are home more—and cooking more—than we have been in a generation or two. And, now that we have seen what it looks like when a store is temporarily out of something, it’s easier to relate to historic recipes like Arlene’s World War II Spice Cupcakes (made without eggs or butter).
The cookbook is a bit like a time capsule in that there is no mention of COVID-19 in the 288 pages. Maybe someday there will be a tricentennial cookbook—in some digital format not yet even imagined—with a historic sourdough recipe from the lockdown of 2020, when stores were low on both bread and yeast and Mainers experimented with sourdough as a way to fill their days as much as to fill their stomachs.
The book’s subtitle—200 Recipes Celebrating Maine’s Culinary Past, Present & Future—eludes to that idea that food ties us to the people who came before us. Food ties us to the people, places and traditions that we love today. And food ties us to the those who choose to make Maine their home and bring new flavors to everything from fiddleheads to lobster to red hot dogs. Thanks to the Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook team for permission to excerpt three recipes—one historic, one classic and one fusion.
In June 2022, Maine Community Kitchen released a second volume, Maine Community Cookbook: Celebrating Home Cooking in the Pine Tree State, which has more than 200 recipes. Volume 2 continued the effort towards supporting organizations fighting hunger in Maine with a donation of $2 dollars from each copy sold. This volume has raised more than $20,000 that has been distributed to over 30 organizations.
For more recipes, stories and photos—or to buy a copy—visit maine200cookbook.com.
Amy Paradysz is a freelance writer and cookbook editor from Scarborough who proofread the Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook.
Arlene’s World War II Spice Cupcakes
Contributed by Erik Nielsen of Portland, ME
During World War II, my mother, Arlene Nielsen, couldn’t find eggs or butter, so she made do with this recipe. As a young mother, she wanted her kids to have something sweet. Growing up in Portland, these were our favorite dessert. She was the mother to seven children and passed the recipe on to me, her youngest. My two boys grew up on these. Today, both boys are grown and still want them for their birthday. My mom lives on in these, and we all smile and remember her when we have them.
Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1 cup raisins
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup shortening
1½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
Vanilla frosting, for decorating
Maraschino cherries, for decorating
Instructions
Heat sugar, raisins, 1 cup water, cinnamon, salt and shortening in a large saucepan. Bring to boil, then lower heat. Cook for 3 minutes.
Remove from heat and cool.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add rest of your ingredients to the sugar-and-raisin mixture. Stir to make a batter. Pour into greased muffin tins.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Allow to cool. Frost with vanilla frosting and put a cherry on top.
Blue Ribbon Blueberry Pie
Contributed by Diana Mann of Lubec, ME
I won a blue ribbon for this recipe at the annual Blueberry Festival in Machias.
Ingredients
Single pie crust, fully baked and cooled
12 ounces wild Maine blueberries, fresh or Wyman’s frozen
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
½ teaspoon cinnamon
3 cups fresh wild Maine blueberries
Whipped cream for serving
Instructions
Start by baking a single pie crust and letting it cool.
Place 12 ounces of blueberries in a saucepan with ½ cup water, sugar, cornstarch, salt, butter, and cinnamon. Bring mixture to a boil, and cook until thickened. Remove from heat and let cool.
Place uncooked fresh blueberries in baked pie shell. Pour the cooled cooked blueberry mixture over the top of the fresh blueberries.
Top with whipped cream.
Leah’s Fried Rice with Lobster
Contributed by Laura McCandlish of Brunswick
In the midst of lobster recipe testing, my Chinese friend, Leah (Ya) Zuo, brought her fried rice to a dinner party. Leah is a professor of Chinese History and Asian Studies who hails from Wuhan, China and lives here in Brunswick. As I dallied in the kitchen, my husband brilliantly suggested topping her rice with sautéed lobster. Thus, a great dish was born.
Ingredients
2 large eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon cornstarch, dissolved into 2 tablespoons water
4 tablespoons grape-seed or peanut oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 cup carrots, cubed and parboiled for 5 minutes
1 cup corn, freshly cut from cob, drained from can or defrosted
1 cup peas, defrosted or freshly shelled
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ginger, minced
4 cups cooked jasmine rice, cooled
Ground cumin or Moroccan seasoning blend, to taste
Minced Chinese pickled vegetable (available at Asian market) or kimchee, to taste (optional)
¼ cup minced scallions, green parts only
¼ cup cilantro, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
½ pound shelled lobster meat, chopped
½ teaspoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
¼ lemon or lime
2 tablespoons Thai basil, chopped
Cooking ingredients
Beat eggs with cornstarch-water solution. Add 1 tablespoon oil to wok or skillet, and turn heat to high, covering hot surface with oil. Add egg and cook, folding over into an omelet, until done. Transfer with a spatula to a plate and cut into bite-sized pieces.
Put a second tablespoon of oil in wok and return heat to high. Add onion and sauté about 10 minutes, until softened and beginning to brown. Add parboiled carrots, corn, and peas to skillet and stir-fry with onions until hot, about 1 or 2 minutes. Transfer cooked vegetables to a bowl.
Put remaining oil in skillet, followed by garlic and ginger. Stir fry briefly, then add the rice, bit by bit, breaking up any clumps.
Return vegetables and egg pieces to skillet and stir to integrate. Season with Moroccan spices or cumin, and if available, minced Chinese preserved vegetable (mustard plant stem) or kimchee and salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and stir in scallions and cilantro.
In a separate pan, melt butter and add shelled lobster meat, heating until fully cooked. Season with fish sauce, soy sauce, a spritz of lemon or lime, and Thai basil. Incorporate with fried rice and serve. Makes six servings.
