A book of recipes including a garden salad loaf and jellied beef mold adds to the nostalgic cast of the exhibit.
Linda Hall Library’s “Follow the Recipe” exhibit explores American history and culture through cookbooks
Family vacations when I was growing up usually involved a car trip to visit my grandparents in a small Iowa town. Recollections are hazy, since I was the youngest, but the food my grandmother served is one of my sharpest memories; eating a slice of blueberry pie or a hot, flaky biscuit today immediately transports me back to her tiny kitchen so many years ago. That’s the power of food; it is not simply nourishment, but a universal language that fosters connection, evokes nostalgia and brings joy. So much joy.
A new exhibition at Linda Hall Library explores that joy, along with social and cultural customs related to food. “Follow the Recipe: A Social and Cultural Journey” features a variety of cookbooks that are a fascinating peek into the past.
“We’ve always known we’ve had some cookbook related material in our collection,” said Eric Ward, Linda Hall Library vice president for public programs. “I think it was Aida’s inspiration to dig a little deeper.”
Aida Clark, a reference assistant who was a core member of the curation team, found some boxes of books that had not been catalogued and was surprised to find many of them related to cooking. That kernel of information resulted in “Follow the Recipe.”
“This exhibit is almost like brain break, just to be nostalgic and have fun and remember things from your childhood,” said Clark. “There’s also a social aspect, bringing back memories of who you were eating with, what you were eating, what you were tasting.”
“Follow the Recipe” is divided into four parts: Military, School Lunch, Travel and Home Cooking. Each section offers tasty tidbits that reveal how our meals have been shaped by changing social dynamics, economic shifts and evolving tastes.
The military section includes an Army guide to making sweet rolls, an array of recipes served in an Air Force hospital and a painstaking step-by-step illustration (21 photos!) of how to wrap a ham sandwich in waxed paper. Perhaps you’ve been doing it incorrectly all these years.
Before the 1940s, school lunches were often managed by local volunteers or parent-teacher associations. With the passing of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act in 1946, the USDA began providing nutritional meals and standardized menus for schoolchildren, and several are on display here.
“Schools then had a full-time lunch staff,” said Clark. “And a district dietitian who came up with the recipes. School lunch was also a place for agricultural surplus and the government had food that needed to be used, and these manuals illustrated how to use those ingredients.”
There’s a sampling of international cookbooks, which were less commonly available before the internet. One even has a foreword written by Eleanor Roosevelt urging housewives to cook meals “to bring about better international understanding.”
The section displaying home cooking has a recipe for roast shoulder of pork that begins, “Have meat cut from a little pig… ”Another’s recipe for Black Cake calls for two wineglasses of brandy and a teacupful of molasses.
“Follow the Recipe: A Social and Cultural Journey” is a delightful stroll through time relatable to anyone, is free, and is open through August. Hungry for more? Linda Hall Library has many more books related to cooking in their permanent collection. Consider “Follow the Recipe” your amuse-bouche.
“Follow the Recipe: A Social and Cultural Journey” continues at the Linda Hall Library, 5109 Cherry St., through August 2025. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday. Admission is free. For more information about the exhibit and related events, 816.363.4600 or lindahall.org.
photos courtesy of Linda Hall Library
