Your Grandmother’s Cookbook

The Linn County Historical Society will host an illustrated talk by Richard Engeman, “Your Grandmother’s Cook Book: A Century of Oregon Eating, 1880-1980.” It will take place on Sunday, March 18th, at 2:00 P.M. in the Lakeside Center at Mennonite Village, 2180 54th Avenue SE in Albany. The presentation is free and open to the public.

Oregon was a well-settled agricultural state in 1880, and women of that era had both a range of foods to work with, and many sources of information on how to prepare it—so, what did we eat back then? How did our foods and our food preparation change over the next century? Engeman will look at a variety of historical sources to answer these questions, including community cook books, newspaper recipes and advice, home economics training, restaurant menus, and manufacturer’s leaflets. It promises to be a well-illustrated and appetizing performance.

Richard Engeman is a Pacific Northwest historian with a professional background in archives and historical photographs. The author of The Oregon Companion: An Historical Gazetteer of the Useful, the Curious, and the Arcane, he has also written a cookbook and numerous historical articles, and given presentations on regional topics ranging from food history and railroads to architecture, alternative medicine, and musical theater. Born in Albany, Engeman grew up in Portland and Warrenton; two years ago, he moved to an 1889 house in Albany.

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