The McHenry County Historical Society’s storied Sampler Lecture Series is back this spring. These programs are free and will take place over ZOOM, registration is required. A link to the lecture will be provided 24 hours in advance to the start of the program. Registration closes at 4:30pm on March 8th.
Since 2009, Lambrecht has judged heirloom recipe contests on behalf on behalf of the Alliance in Illinois - as well as Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. She hopes to one day expand the effort to include North Dakota, Nebraska and Michigan. The latter, home to Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archives at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, will preserve the family recipes that Lambrecht has collected and published in her 2018 paperback: Heirloom Recipes from the Illinois State Fair, A Bicentennial Project.
But the project is less about the actual recipe and more about the family stories that surround it. Indeed, the accompanying stories account for half of the score.
“Without the story, there is no context,” Lambrecht said. “Someone can have a really good recipe but if they do not have anything to say about it, it’s not going to win.”
Attendees will be able to follow the judging experience on dishes ranging from cold beet soup to real Italian polenta meat sauce to chocolate sour cream pound cake. Lambrecht will share many of the award-winning recipes and welcomes beloved generational recipes from the audience, as well.
“If nothing else, should we inspire you to document a family’s favorite recipe to share with loved one, then we have accomplished our mission,” Lamprecht said. “ We want to encourage the continued use of family heirloom recipes so that they will live on. … All these things on the internet are really great, but they can also disappear. That is why we have an archive. That is why I put it into a book.”
Heirloom recipes is the first of four programs in the series – offered for nothing more than a free-will donation to the nonprofit McHenry County Historical Society.