Terese Allen, left, is still collecting recipes for the 50th anniversary of the Dane County Farmers' Market.
The new cookbook to mark the 50th anniversary of the Dane County Farmers’ Market will be a community recipe collection with an emphasis on “shopping locally and cooking globally,” says Terese Allen, editorial coordinator for the project and longtime area chef, food journalist, and promoter of local food.
Recipes that highlight market ingredients, showcase ethnic traditions from around the world, and are not too complex or time-consuming are the best.
Allen, who has been collecting recipes since May, created a spreadsheet of submissions, organized by various categories, and has now “figured out what kinds of submissions we still need.”
And those are more fall and winter recipes, or recipes highlighting cranberries, pears, plums, cherries, currants, blackberries, shell beans/green beans, Brussels sprouts, microgreens and sprouts, broccolini, peas, fava beans, kale, kohlrabi, parsnips, arugula, frisee, beets, cauliflower, and Hmong specialties like lemongrass, bitter melon, long beans and Thai eggplant.
Also of special interest are recipes from the African American, Native American, Indonesian/Pacific Ocean, Scandinavian, Spanish/Portuguese, Eastern European/Russian/Ukrainian, Central American, and Hmong/Southeast Asian traditions.
Want to maximize the chance of your recipe making it into the cookbook? “Fill several of the ‘holes’ from the above lists with one yummy recipe,” Allen suggests.
Allen will be accepting submissions online through a Google form or people can request a form by emailing tallen@gdinet.com.
The submission form also asks for the story behind the recipe — how the submitters came up with it or upon it, and what it means to them in a more emotional sense. “The story is really important,” says Allen. “The story creates a relationship to the market. And as a reader, you then have a greater relationship with the recipe.” Nonetheless, Allen doesn’t expect everyone submitting to have a “great story,” but as the editor she can then provide context for certain recipes by talking about an ingredient or farm, history or tradition. “That’s what I like to do, fill in missing pieces.”
Recipes should be original or adapted somehow from the original source, and that source should be acknowledged.
The deadline is July 27.