Hardwick's Cookbooks

Joyce, a longtime member of Zion's congregation who I interviewed for this project, stated very confidently in an interview that she “doesn't really use Zion's cookbooks,” despite the fact that she owns two editions. Still, she did explain that she included many of her mom's old recipes, including her carrot bars. For Joyce, and many of the people I spoke with, having their own recipes included in the cookbook was more important than actually using the cookbook for what its intended purpose may appear to be. 

While some young people and men did contribute recipes, they were the exception rather than the rule. Older women in the community contributed a vast majority of the recipes. While women were not able to serve in most leadership roles until 2004 in the LCMS, and are still, as of 2024, barred from many in the church, women's organizations were primarily in charge of food. That doesn't totally explain the age gap here, though. Bonnie, another woman in the congregation, explained to me that “every age uses recipes, but when you get older they just seem to mean a little bit more.”

Donna, a woman I spoke with who is not a member of Zion Lutheran, but who is a longtime resident of Hardwick and who owns a copy of the 125th anniversary cookbook, summed it up nicely: 

"When you're young, all the stuff you're parents make is just what's for dinner. You don't think about. It's just what's in the house and what's around. When you get old, though, it's a way bigger deal when you have to remember it all or make it yourself. It's kind of like going back in time and keeping those days alive." 

Donna illustrated another point mentioned above. She doesn't attend services at Zion, opting instead to go to Grace Lutheran in Luverne, Minnesota. She does not have a huge stake in the history of Zion itself, but the 2017 cookbook was not released on Zion's 125th anniversary, but on Hardwick's. It bills itself as a record of 125 years of recipes in the town, even though recipes were submitted only by the church’s members. Zion’s role as Hardwick’s only church makes it important for anyone who lives in the community, There are no cookbooks that advertise themselves as Hardwick-only. Any Hardwick community cookbook is a Zion cookbook. 

The perspectives of each of these women illustrate a central point that makes Zion's cookbooks important. The last complete collection of Hardwick history ever published was at the town's 100th anniversary. The Hardwick Community Club, led by the efforts of Ethel Remme, used old newspapers and town records to piece together as much of the history as possible in a volume titled A Century of History; Hardwick 1892-1992. As you can imagine, however, these documents are limited in the story they can tell. Most of the town's early records, in the form of property deeds, liquor licenses, and city contracts for firemen or police, all predominantly tell the story of men.

The first woman to be elected mayor, Janyce Baustian, was appointed in 1986.² That's 94 years of city history where only men's names appear in an unbroken list of mayors. This formal history book struggles to tell the human story of what it was like to live in the community. That is the story these cookbooks tell. They are a time capsule into who lived in the community, what kind of things they had available in their kitchen, and their tastes.

As we finished talking, Bonnie gave me perhaps one of the clearest descriptions of how Hardwick's cookbooks are keeping the town's history alive today:

"All the recipes from people who've passed away or moved somewhere else are still in there. And it makes it feel like they're still here."