Natalie Mitchell, junior and Spanish honorary president, is gathering recipes from Hillsdale College faculty to compile an international cookbook.
“I love cooking, and I wanted to get recipes from Madame Morellec and Wyatt-Hayes,” the Collegian freelancer said. “They definitely have peaked my interest when it comes to cooking. I personally would love a cookbook and hopefully other students would too.”
Mitchell intends to use the cookbook as a means to raise funds for the honorary’s upcoming events and to broaden the honorary activities to non-members as well.
“There are a lot of honoraries on campus and they do a lot of really cool things like ‘Paint a Classicist,’ but we can’t quite say, ‘Let’s paint a Spanish thing’ you know?” Mitchell said.
“Of course, I thought it was fun. What a fun idea,” said Professor of French Marie-Claire Morellec.
Morellec contributed a few recipes to the honorary’s cookbook. Morellec reminisced about her grandmother and her home in Brittany, France while mentioning her french crêpe recipe.
“It is part of the Catholic religion that the two things we could have on Friday were crêpes and fish, so we had wonderful fish and crêpes,” Morellec said.
The faculty is coming alongside the project little by little.
“I got one from [Assistant Professor of English Patricia] Bart. She was just hilarious in describing the dish that she sent me,” Mitchell said.
Bart fused her Anglo traditions and her interaction with Mediterranean cuisine in her “Anglo Mediterranean Chicken” recipe. She explained that in her graduate school years she made this particular dish with the hopes of having the gentlemen carve the poultry, as is tradition.
“And somehow, with the great male talent for ballistics, they send one of the drumsticks completely across the room. It just completely flies and hits the wall, ‘Blonk!’ and then it’s on the floor,” Bart said.
Faculty members The memories the recipes provoke are what the faculty most focus on.
“It is about being convivial: food should not be about making it or eating it by yourself. It is about sharing,” Morellec said.
“You have a support network there, and why? Because you just sit around the table and eat dinner together all the time. But people don’t do that [in America], you see, and so what do you do? You talk in a squawk box in McDonald’s? They’re not going to say ‘Gee, you’re depressed tonight,’ no. At least, they better not anyway,” Bart said.
The cookbook is expected to be finished and available for purchase fall semester 2012. Mitchell said she strives to not only allow the Hillsdale community to share in these delicious recipes, but also to take part in the mentality and aura of each recipe.
“Yes your books are nice. Your pictures are nice. You could say, ‘Oh look I took a class with this professor and this is their recipe,’ and I feel like that is a special connection because I know a lot of students on campus who have developed strong bonds,” Mitchell said. “I have a lot of friends that are graduating, and it would be cool to give them something that they can take with them. I can say, ‘I am going to cook something that a professor of mine made.’ That would bring good and positive memories back.”
lreyes@hillsdale.edu
