Marylanders are invited to submit their regional and local recipes to a new project aiming to preserve and share the state’s rich gastronomic traditions.
Preservation Maryland has launched The Great Maryland Recipe Hunt to collect and preserve regional recipes from around the state to “preserve Maryland’s footways for generations to come and help foster regional identity.”
Preservation Maryland is the State’s first and largest organization dedicated to preserving the state’s historic buildings, neighborhoods, landscapes, and archaeological sites.
Preservation Maryland’s website describes the goal of the project:
The Great Maryland Recipe Hunt, a project by The Hammond-Harwood House and the Maryland State Archives, is aiming to collect and preserve Maryland’s delicious, diverse, and distinctive fare. You can help by submitting favorite Labor Day recipes and food memories (but all culinary topics welcome at all times).
In 1963, Maryland’s Way, The Hammond-Harwood House Cook Book was published to document and share recipes from historic manuscript documents and contributors from across the state. Over the course of almost 60 years, the cookbook’s success has generated numerous reprints and has become a vital component of Maryland’s heritage tourism.
Importantly, Preservation Maryland is interested in recipes from all 24 of Maryland’s counties, and all regional delicacies are welcome, not just those that involve blue crabs and oysters — so don’t be shy!
To mark the book’s 60th anniversary, The Hammond-Harwood House is looking to revitalize the effort to collect, document and preserve the diversity of Maryland’s continually evolving cuisine. This will include the convergence of Native American, African American, British, German and Jewish traditions with more recent contributions made by immigrants from southern and Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, and likely even further afield.
