Kanab Museum launches community cookbook project

KANAB — The Kanab Museum is excited to announce a new community-wide project inviting resi­dents to help preserve local history one recipe at a time through a community cookbook titled Kanab’s Kitchen Table. Community cookbooks are about more than ingredi­ents, they tell us about resourcefulness, cel­ebration, family tradi­tions and how people care for one another. This project is seek­ing to help preserve those connections by gathering the mem­ories, photographs, traditions and stories that have shaped life in Kanab and Kane County across gen­erations, from historic family favorites to new meals and recipes be­ing shared around kitchen tables today.

The project also comes at a particularly meaningful moment in local history. One of the earliest locally produced cookbooks in the museum’s col­lection was created in 1926, meaning that exactly one hundred years ago, community members in the Kanab area were engaged in a remarkably similar effort to preserve their recipes and traditions for future generations. Kanab’s Kitchen Table hopes to continue that tradition for the next hundred years.

Community mem­bers are encouraged to submit historic reci­pes, current family-fa­vorites, cooking tradi­tions and personal sto­ries connected to food. Recipes do not need to be fancy or profession­ally written. In fact, the project hopes to capture the personal­ity behind the cooking, the handwritten notes in the margins, the “secret” substitutions, the family debates over the “right” way to make something and the stories that turned simple meals into last­ing memories.

“Food is one of the ways families pass down memories and traditions,” said Emily Bentley of the Kanab Museum. “Often the recipes we consider the most meaning­ful are the ones with stains on the recipe card and the ones that come with stories at­tached to them. On the other hand, maybe our most meaningful recipe is something we invented out of necessity, just using what was on hand in the pantry. Meaning can be found in many different ways.”

The Kanab’s Kitchen Table cookbook will in­clude both historic and new recipes. Alongside current community submissions, the mu­seum plans to incorpo­rate recipes from his­toric local cookbooks to help tell the broader story of food and com­munity life in the area. It is also intended to reflect the entire community and the many traditions and experiences that make Kanab unique, from ranch cooking and everyday family din­ners to modern fusion flavors and vegetarian options. Even simple favorites like grilled cheese sandwiches or a well-loved cookie recipe are encouraged because this cookbook isn’t just about pre­serving the past, it’s also about capturing Kanab as it is today.

Recipe submissions will be accepted both online at KanabMu­seum.org and in per­son. Printed forms will also be available at the Kanab Museum and Kanab library. Once completed, the cookbook will be pro­fessionally printed, and a number of copies will be distributed free of charge.

Submissions may include: modern reci­pes, historic recipes, stories or memories connected to food, pho­tos of completed dishes, family photographs and images of homes or buildings connected to the recipe.

Additional informa­tion about submission deadlines and par­ticipation opportuni­ties will be announced through the museum’s social media pages and at KanabMuseum.org.