Part genealogy, part history, part gender study, cookbooks record the lives and roles of women. Cookbooks bear silent witness to women who often had few outlets for self-fulfillment or advancement. They describe women’s daily rituals of domestic sustenance, represent a collective understanding of food preparation techniques, and give us clues to women’s personalities, heritage, and community. More than mere recipes, community cookbooks record the foodways that sustain the physical being and also nourish the soul. Read through your family recipes to learn more of your heritage, and study the community cookbooks you find to understand how cookbooks reflect their contributors. This talk will show you how to make the most of your reading. Presenter Maureen Flanagan Battistella is a librarian by training and inclination and now has a faculty appointment in the Sociology and Anthropology program at Southern Oregon University. Her research interests include culinary narrative, agricultural land use, and heritage preservation. She is the curator of the Stories of Southern Oregon project published on YouTube and in the Southern Oregon Digital Archives at Southern Oregon University’s Hannon Library. Please note, this event will take place remotely, via Zoom. Zoom meeting details will be emailed to you when you register.