Presented by Catherine Lambrecht (Image by Catherine Lambrecht, too!)

Podcast

Pies are as American as pizza is American: we took a great idea, adapted it to our needs and ran with it. Our ancestors used what they had available locally and made the most from it. You might be thinking that pies are just for dessert, but for our American ancestors, they were often considered survival food. Sometimes, they ate pie for breakfast, lunch and dinner for months at a time.

Catherine Lambrecht, who achieved Grand Champion and Best of Show at the Lake County Fair for apple pie, will present the history of pies in America and our state. Illinois’ contribution to our country’s pie culture includes the following:

• Pumpkin Pie is Illinois’ State Pie, with over 90 percent of canned pumpkin grown in Illinois
• The pecan pie
• Did you know Johnny Appleseed roamed our state? Apples originating in Kazakhstan are an introduced crop everywhere in the Americas.

Lambrecht will share a story from the Family Heirloom Recipe Contest at the Illinois State Fair of love, family, a special pie, and a gift of immeasurable value.

Catherine Lambrecht is a veteran of culinary competitions at the Lake County and Illinois State Fairs, a former University of Illinois Extension volunteer whose specialties were Master Food Preserver and Master Gardner, and a founder of Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance, Chicago Foodways Roundtable (sister organization to Culinary Historians of Chicago) and LTHforum.com, a Chicago culinary chat site. 

Catherine is also program director for the Highland Park Historical Society and Illinois Mycological Association (Mushroom Club) and editor of Heirloom Recipes from the Illinois State Fair, A Bicentennial Project. Since 2020, an Illinois Road Scholar speaker’s bureau for Illinois Humanities.

I love my work. I don’t count the hours. I think my work has value. A quote by a French farmer recorded by Patricia Wells.