AMERICAN FORK — Deanna Buxton has created the ultimate ward cookbook — drawing on people from all over the planet for recipes.
After Covenant Communications editors asked her to put together such a cookbook, the American Fork wife and mother started asking her friends and family members to contact their friends and family for recipes. The idea mushroomed.
Pretty soon her e-mail inbox was filled to the brim with thousands of entries.
Now, after months of sifting and culling, the result is the colorful, 325-page "Worldwide Ward Cookbook" that includes 440 recipes from the United States and 46 other countries as well as stories and photos.
"It was chaos at the same time that it was a great adventure to put this together," said Buxton, who already had three cookbooks written, including the "30 Meals in One Day" series.
"It is such an interesting journey to discover what brings others together and what (other people) eat when they gather," said Buxton. "It's a beautiful thing to discover that we (as people on the earth) have at least two things in common, even with those who live far away: our love of the gospel and our love of food. There's something charming in finding a recipe from a woman in Portugal using the same ingredients that I have in my kitchen in Utah. It makes the world a smaller, friendlier place."
One recipe is from Keo Brown, a member of an LDS refugee family from Laos who lived in the camps in Thailand for nearly two years before coming to America.
Kalevi Rasi-Koskinen, a convert, member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and father of a missionary, submitted a recipe for a Finnish Glass Cake from his homeland. It's called a glass cake because the ingredients are measured in a glass — any size will do — the bigger the glass, the larger the cake! "Trust the recipe," advises the author. (And, that's right, no baking powder is needed.)
Recipes really include ideas and traditions from all corners of the world: from South African Babootee to Norwegian Lefse to Greek Fassolatha soup.
There are also "General Conference Scones" and "General Conference Popcorn" and the infamous Mormon funeral potatoes.
Some recipes, such as Pioneer Cocoa and Rain Donuts, are family favorites. Many have been a big hit with missionaries, i.e. Lizard Stew (no real lizards included). Others like Korean Fire Meat and Peruvian Flan came home with missionaries.
Some are unusual, such as the Cookie Salad, Snickers Salad and Grape Salad recipes.
Others come from early LDS prophets' pantries. Joseph Smith Johnny Cakes anyone?
Most are simple to make and reportedly delicious. (The notes and histories are as interesting as the recipes.)
Buxton said the real purpose behind the cookbook is to encourage families to cook and to eat together.
"The benefits of eating and cooking together are enormous and have a lifelong effect. There is a certain comfort that comes from eating good food, made all the better by making it from recipes that are from people who live somewhere else, perhaps somewhere else in the world," she said.
Buxton is already hard at work on the next edition of the cookbook, a Christmas edition, and has announced a Worldwide 2nd Ward cookbook.
Recipes can be submitted by going to worldwidewardcookbook.blogspot.com.