GEORGETOWN

Not every cookbook is meant to be leafed through with sticky fingers, doubled over a cutting board. Renowned food historian Sandra Oliver’s “Maine Home Cooking: 175 Recipes from Down East,” a collection of recipes, histories and memories, can as likely be found in a beach tote or on a nightstand.

On Thursday, the Georgetown Historical Society will host a book talk and signing with Oliver, where the food writer and Islesboro resident will discuss the culinary traditions of Maine and current trends in the food world.

“ I know a lot of people who don’t buy cookbooks to cook — they like to read them,” said Oliver. “So I think my job is make a readable cookbook, not just a pile of recipes.”

The recipes in her book are compiled from Oliver’s weekly column “Taste Buds” in the Bangor Daily News. Oliver has aggregated contributed recipes since the columns inception in 2006, and she considers the friends, relatives, neighbors, “Taste Buds” readers and others who sent in recipes, her “co-authors,” all credited in the book.

“Ladies from all over Maine” contributed, said Oliver, “and they wouldn’t just send a recipe in, but would share their memories of it as well.

“They would say, for example, ‘My grandmother made this recipe every summer,’ or ‘We had this after church on Sundays when I was a kid,’” said Oliver.

The recipes are ordered by theme, Oliver said, rather than the traditional catalog that runs through appetizers and light fare to desserts. Chapters include a section on Classic Down East Dishes, with recipes for chowder, baked beans and brown bread, and Homey Favorites, which Oliver said has a selection of easy-to-make comfort foods.

Some recipes date back to the 1800s, said Oliver. “I work with people regularly who are 80 or 90 years old,” she said, “and they share their grandmothers’ recipes.”

Georgetown resident Susan Hess’s grandmother’s cranberry chutney recipe, featured in Oliver’s BDN blog in 2009, is among them, she said, and is “the best doggone chutney recipe ever.”

Some of the recipes in “Maine Home Cooking” are modern — at least comparatively so, said Oliver.

“Depending on your age, they may not seem all that modern,” she said, “but when I was a kid growing up I didn’t know what tapenade was, jalapenos never crossed our lips and Thai food — what was that?”

A home cook and experienced gardener, Oliver’s chapter on fresh and seasonal fare “is a vegetable chapter straight out of the garden,” she said. “I organized it from earliest to the latest, so I start with parsnips which are the first I take out of the ground, then rhubarb and asparagus, and fennel, corn, cauliflower, straight into squash and apples,” she added.

“My mom … was like a lot of people who lived through the Depression and World War II, who thought that a can of green beans warmed up on the stove was vegetables,” said Oliver, who discovered a love of vegetables as a young adult.

Current trends toward cooking with ingredients that are in-season and available locally pairs nicely with her historical recipes, said Oliver, as does the chapter “Well Preserved,” which features preserve, pickle and chutney recipes.

“People in past times had all kinds of terrific strategies for working with ingredients that are not all that varied,” said Oliver, citing winter staples like carrots, beets and rutabaga.

“‘Big Food’ got itself in between the food supply and the dinner table and convinced people that that was the only way to go,” said Oliver, “and I think it’s great to see that starting to change.

“Here we are buying vegetables from California — drinking their scant water supply — when here we could grow all the lettuce we want,” she said. “We could be totally self-sufficient in lettuce in Maine, and we’re shipping it all the way across the country.”

Though rich with history and memoir, “Maine Home Cooking” is at heart a cookbook, carrying on the centuries old tradition of recipe swapping.

“People have been doing this forever and ever,” said Oliver, of the recipe hunters and sharers that she has interacted with via her column. “When I look at a historic recipe book, I’ll find handwritten recipes that will say, ‘Aunt Polly’s apple pie’ or ‘Mrs. So-and-so’s pumpkin bread.’

“You can see this marching down through time,” she said,” and we add our little twists to recipes before passing them on; we’re led by our personal taste in things.”

Sandra Oliver has been a food historian for 40 years and a freelance food writer for 20 years. In addition to her BDN blog, Oliver contributes regularly to Down East Magazine. She has authored several books including, “Saltwater Foodways: New Englanders and their Food at Sea and Ashore in the Nineteenth Century.” Down East Books published “Maine Home Cooking: 175 Recipes from Down East Kitchens” in 2012.

The book talk will start at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 17, at the Georgetown Historical Society, located at 20 Bay Point Road. Following a presentation, Oliver will be available to take questions and sign books, which will be available for purchase for $30 each. The event is free and open to the public, though donations are welcomed. For more information, call 371-9200.

rgargiulo@timesrecord.com

THE BOOK TALK will start at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 17, at the Georgetown Historical Society, located at 20 Bay Point Road. The event is free and open to the public, though donations are welcomed. For more information, call 371-9200.