HISTORY

In 2019, in anticipation of the celebration of Maine’s bicentennial of statehood, Karl Schatz, Margaret Hathaway, and Don Lindgren began gathering recipes for a Bicentennial community cookbook. Drawing on submissions from people throughout the state and Don’s extensive collection of historic Maine community cookbooks, the three put together a collection of more than 200 recipes and family stories from Mainers of all backgrounds, new and old. The book was illustrated with family photos and images of cookbook covers, place cards, state proclamations, and more. Though it was a cookbook, there were no photographs of food. At its core, the Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook was about a community of people.

In the midst of the cookbook’s publication, the global pandemic hit. At a time when people were feeling more isolated than ever before, the cookbook provided a feeling of community through shared stories and recipes. Cooking, even over a distance, built community. Libraries organized online cook-alongs, realtors placed the book in each new house they sold, and one reader cooked every recipe in the book and blogged about her experiences. The community formed within the book’s covers spun into a community off its pages.

The success of the Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook inspired Karl, Margaret, and Don to continue their work together, and in late 2020, the three started a podcast, “Cooking Is Community.” In each episode, the three look deeply into a community cookbook from Don’s collection, providing context for the place and period in which it was written, examining it as an artifact, speaking to a representative of the community that had put it together, and cooking a recipe from its pages. Every community cookbook preserves a bit of the community that created it, and the three found that bringing the community cookbook off the pages expanded its reach into the present.

The following year, the three put together a second volume of the cookbook, entitled Maine Community Cookbook, Volume 2. Even more than with the first book, submissions were robust, and came from people across Maine, from all walks of life. One contributor to both books, food writer Nancy Harmon Jenkins, suggested a series of community suppers, ideally across the state, to celebrate the book’s publication and further the spirit of community. The seeds for this new organization were planted.

As the Maine Community Cookbooks have continued to be available, $2 from every book sold has been distributed to organizations fighting hunger around the state of Maine. To date, more than $25,000 has been disbursed. Karl and Margaret have also provided free consulting time to organizations around the state interested in putting together cookbooks, gathering recipes and food stories from their communities, and furthering their organizations’ missions through recipe, story, and food sharing.

The mission of Community Plate is to continue the work begun by Maine Community Cookbooks and Cooking is Community Podcast, building community and facilitating connection through a common language of food, shared food stories and recipes, bring that work off the page, and to expand the opportunities for community building work with other organizations.

In March 2023 twenty people gathered at Karl & Margaret’s farm, Ten Apple Farm, in Gray, Maine, for what would be our very first Story Sharing Supper. Following that supper, an advisory council was assembled to guide and help launch the new organization. Community Plate was chosen as the name of the new organization.

In June 2023 we partnered with the Lubec Community Outreach Center and held our first public Story Sharing Supper on a rainy night in Lubec, Maine.

In July 2023 Community Plate established an inaugural Board of Directors and incorporated in the State of Maine as a new nonprofit organization, 501(c)3 status pending.