The Calhoun County Bicentennial Cookbook is now available. Copies can be found for purchase at the Bank of Kampsville offices, Hagens Family Orchard, Wittmond Hotel, MME’s Red and White, Northside Market and Odelehr’s Roadside Market. (Steven Spencer/Calhoun News-Herald)
By Steven Spencer
After months of gathering family favorite recipes from residents of Calhoun, the Brussels Woman’s Club has finished compiling the Calhoun County Bicentennial Cookbook and the books are now available for purchase.
Judy Burch and Elaine Eberlin with the Brussels Woman’s Club said hundreds of recipes were submitted by residents with approximately 380 included in the Calhoun County Bicentennial Cookbook.
With Calhoun County’s Bicentennial approaching in January 2025, the Woman’s Club wanted to not only celebrate the county but celebrate the families and people that make Calhoun a great place to live and eat.
Burch and Eberlin said that with the bicentennial quickly approaching it seemed like the perfect time to share these long cherished family recipes and a project that needed to be done.
Several recipes in the cookbook are family favorites that have been handed down and submitted in memory of loved ones.
For example Betty’s Vegetable Beef Soup. Betty Pohlman’s vegetable beef soup recipe was handed down and submitted by her daughter-in-law Carol Pohlman with a dedication that reads “My mother-in-law, Betty, made this soup for her family! We all loved it. I would ask Betty to make me a pot of soup for my Christmas gift. I feel so proud that I am able to make it now that she is gone.”
The Calhoun County Bicentennial Cookbook also features a number of photos of the county and historical information about Calhoun as the Woman’s Club set out to make the cookbook a treasury of tried and true recipes as well as a Calhoun keepsake.
The cover of the book, designed by Courtney Pohlman, features several recognizable landmarks from the county including Shaw Cabin, Wittmond Hotel and the Joe Page Bridge.
“It’s representing all of Calhoun, not just one area,” Pohlman told Calhoun News-Herald earlier this year while designing the cover. “I feel like everybody’s love language in Calhoun is food. They all have Sunday dinners and everybody gets together. Having recipes that represent Calhoun and keeping family recipes moving forward, I feel like that’s such a huge deal. Everybody’s going to have this.”
The Calhoun County Bicentennial Cookbook can be purchased for $20 and is currently available at the Bank of Kampsville offices, Hagens Family Orchard, Wittmond Hotel, MME’s Red and White, Northside Market and Odelehr’s Roadside Market.
Copies of the cookbook can also be ordered by contacting Elaine Eberlin at 618-210-3933, eeberlin@frontier.com or by mail the Brussels Woman’s Club at 5102 Illinois River Road, Brussels, Illinois, 62013.
The Brussels Woman’s Club will use the proceeds from the sales to help with other projects in Calhoun County