By Ashley M. Casey

Associate Editor

What is the recipe for a close-knit community?

That is what Emilie Hoy is trying to find out with a project for her Grassroots Science class at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is compiling recipes — and the stories behind them — from the Baldwinsville community into a community cookbook.

Hoy, a junior at RPI, has lived in Baldwinsville since first grade and she graduated from Baker High School in 2018. She is majoring in information technology and web science with a concentration in science and technology studies and hopes to become a digital librarian.

“It’s about the science that takes place in a community that’s developed by the community rather than by the government. It’s about a community coming together to develop scientific knowledge,” Hoy said of the Grassroots Science class.

Hoy plans to publish the cookbook as a PDF and share it with the contributors. She is seeking not just recipes, but photos of the completed dishes and more importantly, what makes the recipe meaningful to the cook.

“I’m looking for recipes that are meaningful to people. It could be a recipe that’s been in the family for generations or it could be something as easy as they found it on the internet and made it as a joke for their friends,” Hoy said.

For Hoy and her friends, that meaningful recipe is Mountain Dew cupcakes.

“One of my friends loves Mountain Dew soda. It was completely a joke at first but they ended up apparently tasting really good. I made like two dozen cupcakes and they ate them all that weekend,” she said.

By compiling this community cookbook, Hoy is hoping to learn more about the people of Baldwinsville and what makes B’ville special.

“Sometimes meaningful for some people means they associate it with a really good memory. I’ve gotten recipes from people for pies where they’ve gotten the blueberries or raspberries from local berry patches and it became a memory of something they did with their kids,” Hoy said.

Already, Hoy is learning more about her community, the people who live here, and the people who are just visiting.

“One of the first days I started working on this project I just went down to the river to talk to people and hand out flyers to try to gain some interest,” she said. “It was super surprising to find how many fish in Baldwinsville that don’t actually live in Baldwinsville. They come from North Syracuse, Cicero, because the fish is really good here.”

Hoy is aiming for at least 50 recipes from people who currently live in Baldwinsville or who grew up here.

“It’s really about nurturing the community … wherever you are,” she said.

Send your recipes and why they are meaningful to you to [email protected] by Aug. 1. Hoy also welcomes photos of each dish.