Former Bainbridge Township resident Melissa Knific is bringing the flavors of America’s national parks into home kitchens with a recently-penned cookbook.
Former Bainbridge Township resident Melissa Knific is bringing the flavors of America’s national parks into home kitchens with a recently-penned cookbook.
Published in February with co-author Nina Elder, the book, titled, “National Parks Cookbook: Dishes Inspired by America’s Great Outdoors,” features 100 recipes influenced by the landscapes, cultures and ingredients found in national parks across the country.
“Going into this project, (I) obviously knew that we had this massive country,” Melissa said. “It’s diverse in people and landscape, but this book opened my eyes to … how much more diverse it is than I had ever imagined.”
Melissa, a current New Jersey resident, grew up in the Cleveland area and attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she studied journalism.
She lived with her parents, Glenn and Mary Ellen Knific, in Bainbridge Township throughout college, she said.
Melissa later attended the French Culinary Institute in New York and worked for publications such as Family Circle and Rachel Ray In Season, she said.
She now works as a freelance writer, brand developer and recipe developer for a variety of companies, including The New York Times, Bon Appétit Magazine, Delish and Allrecipes, she said.
Melissa and Elder, who is from Missouri, first met while working at Rachel Ray, Melissa said, adding the idea for the cookbook came from National Geographic Executive Editor Allyson Johnson.
“Allyson reached out to Nina with this idea of a national parks cookbook. Nina started working on it and realized how significant of an undertaking this book was and said, ‘I’d love to bring on Melissa.’ So, we were together on this from nearly the beginning,” Melissa said.
The cookbook includes 100 recipes developed by Melissa and Elder, along with contributions from chefs connected to the parks, Melissa said.
Each park featured in the book includes at least one recipe, she added.
Locally, she collaborated with chef Ben Bebenroth, owner of Spice Acres in Brecksville, one of the eight working farms located within Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Melissa said.
Roth contributed two recipes to the book: a roasted chicken and twice-cooked carrots with coriander, she said, adding the carrots are grown at Trapp Family Farm in Peninsula, and the coriander seeds are harvested at Spice Acres.
“So the flora, the fauna of the parks inspired these recipes, the people that … either farm the land or first inhabited the land or live on the land today, inspired these recipes,” Melissa said.
Melissa said she also researched ingredients tied to Gates of the Arctic National Park, a remote and cold park in the far north. She reached out to the Alaska Natives to learn more about what grows and is commonly eaten in the region.
“(I) tried to find out what they eat because … there’s not a lot of resources there,” she said.
She discovered wild berries grow in the area during late spring and summer.
“So, wild blueberries became part of the recipe because that is a major food source for the people there,” Melissa said. “Sourdough is also really important to them because it’s a living organism. People can keep it throughout the year. So, that recipe became sourdough waffles with wild blueberries.”
Some recipes include ingredients that may be difficult to find, such as those for caribou stew, so Melissa and Elder included substitutions to make the recipes more accessible.
“Not everyone’s going to be able to find caribou, so we gave proper substitution so that people could make these in their home kitchen and really feel like they were visiting these parks,” Melissa said.
She hopes readers will cook the recipes and be reminded of parks they have visited or be inspired to explore new ones, she said.
“(I hope readers will) sit there and they’ll be like, ‘I loved my time fishing at Isle Royale National Park,’ which is in Michigan, and they’ll make this smoked white fish dip that will bring them back to that time they spent in or around the park,” Melissa said. “Or, you know, a park that people may not have gone to that they want to travel to. Maybe they’ll say, ‘I’ve never gone to the Petrified Forest National Park,’ and they’ll dig into the Navajo taco recipe and feel like they can be transported by flavor.”
Elder said she hopes readers of all skill levels will enjoy the cookbook.
“Food is a great way to get a true taste (pun intended) for these special places,” she said. “It can help you learn more about the parks and can be a fun way to make memories with your family and take a trip without leaving your kitchen.”
“National Parks Cookbook: Dishes Inspired by America’s Great Outdoors” can be found in Barnes and Noble locations, at Amazon, as well as Fireside Bookstore at 29 N. Franklin Street in Chagrin Falls.
“I hope that (readers are) inspired to get out and about and explore a national park or other public land near them and are reminded why these spaces are important and worth protecting,” Elder said.
“I think that people should sort of just open this up and cook what speaks to them,” Melissa added. “I hope that people will take this book and be able to feel like they are experiencing history (and) the food of our nation.”
