Brownie Schrumpf topic of UM talk Book in progress on food doyenne

ORONO – The life and legacy of celebrated Maine food expert, author and home economist Brownie Schrumpf will be the topic of a lunchtime talk at noon Thursday, Feb. 16, at the Page Farm and Home Museum at the University of Maine.

The speaker for the free public discussion is Karen Tolstrup, a UMaine graduate student and teaching assistant in history, who has been researching the life of Schrumpf and is writing a book on the longtime Orono resident and former part-time UM instructor.

Guests are invited to bring along a bag lunch. Parking permits will be available from museum director Patty Henner.

In addition to teaching at UMaine about foods, food preservation and camp cookery to forestry students, Schrumpf also was a food columnist for the Bangor Daily News from 1951 to 1993. She was a strong advocate of using native, Maine-grown foods and simple methods of food preparation, known for tweaking recipes to suit individual tastes.

Tolstrup’s talk is titled “If Maine Had a Queen,” and will cover what she has learned about Schrumpf’s youngest years through her college graduation.

Tolstrup intended to use her research on Brownie Schrumpf for a master’s thesis, but found she had amassed enough information for an entire book, with photographs.

“I want to write a book folks will want to read, and I thought that a half-page of footnotes on every page would be less than attractive,” she said.

Tolstrup interviewed Schrumpf’s niece, Joan Dow Scott, and several of Schrumpf’s closest friends in the Orono area.

Schrumpf was born in 1903 in Readfield and held a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Maine. She was assistant 4-H Club leader for the state of Maine, 1925-1932, and was the Penobscot County 4-H Club agent, 1932-39.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Schrumpf was the Maine food products promoter for the Maine Department of Agriculture at the Eastern States Exposition.

She also produced a television series of food demonstrations and worked on the staff of the General Alumni Association of the University of Maine.

During the 1970s and ’80s, Schrumpf served as a food expert on another TV series, “A Time to Live,” and taught YMCA cooking classes for 20 years. She also wrote two successful cookbooks, “The Flavor of Maine” and “Memories from Brownie’s Kitchen.”

Schrumpf died in March 2001 at age 98.

The Page Farm and Home Museum on the Orono campus has a kitchen exhibit dedicated to Brownie Schrumpf. The museum may be reached by telephone at 581-4100 or visit www.ume.maine.edu/pfhm.