presented by Valerie J. Frey
Saturday, 10 January 2026, 2 – 4 p.m.
Athens-Clarke Co. Library, Multipurpose Room A
This event is free and open to the public!
Now that you have cooked, eaten, snacked, and napped, we would like for you to kick off the 2026 New Year in person with all of us for a re-telling of your favorite family recipes and the tradition behind it. To inspire us, we have invited archivist Valerie J. Frey. She will lead an exploration of recipes from Georgia cooks as far back as 1733 into the 20th century. To show Valerie our enthusiasm, we ask that you bring a sample of your favorite family recipe tradition to share. [Come even if you don’t cook!] We will even get a chance to taste a bit of history with a couple of recipes from Valerie’s book.
Valerie J. Frey (pronounced “fry”) is a writer and archivist from Athens, Georgia with projects focusing on genealogy, historical foodways, and the everyday home life of our ancestors. Valerie holds degrees from the University of Georgia and the University of
Tennessee, Knoxville. Her archives career began with a Junior Fellowship in the Manuscripts Division at the Library of Congress and she went on to serve as an archivist at the Georgia Historical Society and the Georgia Archives. She now writes full time.
Many cookbooks and recipes still exist from Georgia’s early years, yet most have been forgotten. They sit quietly in archives, waiting to be rediscovered. These sources not only preserve traces of delicious foods that are new again to current generations, but they also hold many clues about what home life was like for Georgians in the past. Come learn about yesteryear’s cooks and taste of the history of Georgia, the South, and the U.S.A. through historic foodways. Archivist and writer Valerie J. Frey will lead an exploration of recipes from 1733 through 1945 with a historian’s eye. Both of her books will be available for purchase after the program.
Preserving Family Recipes: How to Save and Celebrate Your Food Traditions was released in 2015 through the University of Georgia Press. In 2025, UGA Press released her newest book, Georgia’s Historical Recipes: Seeking Our State’s Oldest Written Foodways and the Stories Behind Them. During her research project, Valerie rediscovered an 1885 cookbook from Marietta entitled House-Keeping in the Sunny South that was subsequently reprinted in 2025 by UGA Press with a foreword and indexing by Valerie.
Sponsored by the Clarke-Oconee Genealogical Society and the Athens-Clarke County Library Heritage Room
Clarke-Oconee Genealogical Society 