The Maine Agricultural Trades Show featured something new this year — cooking demonstrations with tips for making the most of Maine grown foods.

At a raised booth set up with stoves and other kitchen implements, chef and cookbook author Cynthia Finnemore Simonds, of Newcastle, and her daughter, Elizabeth, demonstrated how to cook with Maine-grown foods.

On Wednesday, they whipped up blueberry smoothies with kale and yogurt, buttercup squash hummus and Needhams. A day earlier, they made chocolate pots de creme, a chocolate custard with goat cheese melted into it.

Simonds, author of “Superb Maine Soups,” “Delicious Maine Desserts,” and “Fresh Maine Salads,” shared a tip for easily separating egg yolks from whites, by squeezing an empty plastic water bottle, then putting it on the egg yolk and releasing pressure on the bottle, which sucked the yolk into the bottle.

She said she used as many ingredients from Maine farms as possible.

“I love the local eggs, because they’re so beautifully bright,” she said while cracking 16 eggs into a large bowl for a dessert she showed audience members how to make.

She also made Needhams, Maine’s unofficial state candy, featuring Maine potatoes, with Andy Wilbur, of Freeport-based Wilbur’s of Maine Chocolate Confections.

Cooking demonstrations featuring Maine foods and chefs were scheduled throughout the show.

— Keith Edwards


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