Minnesota native and author of more than 30 cookbooks, Beatrice Ojakangas built a career on introducing the masses to Scandinavian cooking and baking. Here, she shares a little history on how she got started in the kitchen.

“When I learned to read, I learned to read cookbooks.”

Cooking and baking have been part of Beatrice Ojakangas’ life from an early age. She grew up on a farm in Floodwood, about halfway between Grand Rapids and Duluth. The oldest of 10 children, she always had plenty of work to do in the kitchen, and from a young age she developed a love of and knack for it.

“It was always just a fun thing to do,” Ojakangas says. “I tried new recipes, tried new ideas, and things progressed from there … it was just something that was really interesting to me, and I could understand it.”

Around age 10, she joined 4-H. She began entering judged cooking and baking demonstrations and found rapid success, making it all the way to the Minnesota State Fair. Once there, she won a blue ribbon for her demonstration of chiffon cake. 

“I did all I could to study each ingredient to see what each ingredient contributed to the final product,” Ojakangas says. “It was just a progression of learning one thing at a time. I was given freedom to do that by my mother … she was just really generous with her time.”

The next year, she again won a blue ribbon and Grand Championship at the State Fair—this time for a cheese souffle. 

“This got to be an annual thing. ‘What should I demonstrate this year so I can get a vacation off the farm?’” Ojakangas recalls. “The idea was to win a trip so I could go to the State Fair with my friends, who were doing the same thing.” 

The following year, her demonstration of Finnish rye bread won the National Grand Championship at the State Fair, landing her a trip to Chicago for the International 4-H Congress. Ojakangas says these cooking competitions were her one outlet from the farm. “That’s what started me in the field of foods … I had a lot of other interests, but it was the cooking that gave me the most challenges and where I could win something and get somewhere with it,” she says. “4-H was a big part of my learning.”

She went on to study home economics at the University of Minnesota Duluth, where she met her husband, Dick. After graduating and getting married, the couple lived in England for two years. During that time, Ojakangas found a new cooking competition to enter: the Pillsbury Bake-Off. She was delighted to win the second grand prize of $5,000. 

After getting his master’s degree at the University of Missouri, Dick a won a Fulbright Scholarship, which took the couple to Finland for a year. Ojakangas traveled around the country teaching Finns about American food (“Finns were really impressed with popcorn,” she laughs) while also learning about their food and traditions. She took copious notes, both for herself and to write home to her mother.

“That was the beginning of the writing,” she says. “I had this big pile of notes that I had written about life in Finland and what people ate and when they ate it, and what was important to them different times of the year. So that became my first cookbook that I wrote: The Finnish Cookbook.

“And then after that, it was like, OK, what’s next to explore?” she adds. “I kept exploring more areas of cooking and things that would be of interest.” Without planning to, she made a career out of cookbook writing. To date, she has published more than 30 cookbooks and one memoir. 

At 91, Ojakangas is still writing and, of course, making food for loved ones. “When you’re cooking, you’re really sharing yourself with your friends,” she says. “I love cooking, and I always considered the people who would come to my table—I think everyone’s a special guest.”