See what's cooking in Julia Child's kitchen at Minnesota museum exhibit

A recipe is much more than ingredients and instructions. It can impart a hidden history, provide tethers to forgotten tables, ignite curiosity and the thrill of creating something so delicious it must be shared.

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A photo of Julia Child and her husband Paul Child is part of the exhibit at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul.

There are the titans of recipe writing, and then there are the quiet names of those (mostly women) who used recipes to shore up their communities and extend the knowledge built inside their home kitchens. And both are on display at two new Minnesota History Center exhibits - "Julia Child: A Recipe for Life" and "Minnesota Cooks: Small Bites from the Collections" - opening Sept. 27.

The exhibits, two years in the making, celebrate and examine Julia Child's legacy and the wealth of culinary history found in Minnesota.

"We knew with our great Twin Cities food scene and our fantastic cookbook collection this was something that would really interest our audience," said Annie Johnson, the museum's manager.

The trucks carrying the traveling exhibit arrived a week ago, with crews setting up vintage TVs, a recreation of Child's television studio kitchen and a blue pegboard adorned with culinary tools, similar to the one that famously hung in Julia's home kitchen.

Inside the exhibit's entrance, visitors are are greeted with a towering picture of Julia and Paul Child on a 1970 visit to the Twin Cities, where they chatted with Minneapolis Tribune food columnist Mary Hart while promoting Child's television show, "The French Chef."