Rotary Magazine 

Photography by Lucy Hewett Recipe testing and styling by Mollie Hayward

Neeps and tatties. That’s what a Rotarian mentioned he was planning to have for dinner during a virtual meeting of the Rotary E-Club of Innovation (East Anglia), and Jack Davis was puzzled. “I said what the heck is a neep?” recalls Davis, a retired police officer who is a member of the Rotary Club of Morton, Illinois, and an honorary member of the e-club that has a base in England. The explanation that it was a swede made even less sense to him. “Do you eat a swede?” he wondered. “It turns out it’s a rutabaga.” And tatties? They’re potatoes.

That simple banter in 2018 led to a yearslong project spearheaded by Davis and Caroline Dobson, a member of the Rotary Club of Inverness Loch Ness, Scotland, who is also an honorary member of the e-club, to collect and publish recipes.

“This being a Rotary club, somebody said, ‘We can turn this into a fundraiser,’” Dobson recalls. And somebody — Dobson blames Davis, and Davis blames Dobson — came up with the idea to get a recipe from every country and territory hosting a Rotary club. “What could go wrong, right?” Dobson jokes. “Luckily neither of us gives up easily.”

Davis put his detective skills to use, spending up to 14 hours a day tracking down far-flung Rotary members and trying to get copies of their recipes. In cases where finding a club member proved difficult, he tried to obtain recipes through other means. “I can give you the address and telephone of every embassy or consulate in the United States,” he says. “That’s how many we called.”

They had nearly finished the collection when they learned that a Rotary club had been chartered in Iraq. “I’m delighted Iraq is part of the Rotary family, but can you imagine how we felt?” Dobson jokes. Luckily, a member of Dobson’s club in Scotland had previously collected a recipe from Iraq that they were able to use.

It took three and a half years, but they finally collected at least one recipe from more than 200 Rotary countries and geographical areas and published the collection, Food the World Over, as a PDF in 2021. Proceeds go toward polio eradication and water projects.

On the following pages are adaptations of some of those recipes — along with the stories behind them — that you can use to create your own Rotary-inspired meal.

Here are two - but view this months Rotary Magazine for a wonderful list of recipes!!

Isle of Man

Manx Bonagh
Howard Callow, Rotary Club of Douglas

Bonagh (or bonnag) is a traditional sweet bread served on the Isle of Man. For a number of years, the island off the northwest coast of England has hosted the annual World Bonnag Championships. “The first world champion was a man,” Howard Callow says. “Since then, the male competitors have been determined to prove the claim that men from Man make the best bonagh!”

The recipe that Callow shared came from a handwritten 1948 cookbook that belonged to his mother.

3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 ¼ cups buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 325 F.
2. In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients with 1 cup buttermilk. Add additional buttermilk, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough comes together into a shaggy ball. Turn out onto a floured board and form into a ball.
3. Place in a round cake pan and bake for about 30 minutes. Bread should have a hollow sound when you thump the bottom with your hand.