Senior living centers are not the first sources you think of when searching for new recipes. But where else can you find dishes like Iguana Stew, the creation of Chuck Ohler, who fought in the Philippines in World War II and was held in a Japanese prison camp for more than a year?

Atria Senior Living has gathered recipes from its residents all across the country and compiled them into a new cookbook, “A Dash & A Dollop: Every Recipe Tells a Story,” which will be available in the coming week on barnesandnoble.com at: http://bit.ly/xcMu0W

Most of the recipes are, of course, things you can actually use, with less exotic ingredients than iguana. While the book does have its share of bland “open-a-can” fare, many of the dishes actually sound delicious. And some of the recipes have great stories behind them.

Some examples: One resident who can trace her Austrian roots to the mid-1300s shares a goulash recipe her mother used while working in the kitchen of an Austro-Hungarian aristocrat around 1910. A recipe for Anzac Biscuits explains that they are a cookie created by women in Australia and New Zealand to ship to soldiers in World War I. Other recipes in the book came over with residents’ immigrant ancestors.

Recipes from Mainers living at Atria Kennebunk include Blueberry Biscuits from Ruth Hill and Memere’s Famous Beef Soup from Juliette Scarponi.