For someone who says she hates to cook, Sandy Levins is more than happy to share her secret ingredients.

For perfect pork chops, start with "just the right amount of latex." Make sure there are no bubbles in the plaster. And accent the surface with dabs of darker paint for a scrumptious "done to a turn" look.

"It makes for a fabulous presentation," Levins says from her kitchen in Haddon Township, where "Historic Faux Foods" are the specialty of the house. "It has got to look good enough to eat."

Trust me: It does.

The president of the Camden County Historical Society, Levins started what has evolved into her sideline business (historicfauxfoods.com) nearly a decade ago.

Trial and error have taught her how to make visually flavorful, museum-safe facsimiles of historically correct fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, breads, desserts, and entire dishes (check out the meat pie).

"You're always repurposing things," says Levins, a stylish, energetic woman who radiates enthusiasm. "My leg of lamb started with a tube sock I got from my husband's drawer and then stuffed with wadded-up newspaper." Her raw oysters are crafted of a clay called Model Magic, and those yummy-looking tea cakes are composed of compressed Styrofoam with spackle icing.

These and Levins' other culinary delights help create a richer experience of the past for visitors to Pomona Hall, the historical society's 18th-century farmhouse on Park Boulevard in Camden. Once home to the wealthy Cooper family, Pomona Hall "isn't just a showcase for antique furniture," says Linda Gentry, the society's executive director.

She shows me some of the handsome first-floor rooms, where context helps Levins' work come alive, and vice versa. It's startling how realistic the food - including an impressive, if to me rather unappetizing, boar's head - looks on a dining room table set for four.

"The food shows, especially to the schoolkids who come through, how the Cooper family actually lived," Gentry says. "It's gorgeous, and some people do think it's real."

But not even the salt on the table is actual salt, says Levins, who has made faux food for Winterthur in Wilmington and Carlisle House in Alexandria, Va. "You cannot use any real food products in a historic house or museum where there are collections - because of pests."

Vermin or varmints hiding within or attracted by bona fide food could very well decide to dine on fabric, paper, and other materials in the museum. Gases produced by the decay of organic material also could damage fragile objects. And however devoted to verisimilitude, a faux-food fabricator surely doesn't want her creations to attract actual flies.

Actual oyster shells and meat bones can be utilized, however. The former are cleaned, boiled, and bleached, and the latter must be "degreased" (soaked for weeks in lantern fuel). Layers of varnish are the finishing touch.

"I don't take any chances," Levins says.

Jane Ann Hornberger, an educator who lives in suburban Philadelphia and also creates faux food, describes Levins as "beyond the best student" she has ever encountered. "Food brings people into an exhibit. It engages them," she says. "And Sandy's food is amazing."

Like those who prepare more conventional meals, Levins says the improvisational, even inspirational, nature of the creative process is deeply rewarding for a faux-food chef.

And as is often the case with real food, "when it looks done," she says, "it's done."

Contact Kevin Riordan at 856-779-3845 or kriordan@phillynews.com.