Peggy Daum article revisions
Today I am working on revisions of my article about Milwaukee Journal women’s page journalist and later food editor Peggy Daum.
Daum had a strong journalism background that she applied to her beat – food. Barbara Dembski, the Milwaukee Journal’s assistant managing editor of features, said Daum never abandoned her audience. She said of Daum: “Despite her national stature in food journalism, she never forgot who her section was for. She wrote it for the typical, salt-of-the-earth, best cook on the block.”
And those neighborhood cooks, her readers, regularly called her with questions about new dishes and in later years questions about new grocery store items like tofu or cilantro. Yet some Milwaukee recipes so defined the community that calls to the newspaper were not necessary. “If you are making German potato salad, you already know how,” Daum said in 1988. “The right way to make it is the way your mother and grandmother made it. You may argue about it with someone down the block, but you don’t call me.”
