Food Journalism & Regional Cookery
Lance & I just learned that our paper “Regional Cookery: The Relationship Between Newspaper Food Editors Spanning the Public & Private Spheres” has been accepted for presentation
at this year’s National Communication Association’s pre-conference: Our Place at the Table: Continuing the Conversation and Deepening the Connections between Food and Communication.
In 2013, historians and culinary writers are just beginning to study food journalism. Until recently, most of what was documented about food journalism was limited to the New York Timesfood editor and restaurant critic Craig Claiborne. One notable exception is the book Hometown Appetites about the longtime New York Herald Tribune food reporter Clementine Paddleford, written by Kelly Alexander and Cynthia Harris.[i]Food editors like Paddleford were influential in their day but have been long overshadowed by Claiborne. According to an article by Alexander, “Paddleford’s genius lay in tapping into what she knew best: authentic home cooking. And she used her pulpit to spread local cooks’ favorite recipes, and the stories behind them, from coast to coast.”[ii]This could be said about the overwhelming female food editors.
Our paper is an examination of newspaper cookbooks from the 1940s through the 1970s. Many newspaper editors published cookbooks and cooking pamphlets over the years. Some included favorites of the food editors and others were collections of recipes sent in by home cook readers or restaurant chefs. Because of their statures as well-known food editors, some of the women wrote their own cookbooks.
[i] Kelly Alexander and Cynthia Harris, Hometown Appetites: The Story of Clementine Paddleford, the Forgotten Food Writer Who Chronicled How America Ate (New York: Gotham Press, 2008)
[ii] Kelly Alexander, “Hometown Appetites,” Saveur, November 19, 2007. http://www.saveur.com/article/Kitchen/Hometown-Appetites/1
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