Washington Press Club Cookbook History
My proposal for research about the Washington Press Club cookbooks has been accepted for the 2017 Food Studies Conference. My paper is titled: “Who Says We Can’t Cook? Analysis of Gender, Labor and Recipes in the Cookbooks of the Women’s National Press Club.”
For decades, numerous women’s clubs have produced cookbooks as fundraisers. Two Washington, D.C. cookbooks in particular exemplify the culture of power and prestige in the city and also the role of cookbooks as fundraisers. The first cookbook was the 1955 Who Says We Can’t Cook ? by the Women’s National Press Club. The members stressed the book was not a defense of their culinary talents but rather a fundraising venture so they could rent space for a clubhouse. A story by the journalists accompanied each set of recipes.
The initial cookbook had a press run of 5,000 copies and the books sold out in the first week. For the next three years, the cookbook was regularly reprinted with requests coming as far away as Australia. The book included recipes, some culinary history and short narratives about food. It also included insights into women who both worked as reporters and as home cooks.
The cookbook of the Washington press women proved so popular that a second edition, called Second Helping, was released in 1962. It was equally as successful.
An analysis of the recipes and the accompany stories reveal the intersection of employed women and also their roles as home cooks. It includes the changing roles of American appetites, entertaining trends and balancing domestic life with being a journalist.
