Fighting the Stereotype of the Women’s Pages
I came across another media article that includes the incorrect stereotype of the women’s pages. It was in the Tampa Bay Times:
“Restaurant criticism isn’t a hallowed profession. It was essentially invented by Craig Claiborne at the New York Times in the early 1960s. Food writing had previously been on newspapers’ “women’s pages” (Food Fashions Family Furnishings!), mostly casserole recipes adjacent to “how to grow a better begonia.”
It was Jane Nickerson who was the first restaurant critic at the New York Times – prior to Claiborne. I wrote about her in the New York City Food Encyclopedia, Savoring Gotham.
I also wrote about Nickerson and her fellow newspaper food editors in my book, The Food Section. In it, I prove that the food sections went well beyond casserole recipes.
My upcoming book will explain that the women’s pages were well beyond the four Fs.
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