Providing Context for Craig Claiborne
News about the new food editor at the New York Times has led to many mentions of the late NYT food editor Craig Claiborne yesterday.
While Claiborne was certainly significant, his fame has overshadowed Jane Nickerson who was the first food editor at the New York Times. It was a concept I explored in The Food Section.
With Jane’s exclusion in mind, I was so happy when Anne Mendelson contacted me about an essay she wrote which detailed the work of the Jane and the other NYT female food journalists who came before Claiborne. It is wonderfully written and provides great context for the NYC food foundation that Jane and her colleagues created.
Mendelson wrote: “Jane Nickerson’s articles and recipes show her as an observer of wide-ranging curiosity and knowledge, moving with some sensitivity between prosaic ‘service’ information and higher- flying gastronomic matters.” (Anne Mendelson, “Review of Craig Claiborne’s Revised New York Times Cookbook,” Journal of Gastronomy, 1990, 83.)
I am happy that Jane is beginning to get the recognition that she deserves.
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