Women’s History Month: Cecily Brownstone
Day 26 of Women’s History month feature food writer Cecily Brownstone – her food columns ran in newspapers across the country. She has been described as “the ad hoc matriarch of James Beard’s culinary salon” and a “cuisine maven.” While she has been largely overshadowed by culinary writers like Beard and Craig Claiborne, she had a broad reach in her food journalism in her nearly four decade career. Brownstone wrote about food for the Associated Press from 1947 until she retired in 1986. Brownstone wrote two columns about cuisine and five recipes a week for the national wire service for an estimated 14,200 articles during her career. She explored changes in cooking trends and an evolving American palette. For many years, she also addressed the typical homemaker and later working mother who simply wanted to get dinner on the table at the end of the day.
Brownstone amassed a collection of some 8,000 cookbooks during her career. She donated her cookbooks to the Fales Collection at New York University in 2002. According to the Marvin Taylor, the head of Fales Special Collection: “Even if we had all the time and money in the world, we couldn’t reassemble a collection this size and scarcity.” Included in the donation was every edition of the classic cookbook, the Joy of Cooking from 1931 to 1975 – as well as the first edition which was inscribed to Brownstone. Her books included those which reflected the times such as one from the 1970s: “Cooking for Orgies and Other Large Groups.” Also included in the donation were 5,000 food pamphlets and hundreds of letters. The food pamphlets included tips for cooking with war-time rations and regional recipes such as a Louisiana dishes with nutria – a water rat.
The above image is from a party that Brownstone held at her home for the publication of another edition of the cookbook Joy of Cooking.
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