food history
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Top Food Editors: Day Eight & Helen Dollaghan
Day Eight of the Top Food Editors features Helen Dollaghan of the Denver Post. Helen earned a journalism degree from the University of Denver. She was the food editor of the Denver Post from 1958 to 1993, after starting at the newspaper taking classified advertising. She tested recipes in her own kitchen. She was known for breaking ground with on-site food photography such as having photographs taken at the local Squaw Pass. She became known for the recipe Apricot Brandy Chicken when some readers improvised and caused oven doors to be blown off. The cooks who’d had trouble admitted to modifying the recipe by adding extra brandy, then covering the…
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Food Studies Presentation: Ohio Food Editor History
- Cecily Brownstone, food editors, food history, food journalism, Top Food Editors, women's page history
Top Food Editors: Day Six & Cecily Brownstone
Day six of top newspaper food editors features Cecily Brownstone – the longtime food editor at the Associated Press. She had daily recipes and a weekly column from 1947 to 1986. She was a close friend and confident of James Beard who spoke on the phone almost daily, at 8 a.m. New York Times food columnist Molly O’Neil called Brownstone one of the “cornerstones of authentic cooking in New York.” Upon Brownstone’s retirement, former New York Times Food Editor Jane Nickerson wrote: “Of syndicated food writers, she’s been the most widely read.” Her papers are at the Fales Library at NYU. This images – from a dinner party at her…
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Green Bean Casserole & Food Editor Cecily Brownstone
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Top Food Editors: Day Five & Cecil Fleming
Day five of Top Food Editors features Cecil Fleming who was a home economist and a journalist who worked for several newspapers in the 1950s and 1960s. She was married to Quentin Fleming. Cecil Fleming graduated from the University of Washington. She was one of the several “Prudence Penneys” at the Detroit Times, prior to joining the Detroit Free-Press. She was the home economist who answered readers phone calls at the Free-Press. According to food editor Kay Savage, Fleming: “knows why the jelly doesn’t jell and why the meringue weeps.” She went on to the Los Angeles Times and became a food reporter, writing significant nutrition and consumer stories.
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Top Food Editors: Day One & Ruth Ellen Church
For the next 30 days, I will be blogging about a different newspaper food editor. Day one features Ruth Ellen Church, the longtime food editor at the Chicago Tribune. These food editors tested recipes, reviewed restaurants and explained new products. They wrote about rations, consumer news and nutrition research. As technology changed how food was prepared, the food editors evaluated the ease and quality for her readers. This is how Church described her job in a 1955 survey as she supervised a staff of five home economics, a secretary and a kitchen assistant: “We do most of our own food photographs, conduct a daily $5 favorite recipe competition, maintain a…
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Chicago Tribune Beauty Editor Eleanor Nagle
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Brand Names & Food Journalism
In his industry article attacking food editors, Richard Karp wrote that he found four or five articles in The New York Times, out of the numerous articles he examined published over the course of a decade, included brand names in recipes. His accusation is that the use of the brand names was a form of advertising – a violation of journalism’s standards. According to an academic study of newspaper food journalists, editors may have depended on public relations materials for information “they were not spoon-fed by business.” The study’s author noted that newspapers had policies that forbid the use of brand names in recipes. Instead, food editors had a list…
- food editors, food history, food journalism, Jane Nickerson, journalism history, women's page history
More About Jane Nickerson & Journalism History
The creation of the 1950s New York food community likely began with Jane Nickerson at the New York Times. She was the first food editor at the newspaper, beginning in 1942. Over the years, she introduced James Beard to the A.P.’s Cecily Brownstone. Those two were often dinner companions along with Nickerson and her husband. It was Brownstone who introduced the New York food community to Irma S. Rombauer, author of the popular cookbook Joy of Cooking. Later, it was Beard who introduced Julia Child to the food community. Yet, in another example of marginalization, Nickerson rarely get the credit in historical culinary stories. Instead, she has been overshadowed by…
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Food Studies Presentation: Ohio Food Editor History
