The popular book, the United States of Arugula, includes several references to the New York Times first food editor, Jane Nickerson. In it, author David Kamp described the 1950s “emergence of a true food establishment in America, a small group of New York-based sophisticates who, via newspaper columns, magazine work, and cookbooks, had national even international reach.” He included in this group James Beard, McCalls’s food editor Helen McCully, Associated Press food editor Cecily Brownstone, Clementine Paddleford of the Herald Tribune and Nickerson. He wrote that the members of this group, “kept one another’s counsel, exchanged gossip, and stood united in opposition to the quick-bake, canned-soup mores of the domestic…

I have been working on my manuscript about NYT food editor Jane Nickerson. The story of Nickerson’s resignation from the newspaper was explained in Craig Claiborne’s memoir, A Memoir with Recipes: A Feast Made for Laughter (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1982). He wrote that at the beginning of 1957, she told the Times that “for reasons for family” she would be resigning from the newspaper as of September 1. Claiborne, who became the NYT food editor following Nickerson, wrote: “I was a bit startled at the news because of my respect for Jane as a journalist and also because I knew of her devotion to the job. She was…

I am going over my clips from Jane Nickerson’s work at the New York Times and have found clear evidence of her “food as news” work. (This goes counter to the credit that too many historians give later NYT food editor Craig Claiborne.) Take for example, the above article from August 14, 1946. In it, Nickerson writes: “Potatoes have been pressed into service as a substitute so that more grain and flour can be sent to starving people.” She goes on to give several sample recipes using potatoes.