The food writer who gives the most credit to newspaper food editors is Laura Shapiro. Examples are included in her above book, Something From the Oven. She includes several references to Ruth Ellen Church, a food editor at the Chicago Tribune. One of those references is about the popularity of making cakes – a popular topic for food writers and food historians for what a cake represents. In 1948, Church (writing under the pen name “Mary Meade”) introduced the recipe feature “Cake of the Week.” Church was quoted: “My staff and I have known for a long time that women love cakes, but we were somewhat surprised at the popularity…

This cookbook written by Mary Meade (the pen name of Ruth Ellen Church) arrived on Friday. Church wrote an amazing number of cookbooks while the food editor of the Chicago Tribune from 1936 to 1974. This cookbook, The Modern Homemaker Cookbook, was published in 1966. I am currently collecting material for a conference paper on Church’s career. Her reporting and writing demonstrate that food journalism was more complex than the historical record has shown.

Yesterday I read about longtime Chicago Tribune food editor Ruth Ellen Church – who often wrote under the name Mary Meade. She was the food editor from 1936 to 1974. She was also known as the country’s first wine editor. She graduated from Iowa State University in 1933 with a degree in food and nutrition journalism. The photo above is from the Special Collections at that University. I plan to find out what information they have about her college years. She published many cookbooks during her career that I am hoping to track down. Sadly, she was murdered in 1991 at the age of 81. Here is the New York…