Women in the Kitchen: Twelve Essential Cookbook Writers Who Defined the Way We Eat, from 1661 to Today
Anne Willan
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Women in the Kitchen: Twelve Essential Cookbook Writers Who Defined the Way We Eat, from 1661 to Today
Anne Willan
Culinary historian Anne Willan “has melded her passions for culinary history, writing, and teaching into her fascinating new book” (Chicago Tribune) that traces the origins of American cooking through profiles of twelve influential women—from Hannah Woolley in the mid-1600s to Fannie Farmer, Julia Child, and Alice Waters—whose recipes and ideas changed the way we eat.Anne Willan, multi-award-winning culinary historian, cookbook writer, teacher, and founder of La Varenne Cooking School in Paris, explores the lives and work of women cookbook authors whose essential books have defined cooking over the past three hundred years. Beginning with the first published cookbook by Hannah Woolley in 1661 to the early colonial days to the transformative popular works by Fannie Farmer, Irma Rombauer, Julia Child, Edna Lewis, Marcella Hazan, and up to Alice Waters working today. Willan offers a brief biography of each influential woman, highlighting her key contributions, seminal books, and representative dishes. The book features fifty original recipes—as well as updated versions Willan has tested and modernized for the contemporary kitchen. Women in the Kitchen is an engaging narrative that seamlessly moves through the centuries to help readers understand the ways cookbook authors inspire one another, that they in part owe their places in history to those who came before them, and how they forever change the culinary landscape. This “informative and inspiring book is a reminder that the love of delicious food and the care and preparation that goes into it can create a common bond” (Booklist).
Publication Year: 2020
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0This book was a mixed bag. It was interesting learning about the history of American (and a little bit British) food from a female perspective. However, it felt simultaneously like too much information and not enough. I think part of the problem was that it focused solely on cookbook writers. While that was the point of the book, it didn't seem like it led to a well-rounded view of women in the kitchen. In some ways it also seemed to gloss over some of the more complex and complicated history surrounding American cuisine. Cookbook writers were overwhelmingly white and of at least middle if not upper-class descent and that is reflected in the writers highlighted in this book (other than the inclusion of Edna Lewis). For this reason, this book is less about certain women in the kitchen and what shaped modern American eating habits and is more focused on how cookbooks transformed through time.
All that being said, it was mildly interesting. For background, I'm not a chef, but I am a home cook and baker. I found myself setting reading goals (I will read one chapter today) in order to finish it rather than being unable to put it down. It was an easy read though, and I appreciated the inclusion of recipes from each cookbook. The recipes, more than anything else, demonstrated how some parts of American cooking have changed through time. It was also interesting learning about the lives of a select number of female cookbook writers. I don't regret reading it, but I won't be holding on to my copy for posterity.
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