Tasting Home: Coming of Age in the Kitchen

by Judith Newton

Overview

Tasting Home is the history of a woman’s emotional education, the romantic tale of a marriage between a straight woman and a gay man, and an exploration of the ways that cooking can lay the groundwork for personal healing, intimate relation, and political community. Organized by decade and by the cookbooks that shaped author Judith Newton’s life, Tasting Home takes readers on an extraordinary journey through the cuisines, cultural spirit, and politics of the 1940s through 2011, complete with recipes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938314094
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	03/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	323
File size:	363 KB

About the Author

Judith Newton is Professor Emerita in Women and Gender Studies at U.C. Davis. While at U.C. Davis she directed the Women and Gender Studies program for eight years and the Consortium for Women and Research for four.
She is ; the author and co-editor of five works of non fiction on nineteenth-century British women writers, feminist criticism, women's history, and men's ; movements.
Her most current work has appeared in The Redwood Coast Review (Winter 2012), poetalk (Summer, 2011), and at http://tasting-home.com and at http://ipinion.us/columns/?cat=26. She is currently at work on a feminist mystery and lives in the East Bay of California where she tends her garden.

Table of Contents

Contents

Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

I. Foods and Fashions of 1936:

The Thirties, Forties, and Fifties

Cry Babies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

The Queen of Pies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Death Valley Date Nut Bread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Sour Milk Biscuits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

The Latinaires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Oatmeal Crispies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Sugar Smorgasbord . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Loaves and Fishes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Graduation Cake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

II. Mastering the Art of French Cooking:

The Sixties

Dry Rolls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Berkeley Born Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

The Jake Sandwich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Shortbread and Madeira . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Tarte Normande Aux Pommes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

“If It Weren't For You…” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Our Vegetable Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Leaving Paradise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

III. Time-Life Foods of the World:

The Seventies

The Cooking of Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Whole Wheat Crackers, Cheddar Cheese, and Herbal Tea . 119

Pears in Red Wine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Toasted Wheat Germ and Pepped-Up Milk . . . . . . . . . . 135

The Cooking of the British Isles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

The Cooking of Provincial France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Chicken Vall.e D'Auge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Dickens's Punch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

IV. Moosewood:

The Eighties

Spinach-Rice Casserole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Whole Wheat Croissant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

In Other Worlds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Pasta Fantasies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Muffin Madness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Bread and Babies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Salmon Mousse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Carrot Cake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Hannah Banana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Even in Paradise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

V. Martha, Frida, Mark, and Lee:

The Nineties

Food and Wine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Bibimbap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Entertaining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Currant Scones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Coyote Cafe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

California Wine Country Cooking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Like Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Frida's Fiesta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Epilogue: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Index of Recipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/14/2013
Judith Newton has spent her life searching for home and family while pursuing an academic career. From seeking affection from her mother and time spent in communal living to her involvement in civil rights struggles, her choice to have a child, and the death of her best friend, Newton has marked the many phases of her life with food. Each chapter of this engaging memoir includes a recipe that relates to a corresponding time in Newton's life. Readers will find her story delightful and resonant—especially given the universal relationship between food and family. This is a well-paced coming-of-age story with all the right ingredients: honesty, well-drawn characters, and plenty of insight.

Publishers Weekly

In this elegantly written work, Newton has completely taken us by surprise. There’s a sense of tension, of expectation, of waiting for the other shoe to drop that creates a subliminal buzz. Through her personal story, Newton manages to weave in the entire course of the culture, a reflection of her skills as an historian and an accomplished writer as well as a born storyteller.”
—Jeanette Ferrary, author of Out of the Kitchen: Adventures of a Food Writer and Between Friends: M.F.K. Fisher and Me

“In this captivating memoir, Newton draws the reader into a world where major events are brought to life with poignant food memories. Each vignette is pitch-perfect, lively, and engaging, striking a delicate balance between self-disclosure and universal themes of acceptance, love, community-building, and political engagement.”
—Janet A. Flammang, author of The Taste for Civilization: Food, Politics, and Civil Society

“Tasting Home is more than a food memoir. Influenced by the civil rights struggle, the women’s movement, and the AIDS epidemic, it is an odyssey of emotional, intellectual, and spiritual growth. Like a grand meal, Tasting Home is a resounding success.”
—Belinda Robnett, author of How Long? How Long? African-American Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights

“This evocative memoir creates a tapestry of the personal and the political, weaving together stories of family, friendship, and community, of love, birth, and death. Punctuated by favorite recipes, this vivid narrative celebrates matters of both the kitchen and the heart.”
—Wendy Martin, author of We Are the Stories We Tell and More Stories We Tell

From the Publisher