Women in the Kitchen: Twelve Essential Cookbook Writers Who Defined the Way We Eat, from 1661 to Today

by Anne Willan

Overview

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).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501173325
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	05/04/2021
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Anne Willan founded La Varenne Cooking School in Paris in 1975 and has written more than thirty books, including the double James Beard Award–winning, The Country Cooking of France, the Gourmand Award–winning The Cookbook Library, and the groundbreaking La Varenne Pratique, as well as the Look & Cook series, showcased on PBS. In 2013, she was inducted into the James Beard Foundation Awards Hall of Fame. Willan serves as an Emeritus Advisor for The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. She divides her time between London and the south of France.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 3

Chapter 1 Hannah Woolley 1622-1675 9

Chapter 2 Hannah Glasse 1708-1770 29

Chapter 3 Amelia Simmons (dates unknown) 53

Chapter 4 Maria Rundell 1745-1828 73

Chapter 5 Lydia Child 1802-1880 95

Chapter 6 Sarah Rutledge 1782-1855 113

Chapter 7 Fannie Farmer 1857-1915 129

Chapter 8 Irma Rombauer 1877-1962 153

Chapter 9 Julia Child 1912-2004 175

Chapter 10 Edna Lewis 1916-2006 211

Chapter 11 Marcella Hazan 1924-2013 237

Chapter 12 Alice Waters 1944- 259

Epilogue: Where We Go From Here 283

Bibliography 287

Recipe Permissions 291

Index 293

Editorial Reviews

Both cooks and historians will eagerly tuck into this cleverly conceived, well-researched collection.”
—Publishers Weekly

"An edifying survey of 12 women whose groundbreaking cookbooks span some 350 years. Ms. Willan enriches her social history with a few of each woman’s most tempting recipes."
—Heller McAlpin, The Wall Street Journal

“Most of the cooking of the world is done by women. I myself was taught by women cooks, my mother and aunts ran their own restaurants. Women in the Kitchen is an enlightening, fascinating journey with the formidable women cooks who made history by creating the rich and complex cuisine of today’s America.”
—Jacques Pépin

“Anne Willan, one of the great cookbook authors of our times, pays tribute to her predecessors and a few contemporaries in this glorious book that celebrates the achievements of women in the kitchen and on the page. Replete with recipes, historic and updated for modern cooks, Women in the Kitchen is nothing less than an absolute delight.”
—Ken Albala, Professor of History, University of the Pacific

“This beautifully curated collection makes a strong case for the importance of cookbooks and the power of women’s voices. Anne Willan shows how female cookbook writers from the seventeenth century to the present have been in the vanguard of progressive change. Her twelve engaging chapters explore the history of cookbooks and give us a taste of each era in delectably modernized recipes. This is a book for both library and kitchen.”
—Darra Goldstein, Founding Editor of Gastronomica

“Anne Willan reminds us that the cookbook authors who really have shaped the way we live in our home’s kitchens predominantly have been women. With biographical sketches of a dozen of the most important writers, ranging from 17th century Hannah Woolley to contemporary Alice Waters, she brings their work to life. And even more fun, she includes sample recipes from each, updated to work for modern cooks.”
—Russ Parsons, author of How to Pick a Peach

"Lyon was the capital of “les mères” and as a young chef I was blessed to work at La Mère Blanc, a female dominated kitchen. The graceful, casual, yet refined approach to cooking was unforgettable for me. Anne’s book, brings me back to the sensibility and devotion of a simple and soulful cuisine."
—Daniel Boulud, Chef & Restaurateur

"Noteworthy... traces the development of American cuisine via the contributions of 12 female cookbook writers."
—The New York Times

"Examines the recipes of a dozen cooks who made groundbreaking contributions across the food industry... these women reshaped the practice of home cooking and broke barriers in the male-dominated food industry."
—Smithsonian Magazine

"Willan has melded her passions for culinary history, writing and teaching into her fascinating new book."
—Chicago Tribune

“The stories of these women are both informative and inspiring, and the 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

"A tasty, digestible volume... Willan draws from a deep well of knowledge and passion to craft a clearly written, cohesive chronicle of the evolution of American and British cuisine... Approachable and charming, this text allows readers to learn about the lineage of women cooks while participating in it."
—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2020-05-04
The founder of La Varenne Cooking School in Paris offers a succinct history of her female predecessors.

In this tasty, digestible volume, Willan, a member of the James Beard Foundation Awards Hall of Fame with more than six decades of experience in the world of food and cooking, explores a semialternative narrative of American and British cuisines. Female cookbook authors, she argues, have not only offered sound guidance to the millions of women feeding their families and guests since the 1600s; they have also gained financial independence and prestige, set trends, and paved the way for each other’s success. A collector of cookbooks herself, Willan clearly draws from a deep well of knowledge and passion in her biographies of 12 influential female writers. Via their stories, she crafts a clearly written, cohesive chronicle of the evolution of American and British cuisine, complete with colorful anecdotes about the movement and fashion of ingredients, the influence of class and education on women’s private and public culinary lives, and the gradual acceptance of cultural diversity into the mainstream palate. Occasionally repetitive—we learn multiple times about how “tomatoes were regarded with suspicion when they were brought to Europe from the New World” or that corn, a staple for Native Americans, “was a challenge for early American cooks”—Willan’s accounts of early British and American kitchens will leave contemporary cooks grateful for our modern conveniences and abundant flavor options. Each biography is accompanied by some of their subject’s most delectable recipes, first from the original texts and then reinterpreted by Willan. The older recipes are marvelous and entertaining historical documents that rely on the author’s translations to make them accessible. By the time she gets to figures like Julia Child and Alice Waters, who wrote rigorously tested recipes in an easily recognizable style, Willan’s adaptations contribute little.

Approachable and charming, this text allows readers to learn about the lineage of women cooks while participating in it.

Kirkus Reviews