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A Culinary Conservation: Newspaper Recipe Exchange Columns
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FCA Presentation: Quilted News
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Jeanne Voltz Images
Jeanne Voltz images were sent to me from her daughter Jeanne. They will be a great addition to my upcoming book, The Food Section.
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Food Editors Using Pen Names
A common practice of newspaper food writers was to use pen names, sometimes at the request of management because they wanted to preserve the continuity of the columnist; after all, it was expected the female reporter would leave employment once married. Food writers were not the first women at newspapers to use pen names. As other historians have noted, female news reporters began using pen names in the late 1800s “because for a woman to work as a newspaper reporter was considered unsavory and disreputable.”
Some of the most famous female journalists of that time were using pen names. Columnist “Dorothy Dix” was really Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer, and Elizabeth Cochrane was hired by Joseph Pulitzer to travel around the world in eighty days as stunt girl “Nellie Bly.” In 1905, the San Francisco Chronicle introduced a food writer with the pen name “Jane Friendly,” supposedly for the sake of anonymity and continuity. When Jane Gugel Benet became the Chronicle’s food editor in 1953, she continued the “Jane Friendly” moniker, even though she was no stranger to the newspaper, beginning first as a copygirl during World War II and eventually working in nearly every department.
The food editors at the Spokane Spokesman-Review used the pen name “Dorothy Dean” for decades, with several women sharing the continuous byline. The first woman serving in that role was Estelle Calkins, who eventually left not because she married but to become a college professor. The next, Edna Mae Enslow Brown, did leave after two years when she married and started a family. Emma States wrote as Dorothy Dean during the war years, from 1941 to 1946, before leaving for a job in Seattle. Verle Ashlock was the next Dorothy Dean, leaving after one year because she married and went to work at the university while her husband completed his college degree. In 1948, home economist Dorothy C. Raymond took over the position of “Dorothy Dean” until she retired in 1957.
The Hearst newspaper chain used the pen name “Prudence Penney” for the position of food reporter at many of its papers beginning after World War I. (That is an image of a Seattle Prudence Penny above.) Because it would have been expensive to wire recipes across the country, there were different “Prudence Penny” reporters at the individual Hearst papers. Local journalists then took on the name in the manner that Aunt Sammy did in communities across the country. “Prudence Penny” began her reign in 1920 and was a quick success. During her first year on the job, Mabelle Burbridge of the New York Daily Mirror answered more than 70,000 letters addressed to Prudence Penny. At least one man took on the role – Hyman Goldberg for the New York Daily Mirror in the 1960s – and he was described as “a crusty, cigar-smoking, girl-watching ex-police reporter” in his obituary. In another example, home economist Cecil Fleming wrote as Prudence Penney while the food editor at the Detroit News. It was said of Fleming, “She knows why the jelly doesn’t jell and why the meringue weeps.”
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Happy Birthday to Irma Rombauer
The National Women's History Museum included this post on its Facebook wall today:
"Happy Birthday Irma Rombauer! She first published the “Joy of Cooking” in 1931; she changed the face of American cookbooks by including an ingredient list, detailed step-by-step directions, and personal anecdotes. The “Joy of Cooking” is one of the most-published cookbooks in the country--today, it has sold more than 18 million copies."
A.P. food editor Cecily Brownstone became a good friend of St. Louis, Missouri resident Irma Rombauer. Their friendship pre-dated Brownstone’s wire service career. Cecily was a food editor at Parents Magazine when the cookbook first came out. She traveled to St. Louis to meet Rombauer. As they sat on a bench at the St. Louis Zoo, Brownstone asked the cookbook author: “Did you vote for Roosevelt?” The answer was “yes” and the two fans of the New Deal became friends for life.
The cookbook was first introduced in 1931 and revised several times in the next few decades. The New York Times described the cookbook as “the most fabled of all American cookbooks, although not always the most fashionable.” It was written in a conversational tone with a mix of recipes from simple dishes and complex cuisine. Later New York Times food writer Marian Burros said that she developed her sense of recipe writing from the Joy of Cooking. This is an example of that style, from the introduction in 1953 edition: “Your first efforts at cooking may result in confusion, but soon you will acquire a skilled routine that will give you confidence and pleasure.” It was Brownstone who introduced Rombauer to the “foodie community in New York. She later wrote the forward for the 50th anniversary edition of the Joy of Cooking cookbook. Brownstone described Rombauer as a “great and good friend.”
Brownstone hosted a party in her home for the 1951 edition of the cookbook. A photo from the event, found in her papers at the Fales Library, shows well dressed women gathered on a garden balcony. It was Brownstone’s New York City Brownstone home that became a central meeting place for the culinary writing establishment, according to Kamp. He noted the gatherings of magazine and newspaper writers in the 1950s – all women other than James Beard. Noted writer David Kamp: “Though Beard still did not reach as many readers as newspaper columnists like Brownstone, (Clementine) Paddleford and (Jane) Nickerson, he eclipsed them in fame through force of personality.”
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Stories of Washington State Food Editors
Columbia Magazine just accepted my pitch about Washington State food editors. (My 2010 article about women's page journalist Bobbi McCallum was published in Columbia.)
I am going to be writing about three of Washington's food editors: Prudence Penny at the Seattle P-I, Dorothy Neighbors at the Seattle Times and Dorothy Dean at the Spokesman-Review - they are all pen names.
What makes this work a challenge was the use of pen names. I want to know who these women actually were. For example, the food editors at the Spokane Spokesman-Review used the pen name “Dorothy Dean” for decades, with several women sharing the continuous byline. The first woman serving in that role was Estelle Calkins, who eventually left not because she married but to become a college professor. The next, Edna Mae Enslow Brown, did leave after two years when she married and started a family. Emma States wrote as Dorothy Dean during the war years, from 1941 to 1946, before leaving for a job in Seattle. Verle Ashlock was the next Dorothy Dean, leaving after one year because she married and went to work at the university while her husband completed his college degree. In 1948, home economist Dorothy C. Raymond took over the position of “Dorothy Dean” until she retired in 1957.
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Food Studies: The Culinary Journalists of the 1950s
My paper "The Culinary Journalists of the 1950s: An Examination of the Women Who Explained the News of Food" has been accepted for the 2014 Food Studies Conference.
The paper answers the question: Who were these women who covered the food beat at newspapers in the 1950s? Many false assumptions have been made about these food editors as being simple as best and at worst, as being unethical. The truth is that most editors (almost all female) were trained journalists and/or home economists. Yet, at various times these women have found themselves either marginalized or under attack. This paper seeks to clarify what was newspaper food journalism by looking at the editorial content of the sections and the journalists who covered them. There have been many generalizations that the sections were fluff or pandering to advertisers. This examination challenges those views. The editors were chosen based on being Vesta Award winners and/or being included in the 1952 Coast to Coast cookbook created by newspaper food editors. The results reflect a more complex understanding about food journalism than previously thought. Further, an examination of the food sections leads to a better understanding of home cooks of the 1950s.
One of the food editors I will be discussing in Jeanne Voltz who was the food editor at the Miami Herald in the 1950s. While there, she edited the recipe book pictured above.
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Researching Food Journalism History
Research for my upcoming book, The Food Section: Newspaper Women and the Culinary Community, meant some great culinary adventures.
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Lance & I along with both children attended the International Food & Wine Festival at Epcot last fall as I began looking at how Orlando Sentinel food editor Dorothy Chapman covered the theme park restaurants.
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Last Christmas, I entered the NY Times Cookie Contest that was held on Pinterest. I submitted by beachy cookie creation. Most newspaper food sections held regular cooking contests for home cooks.
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In February 2013, we attended the Orlando Chili Cook-Off to look at how the judging for the competition was done. Newspaper food editors were often the judges in cooking competition.
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I collected recipe writing materials and practiced my recipe skills. I attempted to take an online recipe writing class with Cook 'n Scribble but it didn't work out.
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Last Summer, Lance and I went through the memoirs of Orlando Sentinel food editor Grace Barr's son. His papers are at the Orange County History Center and gave me some insight to Barr's career. (She was the food editor before Dorothy Chapman.)
Lance & I along with both children attended the International Food & Wine Festival at Epcot last fall as I began looking at how Orlando Sentinel food editor Dorothy Chapman covered the theme park restaurants.
Last Christmas, I entered the NY Times Cookie Contest that was held on Pinterest. I submitted by beachy cookie creation. Most newspaper food sections held regular cooking contests for home cooks.
In February 2013, we attended the Orlando Chili Cook-Off to look at how the judging for the competition was done. Newspaper food editors were often the judges in cooking competition.
I collected recipe writing materials and practiced my recipe skills. I attempted to take an online recipe writing class with Cook 'n Scribble but it didn't work out.
Last Summer, Lance and I went through the memoirs of Orlando Sentinel food editor Grace Barr's son. His papers are at the Orange County History Center and gave me some insight to Barr's career. (She was the food editor before Dorothy Chapman.)
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Happy Birthday to Jeanne Voltz
Today would have been food editor Jeanne Voltz's 93 birthday. She was at the Miami Herald in the 1950s and at the Los Angeles Times in the 1960s.
In her more than forty years as a journalist, Voltz became what one culinary authority described as “the best known food expert you’ve probably never heard of.”
Terry Ford, a food editor and a charter member of Julia Child’s American Institute of Food and Wine, declared that Voltz has not been recognized for her contribution to culinary journalism. “She’s an extraordinary person, he said. “Her career goes bicoastal. Her impact and her knowledge is vast. She is very gifted, very crafted. When you read something Jeanne Voltz writes, you can say it was 100 percent thoroughly researched.”
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The Food Section Cover
The cover of my upcoming book, The Food Section, has been approved. I love what the designer did with the cover.
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Vintage Cocktail Column
My Vintage Cocktail Column in Okra Magazine has been published. Here is a link to it.
In my post, I wrote about the Washington women's page and female political journalists: "In 1962, the Women’s National Press Club issued a new cookbook to raise money for a clubhouse. The book, Second Helping, was a follow up to the group’s popular 1955 publication, Who Says We Can’t Cook! The Washington, D.C.-based female reporters were known for their alcohol-fueled gatherings and their books featured several cocktail recipes. (To get an idea of how much alcohol the journalists consumed, a book about them was titled Drunk Before Noon.)"
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Our NCA Talk: Regional Cookery
Today, Lance & I are giving a talk at the NCA Pre-conference: Our Place at the Table: Continuing the Conversation and Deepening the Connections between Food and Communication.
Our paper is "Regional Cookery: The Relationship Between Newspaper Food Editors & Home Cooks Spanning the Public & Private Spheres."
It is an examination of newspaper cookbooks from the 1940s through the 1970s. It builds on the scholarship of some scholars who have found that the act of producing the cooking publication were more feminist than originally thought. For example, a study of the “Lutheran Church Women” in Iowa found distinct feminist actions. The scholar noted the activity of gathering information and producing a cookbook. She noted of the women:
"They entered the economic sphere both to produce and to sell their cookbooks, and they negotiated and developed a corporate process that gave them an important voice in the community. Of course, they did so in the service of a domestic ideology that feminism opposed, but their methods were closer to those of contemporary feminists than either side was then likely to admit: a politics of celebrating women getting together, creating collectively, valuing women and women’s work."
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Vivian Castleberry's Coverage of JFK in Dallas
The only reporter's notebook that women's page editor Vivian Castleberry ever kept was the one she used when she was at the Trade Mart on November 22, 1963. Vivian drove to her office at the Dallas Times Herald early that morning. Her daughter Carol was with her that morning. Carol was going to go to the library and then take a spot along President JFK's route. She would then take a bus to school.
Vivian sent her reporter Val Imm to cover the event at Love Field. Vivian arrived at the Trade Mart and interviewed Dallas Judge Sarah Hughes. She said that she was concerned about the president visiting Dallas.
Back in 2008, wearing white gloves, I examined Vivian's notebook - located at the Sixth Floor Museum. She began her coverage with background about Jackie and a math notation to figure out her age. She described the centerpieces and listed the seating arrangements.
Then, the action began as described in the notebook:
Press burst through East door. Faces stark, drawn. Organ continues to play - guests start milling.
The organ stopped playing.
Critical
Faces that
I am not sure I can say what I have to say
It is true that own pres and gov
We do not know how seriously
We are relying upon the faith that we possess
In behalf of our own pres and our
Even in this gathering we will reveal that calmness that one shall await word
Mrs. Henry S. Miller "Oh God. Isn't it terrible? Isn't it terrible?" - and burst into tears.
Carl Callaway "I have been scared to death for him to come."
William H. Dickinson, Jr. "There are no words to express how we are feeling.
Mrs. Stanley Stemmers gasped and the tears began to
President Kennedy never sat in the chair nor used the red phone provided for him.
Joe H. Galman - long hesitation - speechless
"My heart goes out to the widow and children of John Kennedy and for the family."
Later, Vivian conducted a phone interview with Hughes who had sworn in President Johnson:
"It's no big deal. He was my friend. They called and asked me to come and I went."
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Women & Food Symposium
I am excited to speak about some of my favorite topics at the Women & Food Symposium: food, gender, journalism & social media.
I will speak about the recipe exchange columns from the newspaper food sections as a form of social media.
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The Future of the San Francisco Food Section?
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The Importance of the San Francisco Chronicle Food Section
The San Francisco Chronicle is wrong to think of re-tooling the food section to make it something different than what readers have long been used to reading. The recent Facebook page devoted to saving the food section is just one example of the kind of backlash the newspaper has been receiving. (Newspaper management has responded that food coverage will remain the same but has not said that the food section will remain.)
I have long studied newspaper food sections which began in the women's pages. Newspaper food sections have long served an important purpose for home cooks and restaurant fans. Readers wrote letters and called the editors on a regular basis. The food sections of newspapers reflected gender roles, health standards, and governmental policies about food in a community.
Other articles in the food section approach food through societal elements such as the role of poverty and nutrition that went beyond recipes. Yet, that is not to dismiss the value of the recipes, which represented a changing American appetite following World War II and the impact of women working outside of the home. The most popular request from newspaper readers to food editors was for recipes - which were clipped, lost & requested again. I have argued that this was an early form of social media.
In 1952, Church indicated that readers of the Chicago Tribune requested the following:
Recipes for French pastry, Italian cannoli, East Indian curry; they want to know how to cook pheasant in wine and to make rich, extravagant desserts. But they also want to know how to fix the more everyday foods of such as potato salad, coleslaw, bread pudding, and corned beef hash.
Newspaper's food sections have a direct connection to the community that a national food magazine does not. Food editors will largely write about local stores, local restaurants, and local cooks. For example, the Akron Beacon Journal food editor Polly Paffilas said of her role:
"The newspaper food editor is the homemakers’ best friend, mother confessor and mentor. Mrs. Jones calls us when she can’t understand a recipe in a national magazine or when Graham Kerr talks about clarified butter. Mrs. Jones doesn’t call the magazine or the TV station. She calls me."
The San Francisco Chronicle has long had a food section. Jane Gugel Benet started at the San Francisco Chronicle as a copygirl during World War II and worked in almost every part of the newspaper. She became the food editor in 1953 and often used the pen name “Jane Friendly.” She judged numerous cooking competitions, wrote two cookbooks and three nationally syndicated columns. She retired in 1988. The Sonoma County Culinary Guild presents a scholarship each year in her name. She married James Walker Benet, a journalist and a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War.
The Chronicle needs to continue its food section. It is a significant part of the newspaper - especially for readers.
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Thanksgiving & Food Sections
At the Los Angeles Times, food editors Betsy Baisley and Barbara Hansen, who worked with Jeanne Voltz, said advertisers never pressured them about food news content. “Ethics was always a very important matter,” Hansen said. Baisley said there was no connection between editorial and advertising at her newspaper. “The food section was completely autonomous,” she said. “Nobody told me what to put into it. Nobody told me what to leave out.”
The food journalists were not ambivalent to the fact that their sections made money for the newspaper. The week before a 1970's Thanksgiving, the food section of the Los Angeles Times was 90 pages thick. The day after the section ran, Baisley happened to be in the elevator when the advertising manager got on and bragged to her that the section had brought in a million dollars. “I tell you, I wanted to slug him,” Baisley said. “We made money for the Times and we had an awful lot of fun doing it.”
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Food Journalism & Regional Cookery
at this year's National Communication Association's pre-conference: Our Place at the Table: Continuing the Conversation and Deepening the Connections between Food and Communication.
In 2013, historians and culinary writers are just beginning to study food journalism. Until recently, most of what was documented about food journalism was limited to the New York Timesfood editor and restaurant critic Craig Claiborne. One notable exception is the book Hometown Appetites about the longtime New York Herald Tribune food reporter Clementine Paddleford, written by Kelly Alexander and Cynthia Harris.[i]Food editors like Paddleford were influential in their day but have been long overshadowed by Claiborne. According to an article by Alexander, “Paddleford’s genius lay in tapping into what she knew best: authentic home cooking. And she used her pulpit to spread local cooks’ favorite recipes, and the stories behind them, from coast to coast.”[ii]This could be said about the overwhelming female food editors.
Our paper is an examination of newspaper cookbooks from the 1940s through the 1970s. Many newspaper editors published cookbooks and cooking pamphlets over the years. Some included favorites of the food editors and others were collections of recipes sent in by home cook readers or restaurant chefs. Because of their statures as well-known food editors, some of the women wrote their own cookbooks.
[i] Kelly Alexander and Cynthia Harris,Hometown Appetites: The Story of Clementine Paddleford, the Forgotten Food Writer Who Chronicled How America Ate (New York: Gotham Press, 2008)
[ii] Kelly Alexander, “Hometown Appetites,” Saveur, November 19, 2007. http://www.saveur.com/article/Kitchen/Hometown-Appetites/1
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Death of Ruthe Deskin's Daughter
I was so sad to learn about the death of Terry Gialketsis, the daughter of Las Vegas journalist Ruthe Deskin. Lance & I met with Terry a few years ago while at UNLV. She was so helpful and shared great information about her mother.
Ruthe started her career as a women's page editor before becoming becoming the assistant to Hank Greenspun at the Las Vegas Sun. She wrote the front page column: Memo to Hank.
Our article “Where She Stands: Ruthe Deskin and Her Place in the City of Bright Lights and Bigger Personalities After 50 years at the Las Vegas Sun,” should come out this month.
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Gossip in the Women's Pages
I just learned that the book When Private Talk Goes Public: Gossip in United States History will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2014.
My chapter in the book is “Gossip in the Women’s Pages: Examining and Legitimizing the Work of Female Journalists in the 1950s and 1960s.” In it, I wrote about Vera Glaser who is pictured above. Her political column appeared in women's pages across the country.
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