WOMEN IN THE KITCHEN

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 The older recipes are marvelous and entertaining historical documents that rely on the author’s translations to make them accessible.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.