Food and Wine : History

The rollicking biography of Clementine Paddleford: “a go- anywhere, taste-anything, ask-everything kind of reporter who traveled more than 50,000 miles a year in search of stories. . . . matched as a regional-food pioneer only by James Beard.” (R. W. Apple , Jr., The New York Times). In Hometown Appetites, an award-winning food writer and a leading university archivist come together to revive the legacy of the most important food writer you have never heard of. Clementine Paddleford was a Kansas farm girl who grew up to chronicle America’s culinary habits. Her weekly readership at the New York Herald Tribune topped 12 million during the 1950s and 1960s and she earned a salary of $250,000. Yet twenty years after “America’s bestknown food editor” passed away, she had been forgotten— until now. At a time when few women worked outside the home, Paddleford flew her own Piper Cub to meet her readers and find out what was for dinner. Before Paddleford, newspaper food sections were dull primers on home economy. But she changed all of that, composing her own brand of sassy, unerringly authoritative prose designed to celebrate regional home cooking. Her magnum opus, a book called How America Eats, published in 1960, reveals an appetite for life that was insatiable. This book restores Paddleford’s name where it belongs: in the pantheon alongside those of James Beard and Julia Child. It’s a five-star read in the spirit of national bestsellers such as Heat and The United States of Arugula. more...

Price: $27.50

The diverse elements of an evolving pan-Latino food culture-the origins of the various groups and their foodstuffs, cooking, meals and eating habits, special occasions, and diet and health--are expertly and thoroughly presented here in depth for the first time. The topical narrative chapters are essential reading for crucial cultural insight into Latinos of all backgrounds today. more...

Price: $54.95

The story of the powerful McIlhennys of Louisiana, who turned hot peppers into a Tabasco fortune. After the Civil War ended, Edmund McIlhenny, an ambitious and tenacious Louisiana businessman, found himself with few prospects. The South's economy in ruins and his millions of dollars in Confederacy currency worthless, he had no choice but to return with his wife, Mary, to her family home in Avery Island, a former sugar plantation destroyed by Union soldiers. To McIlhenny's surprise, the hot peppers he had planted before being forced off the island had flourished. Desperate to start a new business, he chopped up the peppers, combined them with salt and vinegar, and produced the first batch of hot pepper sauce. Or so the story goes. He called the sauce Tabasco. In this fascinating history, Jeffrey Rothfeder tells how, from a simple idea—the outgrowth of a handful of peppers planted on an isolated island on the Gulf of Mexico—a secretive family business emerged that would produce one of the best-known products in the world. In short order, McIlhenny's descendants would turn Tabasco into a gold mine and an icon of pop culture, making it as recognizable as far bigger brands such as Coca-Cola and Kleenex. To this day, the McIlhenny Co., still run by a family of matchless characters who believe in a rigid code of family loyalty, clings to tradition and the old ways of doing business. Yet by fiercely protecting its beloved brand and refusing to sell out to big food conglomerates, this family business has run circles around its competitors, churning out annual revenues that have surpassed everyone's expectations. A delectable and satisfying read for both Tabasco fans and business buffs, McIlhenny's Gold is the untold story of the continuing success of an eccentric, private company; a lively history of one of the most popular consumer products of all times; and an exploration of our desire to test the limits of human tolerance for fiery foods. more...

Price: $19.95

Julia Child singlehandedly created a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef , but as she reveals in this bestselling memoir, she was not always a master chef. more...

Price: $9.95

This book tackles the issues of subsistence in its social context by focusing on food as a cultural artefact. more...

Price: $215.00