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

Anne Willan

Aug 2020 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

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).

Ratings and reviews

Survey of 350 Years of Cookbooks Written By Women I have been reading cookbooks like novels since I was a teenager; my mother started me on the practice! This book looks at the cookbook contributions of female writers from the 17th century to the modern day. The female cooks of history may not be well known to you, but you will probably recognize the others featured recipe writers and cookbook authors, like Julia Child, Irma Rombauer (Joy of Cooking fame), and Alice Waters. The book has a fascinating introductory section, where Mrs. Willan talks about these authors and their books collectively, how the books came about, and a little of the cultural milieu—including the fact that women’s cookery books tend to be more simple and home based than men’s. The rest of the book looks at each cookbook author in chronological order. Each chapter gives more detail about the woman and her cookbook(s), and Mrs. Willan has not only included recipes from the original texts, but she has also created modern updates of them. Some older “receipts” were written with no measurements at all. I appreciated the author's modern spin on these older recipes. I found it fascinating that quite often the women wrote these books because they needed money, not unlike motivations today. One actually wrote the book to instruct her staff and shared it with friends so they could give it to their servants. Given the ease of ebook publishing these days, I found the little bits of information about how these women published their books interesting as well; it was certainly a different world. If you love cookbooks as I do, if you have an interest in English and American culinary history, or if you are a fan of any of the ladies featured in the book, you may very well enjoy this book as much as I did. I received a free copy of this book, but that did not affect my review.

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.