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

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.