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A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2017 One of NPR Fresh Air's "Books to Close Out a Chaotic 2017" NPR's Book Concierge Guide To 2017’s Great Reads “How lucky for us readers that Shapiro has been listening so perceptively for decades to the language of food.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR Fresh Air Six “mouthwatering” (Eater.com) short takes on six famous women through the lens of food and cooking, probing how their attitudes toward food can offer surprising new insights into their lives, and our own. Everyone eats, and food touches on every aspect of our lives—social and cultural, personal and political. Yet most biographers pay little attention to people’s attitudes toward food, as if the great and notable never bothered to think about what was on the plate in front of them. Once we ask how somebody relates to food, we find a whole world of different and provocative ways to understand her. Food stories can be as intimate and revealing as stories of love, work, or coming-of-age. Each of the six women in this entertaining group portrait was famous in her time, and most are still famous in ours; but until now, nobody has told their lives from the point of view of the kitchen and the table. What She Ate is a lively and unpredictable array of women; what they have in common with one another (and us) is a powerful relationship with food. They include Dorothy Wordsworth, whose food story transforms our picture of the life she shared with her famous poet brother; Rosa Lewis, the Edwardian-era Cockney caterer who cooked her way up the social ladder; Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady and rigorous protector of the worst cook in White House history; Eva Braun, Hitler’s mistress, who challenges our warm associations of food, family, and table; Barbara Pym, whose witty books upend a host of stereotypes about postwar British cuisine; and Helen Gurley Brown, the editor of Cosmopolitan, whose commitment to “having it all” meant having almost nothing on the plate except a supersized portion of diet gelatin.
A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2017 One of NPR Fresh Air's "Books to Close Out a Chaotic 2017" NPR's Book Concierge Guide To 2017’s Great Reads “How lucky for us readers that Shapiro has been listening so perceptively for decades to the language of food.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR Fresh Air Six “mouthwatering” (Eater.com) short takes on six famous women through the lens of food and cooking, probing how their attitudes toward food can offer surprising new insights into their lives, and our own. Everyone eats, and food touches on every aspect of our lives—social and cultural, personal and political. Yet most biographers pay little attention to people’s attitudes toward food, as if the great and notable never bothered to think about what was on the plate in front of them. Once we ask how somebody relates to food, we find a whole world of different and provocative ways to understand her. Food stories can be as intimate and revealing as stories of love, work, or coming-of-age. Each of the six women in this entertaining group portrait was famous in her time, and most are still famous in ours; but until now, nobody has told their lives from the point of view of the kitchen and the table. What She Ate is a lively and unpredictable array of women; what they have in common with one another (and us) is a powerful relationship with food. They include Dorothy Wordsworth, whose food story transforms our picture of the life she shared with her famous poet brother; Rosa Lewis, the Edwardian-era Cockney caterer who cooked her way up the social ladder; Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady and rigorous protector of the worst cook in White House history; Eva Braun, Hitler’s mistress, who challenges our warm associations of food, family, and table; Barbara Pym, whose witty books upend a host of stereotypes about postwar British cuisine; and Helen Gurley Brown, the editor of Cosmopolitan, whose commitment to “having it all” meant having almost nothing on the plate except a supersized portion of diet gelatin.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the book
Eleanor had never wanted to be First Lady. She hated the idea of surrendering her independence and pulling back from hands- on political work just to become a hostess. For the sake of the country she was glad FDR had been elected, but she knew exactly what First Ladies did: they got dressed up, they shook hands, and they made small talk, day after endless day. How could she submit to such a role? When FDR was nominated, she was the only person in the room who was stone- faced; and when he won, she wrote later, “The turmoil in my heart and mind was rather great that night, and the next few months were not to make any clearer what the road ahead would be.” As she was organizing the household for the move to Washington, she made a tentative suggestion to FDR: Wasn’t there “a real job” she could do in the White House? Perhaps answer some of his mail? “He looked at me quizzically and said he did not think that would do, that Missy, who had been handling his mail for a long time, would feel I was interfering. I knew he was right and that it would not work, but it was a last effort to keep in close touch and to feel that I had a real job to do.” Eventually, of course, she created that job. She had seen how home economics operated: it was a woman’s profession in a man’s world. No lines were crossed, no fiefdoms challenged, but the women gave heart and soul to work they cared about. Now she, too, set out to find a professional place for herself, even while confined to FDR’s sphere. She couldn’t set policy, but she could travel, meet people, listen to them, investigate, pull myriad strings in Washington, make brilliant use of symbolic gestures, and give speeches that heartened the poor, the exploited, and the powerless. As Blanche Wiesen Cook put it, “Her vision shaped the best of his presidency”—an assessment that would have been supported overwhelmingly by the millions of Americans whose lives she touched, though Eleanor herself would have briskly turned away any such compliment.
Her first responsibility was one that FDR asked her to take on: he wanted her to manage the domestic side of the White House—a notion that must have reverberated in his mind for the next twelve years like a howl of triumph from Satan himself. Eleanor promptly set out to locate a first- rate housekeeper, someone who would plan and oversee the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and marketing for what was, in effect, a private hotel under public scrutiny. She thought she knew just the right person. Back in 1928, when FDR was running for governor of New York, Eleanor had become involved with the Hyde Park branch of the League of Women Voters and met a local woman who was also active in it: Henrietta Nesbitt, a homemaker with two grown sons and an unemployed husband. She was a strong supporter of FDR’s and went to the same Episcopal church as Eleanor. And her family was hard up. Eleanor saw a way to help. She began hiring Mrs. Nesbitt to bake bread, pies, coffee cakes, and cookies for the constant entertaining that was going on at Hyde Park, and when the Roosevelts moved to Albany Mrs. Nesbitt kept right on baking for them, sending the orders upstate by train. Then FDR ran for president and won. Mrs. Nesbitt was delighted but also a little disappointed. The baking had been “a godsend,” as she wrote in her memoir, White House Diary. Now it was coming to an end, and the Nesbitts, who had been forced to move in with their son and his family, were going to lose their only source of income. But shortly after Thanksgiving, Mrs. Roosevelt stopped by and said she was going to need a housekeeper in the...
Reviews-
May 15, 2017 A culinary biographer serves up an eye-opening meal.Renowned food journalist and culinary historian Shapiro (Julia Child: A Life, 2007, etc.) takes her obsession with food in an entirely new direction. Focusing on six women over nearly 200 years, she hopes to prove that "food talks." Opening a "window on what [each] cooked and ate" reframes the narratives of their lives; it's like "standing in line at the supermarket and peering into" their shopping carts. Dorothy Wordsworth was a quiet, "very private, very conflicted woman" who devoted her life to her brother, William. But she also found time to write in her journal, an activity that was "her declaration of independence. And she chose the language of food." Entries about nature and their surroundings were often drawn upon for William's poems, but the notes on food "spoke directly to Dorothy herself." Cockney-born Rosa Lewis, a former scullery maid, was acclaimed in her time as one of the great caterers and a favorite cook of King Edward. He loved her signature dish, game pie. During this era of wealth and manners, food became a symbol of success, and Lewis was there to ride it to fame. Eleanor Roosevelt didn't really care what she ate; it gave her no pleasure. Her husband enjoyed oysters and champagne, and when she learned of his infidelity she got back at him via her terrible cook, Mrs. Nesbitt. The only thing that really mattered to the "passive, faithful, and decorative" Eva Braun was her love for vegetarian Hitler, champagne, and showing off her "slender figure." British novelist Barbara Pym was the great chronicler of food and eating throughout her many novels, and Helen Gurley Brown, longtime editor of Cosmopolitan, was an obsessive dieter ("skinny to me is sacred"); she cooked primarily to keep her man. A unique and delectable work that sheds new light on the lives of women, food, and men.
COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
June 1, 2017
Culinary history writer Shapiro (Perfection Salad) has studied both women and cooking throughout her career, focusing on those who have made a lasting impact on the world of food and beyond. Here, she considers the lives of six very different women throughout history, maintaining that examining their culinary lives provides an intimate picture of their personal experiences. English author Dorothy Wordsworth delighted in caring for her poet brother William and prepared simple meals. Rosa Lewis, an Edwardian-era caterer, leveraged her fame as a cook to put her in touch with a society that normally would have been out of reach. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt presided over a White House notorious for serving terrible food. British novelist Barbara Pym's love of food inserted itself into her novels. Both Eva Braun, wife of Adolf Hitler, and Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown's relationships with food were dominated by their desire to remain thin. VERDICT Offering an interesting angle from which to view the lives of various women, this work will appeal to not only food readers but also to anyone wishing to learn more about women's history. [See Prepub Alert, 1/23/17.]--Melissa Stoeger, Deerfield P.L., IL
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
February 15, 2017
What do Dorothy Wordsworth, Eleanor Roosevelt, Eva Braun, Barbara Pym, Helen Gurley Brown, and Edwardian-era Cockney caterer Rosa Lewis have in common? They all had interesting relationships to food that tell us more about them and about us. Fun reading from a James Beard Journalism Award winner.
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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