Laura Shapiro

"Each of the six women in this ... 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. It's a lively and unpredictable array of women; what they have in common with one another (and us) is a powerful relationship with food"--

Six Remarkable Women and the Food that Tells Their Stories

What She Ate

A fun, lively history of the revolution in American cooking that took place in the 1950s traces the innovations, cookbooks, products, techniques, and marketing campaigns that changed the way Americans prepared food forever. Reprint.

Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America

Something from the Oven

This social history of the culinary habits of turn-of-the-century women depicts their passion and idealism, as well as their frequently bizarre and misguided ideas. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century

Perfection Salad

Julia Child

Describes professional cooks at the turn of the century, their passion and idealism as well as their bizarre and misguided ideas, and the influential culinary style they engineered.

Author of the forthcoming What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories (Summer 2017) With a swooping voice, an irrepressible sense of humor, and a passion for good food, Julia Child ushered in the nation’s culinary renaissance. In Julia Child, award-winning food writer Laura Shapiro tells the story of Child’s unlikely career path, from California party girl to coolheaded chief clerk in a World War II spy station to bewildered amateur cook and finally to the Cordon Bleu in Paris, the school that inspired her calling. A food lover who was quintessentially American, right down to her little-known recipe for classic tuna fish casserole, Shapiro’s Julia Child personifies her own most famous lesson: that learning how to cook means learning how to live.

A Life

A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of The Year One of NPR Fresh Air's "Books to Close Out a Chaotic 2017" NPR's Book Concierge Guide To the Year’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.

Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories

‘If you find the subject of food to be both vexing and transfixing, you’ll love What She Ate’ Elle

Laura Shapiro

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