By Kathy A. Megyeri
Book: “Women in the Kitchen, 12 Essential Writers Who Defined the Way We Eat, from 1661 to Today with More Than 50 Recipes,” by Anne Willan
In 1975, Anne Willan founded La Varenne Cooking School in Paris. Willan has cooked professionally for over 60 years and has written more than 30 books including the award-winning “County Cooking of France” and the Look and Cook Series on PBS. In this charming and readable book, she pays tribute to her predecessors and celebrates the achievements of women in the kitchen.
This book is essential for all women who love to cook. Willan explores the development of home cooking from the first published cookbook in 1661 to popular works by Fannie Farmer, Irma Rombauer, Julia Child, Edna Lewis and Alice Waters. She offers a brief biography of each woman, highlights her main contributions, and showcases representative dishes. Willan even includes 50 original recipes and updated versions she’s tested and modernized for our contemporary kitchens.
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Thus, “chef” (“leader”) was applied to the male head cook of a large kitchen, and it wasn’t until the 60s and Julia Child’s television shows that women stood alongside men as “chefs.” It was also then that women opened cooking schools, gave classes and defined a regional cuisine in cookbooks like American, French, and Italian. When women’s education levels as a whole went up, it was possible for chefs like Irma Rombauer to sell more than 7 million copies of “The Joy of Cooking.” All 12 women profiled in “Women in the Kitchen” were determined to instruct their fellow cooks and instill a love of good cooking.
The first woman’s cookbook published in English was by Hannah Woolley in 1661 and in the 1681 supplement to it, she admits that “much labour and much time it hath me cost; therefore, I beg, let none of it be lost,” as her motive for writing the book was to document recipes, ingredients and cooking methods to be handed down to future generations.
Willan owns over 2,000 cookbooks. Here, she’s chosen 12 by women, included a biography of each author and showcased a few of their special recipes. Women’s dishes mark festivities, set the scenes, and they establish family tastes, especially those of their children. The women writers recorded mostly domestic recipes; nine of the authors were married and six had children, so that was expected. Male cooks were most often found in professional and commercial kitchens, so their cooking was more complicated, affected by trends, and designed to mostly please strangers.
Related: Julia Child’s recipes online
The biggest change in the last 50 years has been the proliferation of professional women chefs. Witness Julia Child’s French cooking at home (especially her ratatouille recipe), which went global after landing on TV and later, online resources. Ethnic dishes have grown more popular and informality has brought in even more women cooks whose personalities shine just like these 12 female chefs.
