The discussion of food seems to be everywhere these days. There's even a TV network dedicated to it. From best-selling cookbooks to numerous shows on The Food Network, Americans seem to be obsessed. But that wasn't always the case. Things began to change when a woman from Riley County, Kansas, studied journalism at Kansas State University and then... started writing about food. Commentator Katie Keckeisen has the story of America's first - but largely forgotten - food writer.
(Transcript)
Clementine Paddleford: Pioneering Food Journalist
By Katie Keckeisen
In this era of online food bloggers, many of us often bemoan the fact that we must scroll through a short story before we even get to the list of ingredients. It’s easy to forget that, not so long ago, cooking in America was seen as a chore. Popular culture made it seem that home-cooked food was bland and unappetizing; certainly nothing anyone would want to read about. But one woman sought to change all that. Her name was Clementine Paddleford.
Clementine Haskin Paddleford was born on September 27, 1898, on a farm near Stockdale, Kansas. (The Riley County community was later displaced by the creation of Tuttle Creek Reservoir.) Paddleford came from a family of determined pioneers: her grandfather, Stephen “Cate” Paddleford was one of the earliest settlers to farm in Riley County; and her mother, Jennie, had taken one of the earliest home economics courses offered by Kansas State University. Paddleford learned the joys of home cooking from her mother, who saw every meal as an opportunity to share a life and a history. Even from an early age, Clementine Paddleford’s scrapbooks were filled with menus and detailed notes of what was served at various functions she attended.
In 1921, Paddleford graduated from K-State with a degree in industrial journalism. She moved to New York City, where she took classes at New York University’s School of Journalism and picked up freelance writing jobs. In 1924, she became the Household editor for Farm & Fireside magazine, where she began to garner attention for the novel way she wrote about food. This eventually landed her a job as a columnist for the New York Herald Tribune and its syndicated magazine, This Week.
During the 1920s and 1930s, most food journalism that appeared in magazines and newspapers was little more than a thinly veiled advertisement, whose ‘writers’ were home economists. Almost no text accompanied a recipe. Paddleford’s articles changed all of that. She thoroughly researched every story and added details about each dish that could make the reader’s mouth water just by reading it. Her early life on a farm gave her a unique insight into the lives of everyday women who were trying to feed their families with as much sophistication and dignity as they could manage.
Paddleford’s enthusiasm for her subject made her a hit with readers nationwide. It was estimated that her columns were read by thirteen million households. While she covered the food stories behind big events, like Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, she often reported on what average home cooks made to feed their families. She particularly relished the stories behind family recipes that had been handed down through generations. In 1953, Time magazine named Clementine Paddleford its “Best-Known Food Editor.”
In 1960, she published How America Eats. The book was a compilation of writings from her years of travel around the United States. In it, Paddleford highlighted the local culinary traditions that could be found in each of the 50 states, as well as the people behind those traditions. As founder of Saveur magazine, Colman Andrews, wrote: “Wherever she is and whatever she’s eating, she connects the food with the people who make it and the places it comes from.”
Clementine Paddleford died in 1967 in New York City.
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Want to learn more? Check out this article about Clementine Paddleford.
Want even more? Check out this article, written by Aimee Levitt for Eater.com
Then, there's this interesting piece from the Manhattan Mercury.
Commentator Katie Keckeisen is a local history librarian for the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. She lives in Topeka. Keckeisen, a former collections archivist at the Kansas Historical Society, also knows a lot about Kansas history. And that's why we like to hear from her on Kansas Public Radio.