For the next couple of weeks, Big Food, Big Garden, Big Life in rural Mississippi will be featuring recipes from Clementine Paddleford’s classic American cookbook, How America Eats (1960). Paddleford revolutionized the way in which food and recipes were presented in the national media, which at the time would have been first and foremost the weekly magazines and daily newspapers. She was the first food journalist in the modern sense. She begins the Foreword to the book:

Indeed, she did travel by plane–her own. Unable to efficiently access some regions of the country, she got her pilot’s license, bought a plane, and flew herself to those out of the way places. Across America, she collected the recipes from a variety of kitchens: “farm kitchens, apartment kitchenettes, governors’ mansions, hamburger diners, tea rooms, and from the finest restaurants with great chefs in charge.”

Paddlefords’s is so much more than a cookbook. She tells the stories of the regions’ specialties, her hosts’ farms, kitchens, and lives. How America Eats thus gives us a look back in time through the lens of food and its enjoyment.

Each recipe will have an abbreviation of Clementine’s delightful introductions Clementine wrote about her host and the local area. These will be linked to the full introductions at The Old Books Blog. How America Eats is the first in a larger project there where we’ll look at the history of cookbooks and food writing. Cookbooks don’t get their due in discussions of old books, and we aim to change that.

Special note to fellow bloggers. The Old Books Blog is new. Your sharing and linking these recipes, with their invitations to The Old Books Blog, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!