Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century (Modern Library Food)
by Laura Shapiro
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Read in August, 2007
A social history of changing attitudes towards cooking and other aspects of homemaking, specifically the emergence of domestic science aka home economics towards the end of the 19th century. The re-imagining and re-purposing of housework (women’s work) as a matter of scientific logic and precision (men’s work) had some interesting social and culinary consequences (some of which Shapiro covers in another excellent book, Something From The Oven).
The title comes from a recipe for chopped ve...more
The title comes from a recipe for chopped ve...more
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Read in March, 2008
I would move this to my "read" or "2008" shelf, but that would be dishonest, because I couldn't finish the book. If I had been required to read it, for class or something, I might have gotten through more of it. I found the writing dense, much of the topical coverage uninteresting, and the 1/2 or 3/4 that I read largely scattered. I wish this book had lived up to its promise to "uncover[:] our ancestors' widespread obsession with food [and:] tell[:] us why we think as...more
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Clearly, I have thing with food writing, so my reviews on such topics might be biased. This one, though, should appeal to techie and history buffs, as well as foodies. Jello molded into banana peels to construct a big pea pod? Yes, people really once thought that was haute cuisine.
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This is a pretty fascinating look at how we as a culture got from boiled beef to aspic and beyond--and how that's all mixed up with feminism, essentialism, and all those other isms we thought we'd left back in undergrad.
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recommends it for:
food loves
Except I didn't like this book. I thought it would be interesting, but it was all about green jello. I am exaggerating here, really, green jello is not food.
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Read in September, 2008
Very interesting history of the Domesitc Science movement and how it has shaped our domestic and culinary culture today.
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This book came up in a discussion of jello (dessert, salad, or other?) in Rav. Sounds interesting!
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