Hometown Appetites: The Story of Clementine Paddleford, the Forgotten Food Writer Who Chronicled How America Ate

by Kelly Alexander, Cynthia Harris

A portrait of a pioneering food writer traces her rise from a Kansas farm girl to an influential columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, in a tribute that reveals her role in transforming newspaper food sections, her contributions on behalf of working women, and the legacy of her book, How America Eats. 25,000 first printing.

Genres: Food, Biography, Nonfiction, History, Cookbooks, Food History, Womens

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Eden · Rating 5 out of 5]

2019 bk 254. There are biographies you read for an assignment, there are those you read because you want to know about the author of a book, and then there are those thrust upon you by friends who say "You are a foodie, you have to know this lady." We were at a library fundraiser when this gem was shoved into my hands by a friend of a friend. I'm not sure if foodie is the word for me. I like to eat, I like to read about what different cultures serve for meals. But until I read this book I did not truly understand that Americans did not have a conscious feel for what made American cuisine until Clemintine Paddleford came along. She was a reporter from Kansas who worked for the New York press - her area - what was being cooked in the United States. She started with Church Meals for the Christian Herald and made many contacts that she used when she moved to the New York Tribune and began a several decades long odyssey visiting homes, diners, famous and infamous restaurants, train dining cars, and even submarines, bringing the stories of those who prepared and ate in America to the attention of the rest of the country. I wish I had five more stars to give this book - not only did I ignore my own dishes and what I ate while reading it, I went online and have ordered one of her cookbook collections, the one with her articles. We middle Americans have a lot to be thankful for that Clemintine Paddleford decided that home cooking was the story of the century and that she would cover it.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book about Clementine Paddleford, mid-20th century food critic/observer, is a fascinating study of a driven woman creating the beginnings of the modern food revolution. I started reading this out of interest in the "food revolution" but quickly became engrossed in Paddleford's life and travels. I recommend this for anyone with an interest in food writing, an interest in American journalism, or an interest in strong women.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An informative and fascentating biography of a woman I had never heard of, but am now completely obsessed with. (Wish I could afford her famous book, now out of print.) Any self-respecting Food Network fan MUST read this book!

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read about a fascinating character, and most of the recipes included are going into my collection. Yum!

[Sue Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hometown Appetites is a biography about a famous food editor and author. But, is this person actually famous when most of us including myself have never heard of her. The authors, who had never met yet were intrigued by this food writer, set out to introduce her to us. Clementine Paddleford was born on a Kansas farm in the late 1800s and became a journalist in the US and beyond. Her appetite for writing about food led her around the world. Instead of just including recipes in her columns, she also included instructions on how to prepare food as well as some history as to the origin. This was something new in the 1900s and completely unexpected.

Reading about her adventures in different parts of the U.S. and in the world was interesting. She made people want to cook beyond what was common in their home state. Clementine Paddleford opened their eyes to the wonderful tastes around the world. It is unfortunate that she sometimes embellished the stories to make them more interesting straying from the actual truth. Still, it had to be nice to be able to feel a personal touch with her food columns. That is also apparently true in her book called How America Eats.

This was an easy book to read and it was nice to learn about someone that I had never heard of before. Ms.Paddleford apparently was a trend setter since it is now common for all of us to prepare foods from various parts of the world even if we've never been there.

[Unwisely · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really, really enjoyed this book. (So much that I made a new shelf for it!)

A woman I'd never heard of who was hugely influential, and kind of amazing (both personally and professionally). And also wrote about food, but, like, the way people cook it, not aspirational recipes. I didn't make any of the reprinted recipes, (although I was tempted by the strawberry shortcake), but they seemed intriguing. Like most other reviewers, I would love to peruse a copy of How America Eats.

If you're looking for another historical American food book (that is also about the writing of the book), you might light The Food of a Younger Land: The WPA's Portrait of Food in Pre-World War II America

(She wasn't technically a spinster, as she married her college sweetheart, then proceeded to never live with him and eventually divorce him. The "every guy has a designated night" plan entertained me a lot; I suggested it to a friend who was complaining she was having trouble scheduling all her gentleman callers.)

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I live not 60 miles from where Clementine Paddleford grew up and we are alumnae of the same university and yet I had not heard of her until I read this book. To quote the book introduction, "At the height of her career, Clementine Paddleford was as popular as Julia Child and as respected as James Beard. Today, she's the most important food writer you've never heard of."

This book is a gem and was a pleasure to read. Food writer Kelly Alexander and Kansas State University manuscript/collections archivist Cynthia Harris did an extraordinary job of researching the life of Paddleford who kept her private life private and out of the limelight. Upon her death in 1967, Paddleford left her collection of papers to Hale Library at Kansas State and Harris spent 3-1/2 years going through them and putting them in order so that she and Alexander could co-write the book. Kudos to both of these women for a job well done!

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caused me to order several historical cook books and related writings.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Includes photos & recipes.

[Jessica Chapman · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an indomitable spirit Clementine Paddleford was.

[Elevate Difference · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1960, Clementine Paddleford published How America Eats, a compilation of twelve years of her columns in the New York Herald Tribune and This Week magazine. During her lifetime, Paddleford traveled over 800,000 miles in pursuit of recipes from home cooks, restaurant owners, and small family businesses. Paddleford gathered stories and advice from home cooks all over the United States and documented her pursuits.

During her time at the New York Herald Tribune, Paddleford’s readership reached twelve million, and she earned a salary of $250,000 (a large sum for a woman in the ‘60s). Paddleford changed the way food was written about, and although she was an influential food writer in her time, Paddleford is all but forgotten today. Why is there such a dearth of information about this influential food writer? Some possible reasons include Paddleford’s death in 1962, the demise of the New York Herald Tribune, and the advent of cooking shows on television.

Kelly Alexander and Cynthia Harris rescued Clementine Paddleford’s legacy from oblivion. Alexander, a writer at Saveur Magazine, decided to write an article on Paddleford in 2002. The article won a James Beard award, and she decided to turn the article into a book. For her research, Alexander contacted Cynthia Harris, the archivist for Clementine Paddleford’s collection of personal papers and writings, at the University of Kansas. Together they used the collection to tease out interesting details of Paddleford’s life. Although Paddleford routinely culled personal details from her papers, Alexander and Harris were able to fill in information based on interviews with her foster daughter and former colleagues.

Alexander and Harris have done a great job of reintroducing the American public to Clementine Paddleford. The book features two photo inserts that feature Paddleford’s early life in Kansas and her life in New York City. It also features several of the regional recipes Paddleford collected during her travels. Alexander and Harris show that Paddleford was a pioneering food writer who introduced her readers to regional cooking in the United States.

Review by Rekesha Spellman

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hometown Appetites is the story of Clementine Paddleford, now largely forgotten, but who was, in her day, the best-known food editor in the country, and a true celebrity. She wrote for the New York Herald Tribune and for "This Week", a Sunday magazine insert that went out all over the country. At the time, most food columns were restaurant reviews, or exotic recipes for the sophisticate. Clementine Paddleford, herself a Midwest farm girl, was more interested in the nuts-and-bolts daily cooking of the American housewife. She traveled all over the country, and eventually internationally as well, visiting regional cooks and telling their stories, as well as publishing their recipes. Wildly popular, her column received an incredible volume of mail, which alerted her to new stories, ripe for the telling. She survived throat cancer in the 1930s, and thereafter wore a device over her throat, covering a tracheotomy tube, by means of a button which, when pushed, enhanced her voice, enabling her to be heard. Overcoming this difficulty and continuing to be a charismatic journalist, conducting interviews all over the world, Clementine Paddleford rose to the top of her profession. She became the forerunner of the “food personalities” we are familiar with today, such as Julia Child, Rachael Ray, and so many others. She championed regional cookery, and made mouths water all over the country with her descriptions, written in her warm, quirky style. Her book How America Eats, along with her columns and articles, codified “American cookery,” in a time when it was widely believed that there was no such thing as American food. Many factors conspired to erase Clementine Paddleford’s memory from the national consciousness – the rise of television personalities, the demise of the newspaper for which she wrote, and her own death – but this wonderful biography has certainly made me aware of her, and I hope many others will discover her as well. Now, to get my hands on a copy of her book!

[Shippseattle]

The rollicking biography of Clementine Paddleford: “a go- anywhere, taste-anything, ask-everything kind of reporter who traveled more than 50,000 miles a year in search of stories. . . . matched as a regional-food pioneer only by James Beard.” (R. W. Apple , Jr., The New York Times)<...more [close] The rollicking biography of Clementine Paddleford: “a go- anywhere, taste-anything, ask-everything kind of reporter who traveled more than 50,000 miles a year in search of stories. . . . matched as a regional-food pioneer only by James Beard.” (R. W. Apple , Jr., The New York Times)

In Hometown Appetites, an award-winning food writer and a leading university archivist come together to revive the legacy of the most important food writer you have never heard of. Clementine Paddleford was a Kansas farm girl who grew up to chronicle America’s culinary habits. Her weekly readership at the New York Herald Tribune topped 12 million during the 1950s and 1960s and she earned a salary of $250,000. Yet twenty years after “America’s bestknown food editor” passed away, she had been forgotten— until now.

At a time when few women worked outside the home, Paddleford flew her own Piper Cub to meet her readers and find out what was for dinner. Before Paddleford, newspaper food sections were dull primers on home economy. But she changed all of that, composing her own brand of sassy, unerringly authoritative prose designed to celebrate regional home cooking. Her magnum opus, a book called How America Eats, published in 1960, reveals an appetite for life that was insatiable. This book restores Paddleford’s name where it belongs: in the pantheon alongside those of James Beard and Julia Child. It’s a five-star read in the spirit of national bestsellers such as Heat and The United States of Arugula. [close]

[JULIE · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hometown Appetites is a fairly interesting bit of Americana about Clementine Paddleford, the "forgotten" food writer from the 1920s to the 1960s. Paddleford wrote about food and the people who prepared it in Studs Terkel style. Every recipe she published in her column had a story to go with it. After 12 years and 800,000 miles, she published the recipes and the stories in a book called How America Eats.

I first heard about Paddleford when NPR interviewed one of the authors of this biography. That interview piqued my interest. I am always curious about American women whose stories have never been told or have been forgotten. This book is filled with stories from Paddleford's life that made her who she was. For example, when she was a child and her father put a hog run "in prime view of anyone enjoying the front porch," despite her mother's wish to plan a lilac hedge at the same spot, her mother found a way to plant the hedge anyway, right in front of the pig run. When she had finished, she told her daughter, "Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be."

The book is interspersed with recipes that were published as part of Paddleford's columns, which adds to the flavor of the story.

When Paddleford died in 1967, she left 274 file boxes of work material (cookbooks, restaurant menus, memorabilia, and notes for the articles she wrote). The authors had their hands full organizing and compiling these materials into a cohesive story. And I'm glad they did!

[Deb Shambrook · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was interesting reading about the life of one of the first food writers in America. Clementine Paddleford made it in a man's world.

[Cathy Farrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up off the bargain table, just for the heck of it. (Besides, who could resist the name Clementine Paddleford?) It surprised me how much I enjoyed it. I'd never heard of Clementine, who was really the first nationwide foodie star (WAY before the word "foodie" had been coined). She kind of amazing, traveling the country and describing food to people all over.
Since reading this, I periodically check for some of her books when I'm in used bookstores, since she's long since out of print.
This book includes quite a few bits about how she described food, but it's mostly about her life itself, which was remarkable, especially as a working woman and public figure in the 1st half of the 20th century. She not only basically created the type of food journalism that we're familiar with, but as she traveled around the US & the world, she was part of some of the major events in history.

[Marcia Biederman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lively, much needed biography of the once-famous New York Herald Tribune food editor Clementine Paddleford, who overcame a serious disability -- her larynx was removed after a bout with cancer, leaving her with a hole in her throat and a strange voice -- to become a major force in American culinary history. A daring and dramatic personality, Paddleford traveled to every corner of the United States, sampling regional specialties in apartment kitchens, at hobo campfires and in exclusive restaurants, then introducing them to readers nationwide through her widely read magazine and newspaper columns. Paddleford's biographical timeline and her disability precluded her from the television era; as a result, she has largely been forgotten. This book recognizes her overlooked contributions to the contemporary local-food movement.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Along with some great recipes from mid-century America, Hometown Appetites chronicles a fascinating and almost lost personality who was key to the food scene. Unlike chefs Child and Claiborn, Paddleford was almost like a food archeologist, traveling around America to find what people were really eating. Less appealing here is some of the writing, which feels repetitive at places, as if the authors feel the need to remind us what happened in the last chapter. Still, this is entertaining and enjoyable for foodies.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had vaguely heard of Clementine Paddleford, but hadn't realized the scope of her influence in the food writing world, especially from about 1940-1955 or so. This was a well-written, interesting biography of her life and career, and makes me want to read her major book, America Eats. There's no Kindle edition unfortunately and used copies are a little pricey. The book does include recipes from time to time, illustrating the kind of food that Paddleford specialized in - American regional cuisine.

[Laura Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is not often that I would declare a book was delightful, but Hometown Appetites was just that. Clementine Paddleford was, probably, the first food writer (not a restaurant critic, but a food writer) in the US and maybe in the world. She traveled all over the United States, writing about local specialties, hometown cooks and ate many a hometown meal. Long before Anthony Bourdain or Jonathon Gold, she was documenting how American ate. She'd go anywhere and eat anything. The book is filled with comfort food recipes from all regions of the United States. Definitely a recommended read.

[Elise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boy, I really wanted to like this book. But it was just so uninteresting. Not a biography I would recommend. What Paddleford did was extraordinary. Her personal life is very veiled, however, and her cutting of corners--like her enthusiastic endorsement of ready-made products, her occasional fibbing on a story--is glossed over. Of course, those two aspects would have added a lot of interest to this boring, steadfastly chronological story.

[Aubree Bowling · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really interesting--it grabbed my attention because I liked that Paddleford is from my hometown. And she wrote about food, which I love to read about and find interesting. But I also found it to be a good picture of the life of a career woman that began working in the 1920's. I found it a bit sad that in that era a woman who wanted to work at a promising career couldnt' really "have it all" and be married, too.

[Cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alexander argues that Clementine Paddleford was America's first food writer, and makes a good case for it in Hometown Appetites. Independent and ambitious, Paddleford made it her mission to put regional food in the public eye and publicize the stories of the cooks behind it. I also found it fascinating to read about how the ingredients we use and our expectations for what food should look and taste like has changed since Paddleford's time.

[Damon · Rating 3 out of 5]

America's curiosity about food & recipes from all over the country was practically founded by this woman, Clementine Paddleford. On it's own, it's a tale of a strong willed woman from Kansas, determined to make it in the all male world of newspaper writing. Plus the recipes and you have a tribute to generations past and a peek into the kitchens of your grandmother and her peers.

[Shauna Mckelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of food, food criticism or the lives of interesting female journalists. Before Rachel Ray, Emeril Lagasse, James Beard or Julia Child became household names, there was Clementine Paddleford. This book not only delves into her extensive and impressive resume, the book also includes more than fifty recipes from Paddleford's files.

[Lisa Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed rediscovering Clementine Paddleford. It's always nice when someone this interesting gets rescued from obscurity. Anyone interested in the history of food writing, regional cooking or even early women journalists would enjoy this well-written biography.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful look at a little-known American character. Excellent role-model, career writer and great human being. Clementine was amazing, glad to "get to know her" through this book. Wish someone would make a movie about this gal!

[Rob Banks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating story about some I'd never heard of before reading this book. Because she started near me in Kansas, it was of special interest. Amazing the impact she had on what became a national obsession with food and yet was almost forgotten.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clementine was a very interesting lady, at a time when women were still expected to stay at home, she was a career journalist who championed the housewives and farmwives of America. The writing is journalistic, but a fast read.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a great introduction to someone I knew nothing about - Clementine Paddleford, a smart and ambitious Kansas farm girl, who grew up to be a journalist with the New York Herald-Tribune, travelling the world and writing about food. Pretty amazing life, she had.