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Historic (rec.food.historic) Discussing and discovering how food was made and prepared way back when--From ancient times down until (& possibly including or even going slightly beyond) the times when industrial revolution began to change our lives. |
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Karen Hess Dies; Culinary Historian Challenged Standards
Karen Hess, 88, Dies; Culinary Historian Who Challenged Standards
By ERIC ASIMOV Published: May 19, 2007 The New York Times Karen Hess, an American culinary historian who brought an academic rigor to the study of recipes, cooking techniques and ordinary American kitchen practices, died Tuesday in Manhattan. She was 88. She died after suffering a stroke the week before, her son Peter Hess said. Ms. Hess, known as a kind but combative personality, did not shrink from taking on the icons of American cookery, who she felt presented a false picture not only of the quality of American food and cooking but also of its history. Her first book, “The Taste of America,” written with her husband, John L. Hess, and published in 1977, established right away that the couple would not be joining the chorus of affirmation that had characterized the American food establishment. “We write with trepidation,” the book opened. “How shall we tell our fellow Americans that our palates have been ravaged, that our food is awful, and that our most respected authorities on cookery are poseurs?” The book went on to lament the loss of pleasure in dining, rue the ascension of the processed food industry and attack, among others, Craig Claiborne, James Beard and Julia Child as knowing little about cooking and even less about culinary history. “Her point was that when they claimed they were talking about history, they didn’t know what they were talking about,” said Andrew F. Smith, who teaches food history at the New School and edited “The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink” (Oxford University Press, 2007). “She brought rigor to an examination of culinary history that hadn’t been there before.” Ms. Hess was not a trained historian, but she fervently believed in the importance of primary sources and demanded that professional historians apply the same techniques to the study of the household that they did to the study of wars and presidents. “She always believed that history was written in our daily lives, not just in battles won and court cases, which was how traditional historians had always written things,” said John Martin Taylor, a cookbook author who has chronicled the food of the Carolina Lowcountry. In 1981 she transcribed and annotated “Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery,” a manuscript of family recipes that had been used in the Washington family for more than 50 years and revealed numerous details about life in a Colonial household. “To the best of my knowledge, that was the first real attempt at pulling together a primary source in the field of culinary history and then explaining it,” Mr. Smith said. “There wasn’t anybody out there before her.” Among her other works were “The Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection” (University of South Carolina Press, 1992); an annotated version of “Mary Randolph’s ‘Virginia Housewife’ ” (University of South Carolina Press, 1983), a popular 19th-century cookbook; and her annotation of “What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking” (Applewood Books, 1995), one of the oldest known African-American cookbooks, originally published in 1881. Karen Lost was born in Blair, Neb., a Danish community, on Nov. 11, 1918. Her name was pronounced CAR-inn, in the Scandinavian fashion. She majored in music at San Jose State University in California, when it was a teacher’s college, and she met her future husband in San Francisco, where he was a longshoreman. Later, Mr. Hess, who wrote for many years for The New York Times, was posted in Paris for nine years in the late 1960s and early ’70s. It was there, Peter Hess said, that she became particularly interested in food. Mr. Hess died in 2005. In addition to her son Peter, she is survived by another son, Michael Hess of the Bronx, and a daughter, Martha Hess of Ossining, N.Y. Was she herself a good cook? “All children like to think their mother’s a good cook,” Peter Hess said, “but she really was.” |
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Karen Hess Dies; Culinary Historian Challenged Standards
Karen Hess was a friend of mine. She would have taken this obituary and
immediately written -- "The Book of Cookery was probably never used in the Washington family, which owned a Hannah Glasse." Her scholarship traced it toward Lady Berkeley, the 17th century wife of two governors of North American colonies. It came down to Martha Custis, but there is no evidence she used what were then somewhat obsolete remedies and recipes. -- --Mark Zanger author, The American Ethnic Cookbook for Students http://www.ethnicook.com The American History Cookbook http://www.historycook.com "Cookie Cutter" > wrote in message ... Karen Hess, 88, Dies; Culinary Historian Who Challenged Standards By ERIC ASIMOV Published: May 19, 2007 The New York Times Karen Hess, an American culinary historian who brought an academic rigor to the study of recipes, cooking techniques and ordinary American kitchen practices, died Tuesday in Manhattan. She was 88. She died after suffering a stroke the week before, her son Peter Hess said. Ms. Hess, known as a kind but combative personality, did not shrink from taking on the icons of American cookery, who she felt presented a false picture not only of the quality of American food and cooking but also of its history. Her first book, “The Taste of America,” written with her husband, John L. Hess, and published in 1977, established right away that the couple would not be joining the chorus of affirmation that had characterized the American food establishment. “We write with trepidation,” the book opened. “How shall we tell our fellow Americans that our palates have been ravaged, that our food is awful, and that our most respected authorities on cookery are poseurs?” The book went on to lament the loss of pleasure in dining, rue the ascension of the processed food industry and attack, among others, Craig Claiborne, James Beard and Julia Child as knowing little about cooking and even less about culinary history. “Her point was that when they claimed they were talking about history, they didn’t know what they were talking about,” said Andrew F. Smith, who teaches food history at the New School and edited “The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink” (Oxford University Press, 2007). “She brought rigor to an examination of culinary history that hadn’t been there before.” Ms. Hess was not a trained historian, but she fervently believed in the importance of primary sources and demanded that professional historians apply the same techniques to the study of the household that they did to the study of wars and presidents. “She always believed that history was written in our daily lives, not just in battles won and court cases, which was how traditional historians had always written things,” said John Martin Taylor, a cookbook author who has chronicled the food of the Carolina Lowcountry. In 1981 she transcribed and annotated “Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery,” a manuscript of family recipes that had been used in the Washington family for more than 50 years and revealed numerous details about life in a Colonial household. “To the best of my knowledge, that was the first real attempt at pulling together a primary source in the field of culinary history and then explaining it,” Mr. Smith said. “There wasn’t anybody out there before her.” Among her other works were “The Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection” (University of South Carolina Press, 1992); an annotated version of “Mary Randolph’s ‘Virginia Housewife’ ” (University of South Carolina Press, 1983), a popular 19th-century cookbook; and her annotation of “What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking” (Applewood Books, 1995), one of the oldest known African-American cookbooks, originally published in 1881. Karen Lost was born in Blair, Neb., a Danish community, on Nov. 11, 1918. Her name was pronounced CAR-inn, in the Scandinavian fashion. She majored in music at San Jose State University in California, when it was a teacher’s college, and she met her future husband in San Francisco, where he was a longshoreman. Later, Mr. Hess, who wrote for many years for The New York Times, was posted in Paris for nine years in the late 1960s and early ’70s. It was there, Peter Hess said, that she became particularly interested in food. Mr. Hess died in 2005. In addition to her son Peter, she is survived by another son, Michael Hess of the Bronx, and a daughter, Martha Hess of Ossining, N.Y. Was she herself a good cook? “All children like to think their mother’s a good cook,” Peter Hess said, “but she really was.” |
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