Cookbooks by Women

[Andy Lynes]

When I run a finger across the spines of my cookbook collection, what I see are mainly the names of male chefs. There is of course the odd Elizabeth David or Jane Grigson, but they are easy to lose sight of amongst the rows of Roux, Ramsay, White and Keller.

There is nothing wrong with books of restaurant food of course, I read and cook from many of them quite regularly. But they do tend to represent a fairly narrow view of what cooking can be, based as they are on industry standard methods and approaches adopted by chefs worldwide. In short, my collection has lost touch with its feminine side.

I was delighted therefore to recently get my hands on 3 books by highly respected female writers that leave ego and the need to impress at the kitchen door. In their place are a scholarly approach to writing with a nurturing style of cooking that covers methods, ingredients and geographical areas previously under-represented on my shelves.

A Cooks Guide To Grains

Jenni Muir is a Cordon Bleu graduate and freelance writer whom I know best from her work with Shaun Hill and John Campbell (male chef alert). In "A Cooks Guide to Grains" she looks at the history, provenance and culinary uses of a wide variety of grains, and also considers the ethical and nutritional issues associated with their propagation.

The book includes 100 recipes using rice, cornmeal, buckwheat flour, millet and quinoa to name but a few. The text is beautifully composed and the recipes are lively and exciting, quite at odds with the worthy image grains can suffer from in the minds of cooks.

The breakfast section is particularly appealing with Egyptian Porridge featuring farrro, apricots, almonds and pomegranate, or Sticky Black Rice with coconut and tofu, but there are great ideas throughout such as quinoa, cashew and grape salad, pumpkin and sage pudding and a number of breads, cakes and desserts. Stunning photography by Jason Lowe completes an appealing package which I found genuinely enlightening, thought provoking and which has expanded my culinary horizons.

Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible

Madhur Jaffrey is a busy woman. Whilst not acting in 20 odd movies, Jaffrey appears to spend her every waking moment writing. Author of at least 15 previous books, she has now produced what may well come to be considered the definitive text on curry. With a title like "Ultimate Curry Bible" it certainly seems that she intends the book to be her final word on the subject (if she gets the urge to write more, Jaffrey will be forced to pen a prequel : "Ultimate Curry Bible:The Early years" anyone?).

Within it's 353 pages Jaffrey travels to India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, South Africa, Kenya, UK and beyond to collect what appears to be every curry recipe known to man. I wouldn't be surprised to learn if she stopped off in Germany along the way, just in case the rumour of an ancient Germanic tribe of curry lovers turned out to be true.

The book is divided into chapters by ingredient (e.g. Poultry and Eggs or Dals, Beans and Split Peas) which include highly informative introductions and short essays such as "The Vindaloo Curry" and "In Search of Perfect Kebabs", as well as the recipes. These in turn often have introductions, which explain their derivation and how the dish is traditionally eaten.

Although recipes can often be long, this is due to the number of spices required for many of the dishes. Once you have stocked your store cupboard, the book is very approachable. Open it at random and you are likely to come across something delicious sounding such as Chicken and Bamboo Shoots in Red Curry from Thailand, The Best Aubergines Ever from Afghanistan or Curry Mee from Malaysia. The book also includes extensive sections on breads, rice and side dishes.

Photography by William Lingwood is clear and appealing and supplemented by archive paintings and drawings which depict traditional farming scenes.

The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen: Recipes For the Passionate Cook

I have to admit to a rather fetishistic relationship with books, especially cookbooks. I like the feel, weight and smell of them, especially when they are new. A well designed book is a luxury and a delight. The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen's square shape and burgundy toned cover is somehow reassuring and invites handling. The HTF Requiem typeface on the page's matt surface is calming to the eye and condusive to lazy sessions, wine glass in hand, choosing which recipe to tackle next. Of course, it always helps if the book is actually worth reading, and Paula Wolfert's latest instalment of what she called on her recent eGullet Q&A her "life continuum" is certainly that.

Similar to Jaffrey's book, The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen is divided mainly by ingredient, although does include "appetisers" "salads" "soups" and "desserts" alongside seafood, meat and vegetable sections. Wolfert's book is no less ambitious in its scope, covering the entire Mediterranean region taking in North Africa, Spain, Greece, Turkey, France and Italy.

The recipes have been gathered on what must have been highly pleasurable field trips and can therefore lay claim to authenticity. Although chef's recipes do appear in the book, Wolfet's main source is the women of the region and thereby documents the traditional cooking of the area.

Many of the recipes require marination of meat, or soaking of grains and pulses and so is not a work to be consulted for last minute ideas for tonights meal. But a little planning and forethought will open up a whole world of flavour and texture to the organised cook.

Green beans, usually done in a matter of moments, here will take up to 7 hours to cook, but seasoned with garlic and Turkish red pepper flakes, will "melt in your mouth". The book is full of delicious sounding tagines, stews and baked dishes of which "Slow Baked lamb with Fennel, Pecorino and Potatos" caught my attention in particular.

The dessert section is equally as strong with a rather English sounding Rhubarb Custard Tart and the apparently tricky Caneles de Bordeaux being highlights.

So although a desirable artefact and one that would certainly enhance your coffee table, it is a book to be cooked from, which is more than might be said for some of those male chef books.

[laurenmilan]

I tend towards the regional American cuisine books, and don't have very many of the "Standard" books like Joy of Cooking, and as a result my collection of 80+ books is about 2/3 female. A lot of restaurant/store owners and TV cooks, not many chefs. So I've got names like Lidia, Sylvia Woods, Madhur, Mrs. Wilkes, Nigella, and my new favorite, Ina Garten (I'm currently cooking through her Barefoot Contessa cookbook.)

So my collection is pretty female, but only because my tastes are pretty wierd for an EGullet member

Edited October 13, 2003 by laurenmilan (log)

[ExtraMSG]

I have just under 40 cookbooks by discreet authors (as opposed to an edited by, or group of several authors); this also doesn't include food lit, like Bourdain. Of those, 19 are by women, including:

Irma Bombauer, Julia Child, Diana Kennedy, Julie Sahni, Alice Waters, Gale Gand, Martha Stewart, and other less famous cooks, writers, and chefs.

Not bad, I'd say, if you consider that most of the professional chefs out there are probably men, or at least have traditionally been so.

Personally, I don't buy many restaurant focused books or books by restaurant personalities. I don't cook strictly from recipes but use them as templates or sources for ideas. The exception would be baking, where chemistry requires some precision. That may be why my books tend to be more balanced.

and don't have very many of the "Standard" books like Joy of Cooking

This is by a woman, the pre-mentioned Bombauer.

[tsquare]

Marcella Hazan, Deborah Madison...I'll have to go home and get the rest of the names not already mentioned.

edit to add:

Annie Sommerville

Sally Schneider

Gayle Ortiz

Nancy Silverton

Rose Levy Beranbaum

Joyce Chen (inherited)

Nina Simonds (okay, I don't really like the book)

Annemarie Huste (also inherited - points if you know this one)

Laurel Robertson/Carol Flinders/Bronwen Godfrey (haven't opened this in a long time...but it got me through college)

Frances Moore Lappe (not much cooking, early science?)

Jane Brody

Julee Rosso

Shiela Lukins

Molly O'Neill

Lora Brody

and of course, Julia, Alice, Diana, Irma, and Elizabeth David.

Edited October 14, 2003 by tsquare (log)

[beans]

Besides St. Julia, I have a few lovely books written by women. Maida Heatter and my Marcella Hazan books are not to miss. Neither is my Caprial Pence collection. Oh and Nancy Silverton, too. Do Colette Peters and Sylvia Weinstock qualify as well?

But I do notice men leading the way with the vast majority of my collection.

[fifi]

Terrific post, Andy. Anyone that wants to sell a book should hire you to write a review.

But... DAMN YOU! I just got the notification that my last Amazon order has been shipped. It was actually instigated by Paula's Slow Food article. Then, that "also bought" got me and two more Paula-books were added to the order. Now you remind me that I really want some of Madhur Jaffrey's work.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn if she stopped off in Germany along the way, just in case the rumour of an ancient Germanic tribe of curry lovers turned out to be true.

That one got me.

The HTF Requiem typeface on the page's matt surface is calming to the eye and condusive to lazy sessions, wine glass in hand, choosing which recipe to tackle next.

Book review porn! I can't wait until my copy gets here!

Zarela Martinez is one of my favorites. She really does write from the heart about her native Mexico. And Diana Kennedy is certainly an in depth study of Mexican cuisine.

The ladies have a pretty fair representation in my collection.

[Jaymes]

I never thought much about this until this post.

So I looked.

And in my collection, by far the majority of the books are by women.

[Priscilla]

Really good three-item survey, Andy. And, serious.

I am loathe to do what it would take to get an exact accounting, but I have relied over the years on many cookery books by women. Many by men, more, I suppose in fact, but to ascertain the ratio would be doing the aforementioned what it takes. And yes, they are not restauranty books.

Lessee, Madeleine Kamman, entire catalogue (her In Madeleine's Kitchen is perhaps the most restauranty of the bunch). Mapie, the Countess de Toulouse-Lautrec, indispensable. Marcella Hazan, as previously mentioned, entire. (Who puts me in mind of Ada Boni.) Elizabeth David, of course -- entire. Sheila Hibben, the cookery writer who worked on the Nero Wolfe Cookbook with Rex Stout. And some others.

Not meaning to dispute, Andy. Just got me to thinkin' is all.

[Fat Guy]

Excellent topic, Andy, and well stated. I thought I'd try to flesh out some of the statistical issues. The first thing that came to mind was to look at the Beard Awards:

2003 James Beard Award winners in the books categories . . .

Female:

Lois Ellen Frank

Deborah Madison

Judy Rodgers

Edna Lewis

Marion Nestle

Deborah Krasner

Jean Anderson

Crescent Dragonwagon

TOTAL: 8

Male:

Greg Patent

David Thompson

James Peterson

Alton Brown

Michael Broadbent

TOTAL: 5

I also checked the Amazon.com cookbook bestseller list, but found that it's so heavily dominated by diet-oriented books that it doesn't have much applicability here.

[Andy Lynes]

Not meaning to dispute, Andy.  Just got me to thinkin' is all.

The original post was by way of a confession I suppose. I was pointing out the narrowness of my own collection. The fact is that when I walk into a book shop, not only do I always head staight front the cokery section, but also head straight for the latest chef/restaurant title which tend to be by male writers.

Its not that there aren't many great female cookery writers, it is simply that I have not investigated enough. That will now change. (My record collection is on a very similar state I have to say, look under M and you'll find Metallica but no Joni Mitchell.)

[ExtraMSG]

Its not that there aren't many great female cookery writers, it is simply that I have not investigated enough. That will now change. (My record collection is on a very similar state I have to say, look under M and you'll find Metallica but no Joni Mitchell.)

That's okay, Joni Mitchell isn't that great anyway...But not having a Diana Kennedy cookbook for Mexican is heresy. Here are some specific suggestions:

Diana Kennedy: From My Kitchen (for an intro to techniques and ingredients), Essential Cuisines (for an intro to Mexican cooking and a good survey of the cuisine)

Elizabeth Lambert-Ortiz: Latin American Cooking (inexpensive paperback that packs a lot of good recipes in)

Mimi Sheraton: The German Cookbook

Fuchsia Dunlop: Land of Plenty (sichuan cooking)

Jennifer Brennan: Cuisines of Asia (organized by style of cooking, not country, which is very useful)

Claudia Roden: New Book of Middle Eastern Food

Marcella Hazan: Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Juli Sahni: Classic Indian Cooking

Nancy Zaslavsky: Cook's Tour of Mexico (great regional recipes; but also a good guidebook to Mexican restaurants in Mexico)

Martha Stewart: The Martha Stewart Cookbook, Martha Stewart Living Cookbook (surprisingly good recipes and very comprehensive)

Alice Waters: Chez Panisse Vegetables (the best of her books, imo)

Julia Child: Mastering the Art of French Cooking (an indispensible reference)

Irma Bombauer: Joy of Cooking (another indispensible reference with decent recipes for just about everything in American cooking)

[Andy Lynes]

Thanks for all those suggestions, I'm going to be a poorer man very soon I can see that.

[ExtraMSG]

Thanks for all those suggestions, I'm going to be a poorer man very soon I can see that.

I've joined, fulfilled my membership, and joined again The Good Cook bookclub a couple times. You get 4 books and then have to buy 2 more, I think. You buy those for less than you'd buy them at your local bookstore. It's a decent deal. btw, if you do want to join, email me privately and I can get a couple free books, too.

[Andy Lynes]

Looks like a US only club, I am UK based.

[ExtraMSG]

Might be cheaper to move.

[Priscilla]

One's personal cuisine interests influence the ratio a bit, at least on my shelves. Anne Volokh and Darra Goldstein in the Eastern Bloc section, Elizabeth Andoh in Japanese. Add in Marcella Hazan for Italian and one could make a facile analysis of women being better represented in the soi-disant "ethnic" category. But then there's all those M.F.K. Fisher first editions ... how do they fit in?

But I see no need to unnaturally shape one's cookbook collection -- rather it should grow organically into a foundation that supports the type of cooking and research its owner wants to do. Don't matter a whit to me whether the book's written by a man or a woman, so long as it earns its keep, intellectually and culinarily.

[Andy Lynes]

Don't matter a whit to me whether the book's written by a man or a woman

Agreed, but I have recently wondered if subconciously I have in some way dismissed the work of women cookery writers and therefore missed out on a great deal. My conclusion is that is in fact the case as I have aspired to be a chef for a number of years, have never realised that ambition,and have instead worked out that aspiration by hoovering up the works of any chef I can lay my hands on and attempting to reproduce restaurant food at home. I believe I am not alone in this BTW.

[Brad S]

Only Priscilla sited Madeleine Kamman.

I urge you all to bring her into your culinary library.

[Priscilla]

Wait a minute ... you mean you're NOT just a common-or-garden misogynistic chauvinistic bastard?

What is true is if one pre-eliminates, consciously or sub-, a percentage of the available literature, one stands to miss out on what could be some good or important or even life-changing stuff.

Casting one's eye over the full unedited panoply of cookery writers and practitioners can only be good for the old personal cooking continuum.

[Andy Lynes]

Wait a minute ... you mean you're NOT just a common-or-garden misogynistic chauvinistic bastard?

I'm not common-or-garden anything. The rest is up for debate.

[laurenmilan]

I took a good hard look at my collection last night while I was recipe-hunting, and well I stand corrected. My collection's not nearly as female as I thought, and after reading this thread, it's clear the "classic" writers are not as male as I thought.

I tend toward restaurant/bakery cookbooks, less about trendsetting or flash (I have 15 chocolate books and not one Jacques Torres), and I've come to associate that kind of cooking with women (maybe because my 3 most used books are from the Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa shop, Sylvia's Soul Food Shack, and Mrs. Wilkes Boardinghouse).

But yeppers, I have been a fool.

[fifi]

I clicked on the Amazon icon to order Madhur Jaffrey's book (to go along with the Russ Parsons order) and they don't seem to have it. Has it been published in the US yet?

[kitwilliams]

Only Priscilla sited Madeleine Kamman.

I urge you all to bring her into your culinary library.

I, too, am amazed at how few have mentioned Madeleine Kamman, Brad! My favorite being, When French Women Cook.

Anyone out there have Margaret Fox's Cafe Beaujolais? Just try the Red Cabbage Salad in there. But make a double recipe. It is so good as a leftover, cold from the fridge.

[badthings]

Andy, what about Rogers & Gray? Perhaps my favorite restaurant cookbook of all time. Of course that has something to do with the time in my life that I first read it.

Italian Country Cooking -- the second one is not as exciting.

[helenas]

Viana La Place;

Erica De Mane;

Judy Rogers;