Bingo 8: Work
A Woman’s Place: The Inventors, Rumrunners, Lawbreakers, Scientists & Single Moms who Changed the World with Food is basically a short illustrated encyclopedia of women who influenced the food world. The overall thesis is that their intellectual, physical, and cultural work across centuries and places has gone under-acknowledged. These women in different ways had to work to take care of themselves, their families, and communities, and in the process came up with things ranging from Camembert cheese to dishwashers to famous cookbooks and restaurants to the PB&J (or at least the first written record of it). There are also a few recipes scattered about.
The cool thing about this collection of brief bios is that it’s pretty inclusive. Yes, Julia Child and Betty Crocker are here, but so are Esther Eng (openly lesbian Chinese American woman who introduced the idea of Chinese food in the US in the 1950sand 60s), Lena Richard who was a black woman during Jim Crow who had a tv show and published cookbooks, basically inventing the celebrity chef in early 20th century, and the Hanyeo (Korean women who free dive for abalone).
Turns out, a woman also invented the paper coffee filter (guess why the brand name is “Melitta”), buffalo wings, and maybe chili (with a touch of divine inspiration). Women also seem to have written some of the first ice cream cookbooks, may have been among the first beer brewers, and could also be responsible for the influence of Italian ingredients and items (like spinach, truffles, and custards) on formal French cooking. A woman might even be responsible for the introduction of the fork to modern table manners.