Eighth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Two cookbooks reflect the common struggle that 1960s female newspaper food editors faced as they balanced their careers and their parenting: Always on Sunday (St. Paul Pioneer Press) and Pot au Feu (Arizona Republic). These editors wrote columns that shared their personal and professional lives as they covered food news for home cooks and fancy foodies. Blended in their food columns were stories about their own fussy children, failed recipes and the weight gain that came with testing recipes. The authors of these columns, Eleanor Ostman and Dorothee Polson, represent the lives of newspaper editors who balanced the joy and challenges of cooking in the professional and private spheres. It draws attention to the roles of home cooks, motherhood and labor in a time prior to the Women’s Liberation Movement.