Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century
by: Shapiro, Laura

Softcover. NY, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 280 pages. This entertaining and social history of women and cooking at the turn of the 20th century is laced with sly humor and lucid insight. The author uncovers our ancestors' widespread obsession with food, and tells readers why we think as we do about food today. The most memorable of the culinary movers was Fannie Farmer, whose cookbook was published in a modest 3000-copy edition in 1896. Stories about Farmer and other domestic scientists of the period add strong appeal to Shapiro's report. So do the parallels between early feminists and today's advocates of equal rights. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.