Clementine, once more

I've written twice about the mostly-forgotten food writer Clementine Paddleford. As I promised in those posts, I've bought a copy of her long-out-of-print cookbook How America Eats. I find it just as remarkable as her admirers claim. The book is almost 500 pages long, with several recipes per page.

Paddleford collected each recipe from a specific source: often a woman who was locally recognized as an excellent cook or a group of women; sometimes from chefs or other food professionals. In the book as in her newspaper columns that it was based on, she provided a story about the recipe, its author, and about foods that were popular in each city or area. Thus it's impossible to do justice to such a book! Here are a few example pages and quotes:

My newly acquired copy of the 1960 edition of How America Eats.
Dust jacket just a little worn.

Paddleford included a section on every state except Hawaii.
This is one of the illustrations for Alaska:
most of the black & white photos show important landmarks and scenery.

"Alaska -- Rosy the Dawn -- Rosy the Salmon" is the title of a section about Paddleford's "short course majoring in salmon in the Northwest." She wrote: "I followed salmon in their tearing hurry from river's mouth to spawning grounds, from river's mouth into nets, into boats; then to the canneries. ... By late August I was on intimate terms with the whole luscious pink-meated tribe from pale Coho to sister Silver, to big brother Chinook, King of the clan. I got chummy with light rosy Chum, so inexpensive, and met brilliant red Sockeye." (p. 433)

Paddleford visited Alaska, Washington, and Oregon, collecting recipes for the fish, crabs, and other seafood of the region.

The wives of the fishermen said they would freeze or can the catch: "it's fish for a year." She published their recipes for Moulded Salmon, "Salmon Box" (baked), Salmon Patties (from a can), Salmon Souffle, Baked Stuffed Salmon, and several crab recipes.

On a fishing boat, a 72-foot cannery tender, she tried sourdough pancakes prepared by Chef Phil Kerr. "Sourdough is a staple of the Far North," according to Phil, she wrote. "In the early days it was used throughout the Northwest and California, providing pancakes, biscuits, and other such products. This fermented dough came into use as a substitute for the fresh leavening in the pioneering days. A sourdough starter then was worth its weight  in gold to those who lived far from a trading post. In the Klondike the trappers and miners and prospectors were so dependent on this forever-keeping dough they became known as 'sourdoughs.'" (p. 439)

At the time that Paddleford published her book, sourdough wasn't well known as it is now. Similarly unfamiliar, I'm sure, were many other regional foods she described: foods with limited geographical availability; immigrants' foods; and specialties of diners, small restaurants, and home cooks throughout the country.

As my friends in the culinary book club pointed out, this comprehensive cookbook should serve as a reference to those who write American food history -- but I fear it will remain obscure!

In Defense of Clementine Paddleford

A Gourmet cover from 1950

The other day I wrote about the book Hometown Appetites: The Story of Clementine Paddleford, the Forgotten Foodwriter who Chronicled How America Ate, which was the selection for my culinary book club. Last night's discussion of the book was a lot of fun. We talked about the accomplishments of Paddleford, and about her reputation -- as emphasized in the book -- for using very flowery and over-the-top language.

Paddleford as
shown at the top
of her Gourmet
column

When I got home, I looked up her writings online, and found that quite a few of her columns, titled "Food Flashes" from Gourmet magazine were available in their archive. Note: others that used to be there have disappeared.

Each column in Gourmet included a series of descriptions of new food products -- both imports and local ones. Here are some quotes that I enjoyed, which I think illustrate what's fun and breezy not really so florid as all that.

From July, 1951:

"Mighty like a rose and it is rose, a rose-petal honey made by a recipe taken from the famous Martha Washington cookbook, the original copy now owned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 

"Martha kept a stock of this honey on hand, and one garden of red roses was grown at Mount Vernon just for its making. 

"This pale honey of the delicate rose flavor is made almost exactly like that brewed by Martha. 

"The maker is Mrs. Abraham Elkon, a former food columnist for French and Canadian newspapers, who loves experimenting with food. While perusing the Martha Washington cookbook, she took a fancy to the honey recipe. 

"The honey is processed with rose petals, which are purchased in quantities, 'scummed' carefully, and allowed to cool slowly. In accordance with modern tastes, she has reduced the rose flavor slightly. For centuries after the Crusades, rose was one of the most popular flavors, Rose petals, rose crystals, rose waters, were a frequent addition to sauces and cakes. The ancestral palates were more used to this flavor than ours. Knowing this, Mrs. Elkon makes her honey most delicate of the rose, much less heavily scented than Martha turned out for George. But that flavor is 'something very special,' one taster wrote." (source)

From December, 1950:

"Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! Say it in Mexican, say it with tamales—four kinds of tamales, kit-packed, yours for gift-giving, to keep handy for those special occasions. 

"The tamale, did you know, is American in origin, the favorite food of the Aztecs? Long ago it went marching with Montezuma's troops, a sort of a K ration convenient to carry, something to eat hot or cold. 

"Tamales now, as then, vary in size and in content, but one general procedure is followed for all. A clean corn husk is opened and spread with a layer of soft-cooked masa, a mash made from corn and resembling corn bread. Over this goes a layer of chicken or beef or mashed dried fruits, and the husk is rolled. The husk performs the same function as a wax paper sandwich bag, enclosing and protecting the rolled sandwich." (source)

From December, 1944 -- wartime:

"Again Johnny Doughboy has first call on the drumsticks. When Thanksgiving Day dawns, the ambrosial odors of roasting turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy will rise from camp kitchens round the world. Less turkey for civilians, one-quarter pound less a person than we had last winter, when it was three pounds apiece. This year it will be half a drumstick less for the plate. But listen where the missing bit's going. Prisoners of war are to have turkey for Christmas dinner—last year it was chicken. 

"The cranberry crop is the shortest since 1921, or 53 million pounds, 16 million less than last season. At least a third of this will be going to the military. Oysters are on the skimpy side, but a few more than last autumn. There they lie in their beds, fat and willing, but there's not enough labor to tong and pack the crop. 

"Otherwise, the great-day feast is the usual bounty, war or no war. Pass the mashed potatoes piled in a high, light drift. Help yourself to yams candied in their own rich blood. There are large supplies of potatoes, both the white and the gold. No onion famine this winter —onion crops are breaking records. Mash the purple-tinted turnip. Serve the parsnip of sweet, earthy taste. Native squash is here to celebrate the day in proper manner. 

"Traditionalists insist that the Thanksgiving pie should be of three kinds, pumpkin, mince, and apple—a sliver of each. This year one pie is enough. 'What moistens the lips, what brightens the eye, what calls Kick the past like the rich pumpkin pie?' The pumpkin crop got hurt this fall by the drought in New Jersey and Maryland, where this native vegetable is grown by the hundreds of acres. Even so, there will be pumpkin enough to put a pie on every American table. Mincemeat is in better supply this year than for two holidays past. More apples, for one reason, plenty of raisins. And a line apple crop means a fine cider flow." (source)

Each column was several times as long as what I've quoted, but I think I've given a suggestion of her writing style. Despite the accusations of recent writers, I find this style very amusing. I think I can see how it attracted readers to her columns in the New York Herald Tribune, Gourmet, and other publications. It's dated, for sure, but I defend her against the most exaggerated criticisms!

I also read two articles about her: one from the New York Times about her personal papers that reside in the library at Kansas by R.W. Apple (2005), another from the Saturday Evening Post, "Clementine Paddleford: Her Passion is Food" (1949). And I've ordered a copy of her most important book, How America Eats (1960), which will arrive in the next few weeks. So I will have more to say eventually.

Clementine Paddleford

Hometown Appetites: The Story of Clementine Paddleford, the Forgotten Foodwriter who Chronicled How America Ate (2008) is a mildly interesting book, but most of what it has to say is embodied in the title. The authors, Kelly Alexander and Cynthia Harris, delved into a vast archive of material about the journalist Clementine Paddleford.

Paddleford was born in Kansas in 1898, attended journalism school in Kansas, began her career in Chicago, and became highly successful writing a column called "How America Eats" for the New York Herald Tribune and its weekly magazine. She published a collection of her food and recipe columns under the same title in 1960. The authors believe that she developed many of the attitudes and appreciations of American food that have become standards since she invented them. She died in 1967.

Despite her accomplishments, her wide popularity, and her innovations in collecting recipes from home cooks throughout America, she and her work were quickly forgotten. The authors find this mysterious, speculating that the rise of Craig Claiborne and his quite different type of restaurant-centered food writing at the New York Times eclipsed Paddleford's work. The fact that the Herald Tribune went out of business while the New York Times grew in importance also contributed to her obscurity.

As do most biographies, Hometown Appetites covers the life of its subject in great detail, maybe a bit more than I wanted to know. Paddleford's interesting style of dress is repeatedly mentioned: she wore flowing clothes and wasn't conventionally glamourous. Her way of relating to her subjects is suggested to be very well adapted to drawing them out, but not in much specific or vivid detail. One intriguing fact is that she piloted her own plane to get around the country, but there's almost no specific information about her learning to fly or other detail that might have been fun to learn.

The authors describe Paddleford's writing style as breathless and overblown, but somehow their own prose frequently seems to suffer from the same problem. Here's a sentence the authors wrote about Paddleford's college experience to ponder: "The new editor wasn't just blowing smoke, though -- she had really earned her chops." (p. 33)

Here's another example: "She was bursting with intimate memories of the pleasure of eating: the thrill of a cool glass of tart lemonade on a blisteringly hot day, and coming home from school to the warm yeasty smell of rolls. Like water flowing up in a well, Paddleford's memories of her family's meals bubbled up into her reporting. " (p. 67)

Paddleford also wrote columns about where to buy interesting foods and ingredients, especially in New York. She often relied on public relations staff from food producers, which is interesting, though the authors of the book don't explore how this may have affected her writing -- another intriguing subject they didn't quite address.

"How America Eats" sounds like a really interesting food column, as Paddleford was evidently a very skilled interviewer and wrote about interesting choices, including farmers and farm women, immigrants, city dwellers, food producers, and many other people all over America. I would like to take a look at the 1960 book eventually -- there are copies for sale online at not too terrible prices. It was updated in 2011 (after the biography was published), and the updated version is available in the local library, but I would prefer to see the original.

I'm looking forward to a discussion of this book at my culinary book club next week.