Hometown Appetites

July 21, 2008
At long last, an enthusiastic, significant rehabilitation of Paddleford’s career as food writer from 1936 to 1966 at the New York Herald Tribune
. Alexander, whose article on Paddleford for Saveur
won the James Beard Journalism Award in 2002, and Harris, the archivist at Kansas State Univ., to which native Paddleford left her papers, happily resurrect Paddleford’s work. An indefatigable journalist, Paddleford broke with the staid home-economics primers of the era. With humble Midwest beginnings and a degree in industrial journalism, Paddleford set out for New York City to make a name for herself, and found that her energy and sheer prodigiousness opened doors at popular publications like Farm & Fireside
, Christian Herald
and This Week
, the Tribune
’s Sunday magazine. Influenced by the peripatetic culinary adventures of salesman Duncan Hines, Paddleford launched, in 1948, a series of columns in This Week
called “How America Eats,” spotlighting regional cooks and their down-home specialties. With her trademark florid prose and historic touches, Paddleford became widely known, and her subsequent book, How America Eats
(1960), became a bestseller. The authors make an upbeat case for reconsidering Paddleford’s achievement in this enjoyable read, and include a slew of her comfort recipes.