Full name: Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America

Author: Laura Shapiro Year: 2004 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Non Fiction, History Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780143034919 014303491X

In this captivating blend of culinary history and popular culture, the award-winning author of Perfection Salad shows us what happened when the food industry elbowed its way into the kitchen after World War II, brandishing canned hamburgers, frozen baked beans, and instant piecrusts. Big Business waged an all-out campaign to win the allegiance of American housewives, but most women were suspicious of the new foods—and the make-believe cooking they entailed. With sharp insight and good humor, Laura Shapiro shows how the ensuing battle helped shape the way we eat today, and how the clash in the kitchen reverberated elsewhere in the house as women struggled with marriage, work, and domesticity. This unconventional history overturns our notions about the ’50s and offers new thinking on some of its fascinating figures, including Poppy Cannon, Shirley Jackson, Julia Child, and Betty Friedan. Similar books: Why We Eat What We Eat by Raymond Sokolov Perfection Salad by Laura Shapiro From Hardtack to Home Fries by Barbara Haber Food by Jean-Louis Flandrin Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson Moveable Feasts by Sarah Murray A History of Food by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat Food in History by Reay Tannahill Near a Thousand Tables by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto The Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky Food by Paul Freedman A Movable Feast by Kenneth F. Kiple Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser Eating in America by Waverly Root The Rituals of Dinner by Margaret Visser Dead Wake by Erik Larson The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson Go Like Hell by A. J. Baime