by Kelly Alexander and Cynthia Harris
Anyone interested in culinary history should not miss this book. Hometown Appetites is the story of Clementine Paddleford and her career as a traveling food writer. This Kansas farm girl, born in 1898, left her home state and used her journalist skills in a career that spanned 4 decades - from 1920s to the 1960s. How on earth did I not know anything about someone who was so well respected in her field and was instrumental in chronicling region American food? It seems that as Time Magazines – “Best Known Food Editor “of 1953, her fame rivaled Julia Child and James Beard but after her death in 1967, she slipped from view in the food world. Her writing helped elevate how the American housewife thought about food.
