"The Food Section"

Though James Beard and Craig Claiborne were widely known in food-writing circles, their female contemporaries went largely unrecognized. University of Central Florida associate professor Kimberly Voss hopes to rectify this. 

In her volume "The Food Section: Newspaper Women and the Culinary Community," she sheds substantial light on the contributions of newspaper food editors in the United States from the 1940s through the '70s, "when food was changing significantly due to developments in technology and a changing American palate."

Most of these journalists at the time were women. They wrote "about local stores, local restaurants, and local cooks." They reported on national food news as well, on poverty, nutrition, health standards and government policies. 

And they connected with their audiences. For instance, "exchange columns in which readers requested recipes were some of the most common, popular, and long-lasting features of the newspapers acting as a kind of early social media."

Unfortunately, the author veers occasionally into less-interesting territory. A discussion, for example, on "the first industry conferences for food editors and journalists" gets somewhat dull. As does one on the history of home economics as a course of academic study. Further focus on food sections in newspapers today would also have been appreciated. 

But these are small quibbles about an otherwise cogent examination of remarkable female journalists who served "an important role for their communities" over the years, women who effectively "reached consumers and cooks" and "covered the intersection of food and governmental regulation."

(A version of this review appeared originally at Publishers Weekly.)