Stand Facing the Stove: The Story of the Women Who Gave America the Joy of Cooking

by Anne Mendelson

Book Overview

In 1931, Irma S. Rombauer, a recent widow, took her life savings and self-published a cookbook that she hoped might support her family. Little did she know that her book would go on to become America's most beloved cooking companion. Thus was born the bestselling Joy of Cooking, and with it, a culinary revolution that continues to this day.
In Stand Facing the Stove, Anne Mendelson presents a richly detailed biographical portrait...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743229398
• ISBN13: 9780743229395
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

"Joy" Was Not Always Such Joy

The Joy Of Cooking was my first cookbook given to me by my mother. And reading the recipe as it were, as how it all came about is quite compelling.Take one family--the St. Louis Rombauers--from good German stock. Add a 1931 vanity printing of Mrs. Rombauer's mostly unexceptional recipes: molded fruit salads, Kitchen Bouquet-colored gravies, things involving canned soup. Watch this collection rise into a successful commercial volume, leavened by its idiosyncratic voice (comparing a "vegetable plate, unadorned" to Gandhi's bald head, the amateur chef recommended a sprig of parsley). Throw in a contentious author-publisher relationship, plus daughter Marion Rombauer Becker's reluctant inheritance of her mother's legacy, and a delicious story forms. Mendelson, who writes for Gourmet, discusses this most definitively American kitchen manual with measured but contagious relish. Like The Joy of Cooking, her closely researched work will be many things to many people. It's publishing history, intimate biography, and a record of changing national tastes--a practically foolproof repast.

excellent history but very "wordy"

Anne Mendelson gave a very descriptive account of life in St. Louis. She loves large words and uses them correctly, but it could have been a shorter book with less words