Laura Shapiro

Last updated

Laura Shapiro
Born (1946-06-20) June 20, 1946 (age 77)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
OccupationJournalist, historian
Notable worksPerfection Salad (1986)
Something from the Oven (2004)
Julia Child (2007)
What She Ate (2017)
Notable awards1995 James Beard Foundation Award
2008 IACP Award
Website
laurashapirowriter.com

Laura Shapiro (born June 20, 1946) is an American food journalist and historian. Shapiro was a dance critic for The Boston Globe in the 1970s and joined Newsweek magazine in 1984. She shifted to food writing during her 15-year tenure at Newsweek, and in 1995, she won a James Beard Foundation Award for one of her magazine features.

Contents

Shapiro has written four books on culinary history. Her 2007 biography of television chef Julia Child won the Literary Food Writing award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

Biography

Laura Shapiro was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on June 20, 1946. [1] She is one of two daughters of Frances Sidd (1917–1997), a former caterer who worked for the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and Boston Ballet, and Harry Shapiro (1914–2014), who played the French horn in the BSO from 1937 to 1976 and was later the orchestra manager at the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox. [2] [3] She was raised in Needham, and she graduated from Belmont High School and then Radcliffe College. [4] [5] As her father played in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, her summers growing up were spent in Berkshire County. [6] She recalls some important life experiences in the Berkshires, especially in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge and the Lenox Library, describing the latter as one of her favorite places. [6] Her career began at the Cambridge Phoenix and the alternative weekly The Real Paper ; at the latter publication, in the 1970s, she mainly wrote about the women's movement. [7] [4] [8] She was a dance critic for The Boston Globe later in the 1970s, and she joined Newsweek magazine in 1984 to write on dance. [8] [4] She ultimately spent 15 years writing on food for the publication, during which she won the 1995 James Beard Foundation Award in the category "Magazine Writing on Diet, Nutrition & Health" for her feature "The Skinny on Fat". [9] [10] Her writing has appeared in Gastronomica , Gourmet , The New Yorker , and The New York Times . [8]

A culinary historian, Shapiro has written four books about women and food. [11] [12] From 2009 to 2010, she was a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, where she worked on a collection of biographical essays. [13] Shapiro and Rebecca Federman curated the exhibition Lunch Hour NYC at the New York Public Library, June 2012 to February 2013, which discusses how New York City gave the lunch hour its modern identity, examining a 150-year history. [14] [15] She appeared in the first episode of a food podcast hosted by the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, Ox Tales, released in 2018. [16]

Shapiro served a three-year term on the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities ending in 1974, and was appointed for another term in 1976 by state governor Michael Dukakis. [17] [18]

As of 2018, Shapiro lives in New York City. [6] She is married to John Stratton Hawley  [ Wikidata ], a professor of religion at Columbia University's Barnard College. [1] [19] [20]

Writing

Perfection Salad (1986)

Shapiro published her first book, Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century, with Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1986. It examines the influence of science and industry on home cooking and the roles of women in the U.S. in the late 19th century, including the home economics movement and the development of the American cuisine. [21] [22] [23]

In an effort to gain background information for her work at The Real Paper, Shapiro began reading about the women's movement of the 19th-century at Schlesinger Library, in Cambridge. During this time, she started conducting archival research on women's lives in the kitchen, an intersection of topics she felt was overlooked, and working on what would be Perfection Salad. [8] Research for the book led her to surmise that "[f]ood coverage is either written by the food industry or at the service of the food industry." [23]

Barbara Ehrenreich of New York Times Book Review felt the book had "deft humor" that some readers "may find unbecoming to a work of such impeccable scholarship", though she felt it was appropriate given the subject matter. [21] In a review of the 2001 reprint, Kirkus Reviews noted some "risible facts" in Shapiro's history, but felt it was not "palatable or even digestible reading fare". [24] Maxine Margolis, writing in The American Historical Review , wrote that the book provided "a wealth of data on a topic that has been too long ignored" despite insufficient analysis in some places. [22]

Something from the Oven (2004)

Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America (Viking Press, 2004) covers the history of cooking in the U.S. in the 1950s, from the end of World War II to the mid-1960s. [25] Shapiro argues how the food industry advertisers tried to convince American women that cooking was hard and time-consuming work in order to encourage them to buy packaged, dehydrated, and frozen foods. [26] The industry's actions would begin to be countered with two events in 1963: the debut of Julia Child's cooking program The French Chef , and the publication of Betty Friedan's influential feminist book The Feminine Mystique . [26] While "...Betty Friedan was telling women they could take charge of their own lives", Shapiro said, "Julia Child was telling women that could take charge of dinner. It was the same message." [26]

Kirkus Reviews praised the book's entertainment value and the quality of Shapiro's research, but they felt that its "parts don't cohere into a consistent whole" even though there are common themes. [25] Paul Levy of The New York Times found Shapiro "at her considerable best" in her biographies of the writers who brought about changes in the history of domestic cooking, and he also praised Shapiro's research. [27] A reviewer in The New Yorker found the book "very funny, and also subtle." [28]

Julia Child (2007)

Shapiro's 2007 biography of Julia Child was published by Lipper/Viking as part of its Penguin Lives biography series. [29] Shapiro said the short and non-comprehensive format of the Penguin Lives series allowed her to avoid "topics that were relevant but not that interesting to me, for instance comparative approaches to classic French cooking". [8]

The book won the 2008 Literary Food Writing award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. [30] Dorothy Kalins of The New York Times felt Shapiro exhibited "enormous grace and food savvy" given the limited length of the Penguin Lives entries. [31] Kalins felt that Shapiro had "deftly distill[ed]" Child's relationship with her husband, Paul, and she was intrigued by Shapiro's account that Child was not a naturally proficient cook. [31] Kirkus Reviews wrote that Shapiro had produced a "vivid biography" of Child which characterized her as a "steadfast, vigorous, analytical person" and someone who was not a natural chef. [32] Publishers Weekly found the biography "short but comprehensive", noting that it does not withhold from describing Child's "less-flattering" qualities. [29] The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called the book the definitive analysis of her career. [33]

What She Ate (2017)

What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories (Viking Press, 2017) contains essays on the relationship that six famous women—Dorothy Wordsworth, Rosa Lewis, Eleanor Roosevelt, Eva Braun, Barbara Pym, and Helen Gurley Brown—had with food through their lives. [34] Shapiro researched sources such as diary entries, dinner party accounts, and shopping lists, [34] later remarking her research was akin to "standing in line at the supermarket and peering into the other carts." [35]

Bill Daley of the Chicago Tribune found Shapiro's stories on each women "sharply drawn" reflections of their personalities and circumstances, specifically Shapiro's handling of Rosa Lewis, which Daley felt was "[p]articularly well-executed". [36] Daly also felt that focusing on the six women rather than more popular subjects in cooking history, the book provides insight on the "roles and expectations" of women and men especially in the 20th century. [36] In The Washington Post , author Jennifer Reese wrote that Shapiro approached the subjects like a "surgeon, analytical tools sharpened", unlike most food writing which Reese feels is "unrigorous" and overly emotional. [34] Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan said that Shapiro's analysis of the women's food stories allowed "[s]lowly the more familiar accounts of each of their lives recede and other, messier narratives emerge." [35]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Child</span> American cooking personality (1912–2004)

Julia Carolyn Child was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which premiered in 1963.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simone Beck</span> French cooking author and teacher (1904–1991)

Simone "Simca" Beck was a French cookbook writer and cooking teacher who, along with colleagues Julia Child and Louisette Bertholle, played a significant role in the introduction of French cooking technique and recipes into American kitchens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fannie Farmer</span> American chef

Fannie Merritt Farmer was an American culinary expert whose Boston Cooking-School Cook Book became a widely used culinary text.

<i>Mastering the Art of French Cooking</i> Cookbook by Beck, Bertholle, and Child

Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a two-volume French cookbook written by Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, both from France, and Julia Child, who was from the United States. The book was written for the American market and published by Knopf in 1961 and 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betty Fussell</span> American writer (born 1927)

Betty Ellen Fussell is an American writer and is the author of 12 books, ranging from biography to cookbooks, food history and memoir. Over the last 50 years, her essays on food, travel and the arts have appeared in scholarly journals, popular magazines and newspapers as varied as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, Saveur, Vogue, Food & Wine, Metropolitan Home and Gastronomica. Her memoir, My Kitchen Wars, was performed in Hollywood and New York as a one-woman show by actress Dorothy Lyman. Her most recent book is Eat Live Love Die, and she is now working on How to Cook a Coyote: A Manual of Survival.

<i>Julie & Julia</i> 2009 film by Nora Ephron

Julie & Julia is a 2009 American biographical comedy-drama film written and directed by Nora Ephron starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in the title roles with Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina and Linda Emond in supporting roles. The film contrasts the life of chef Julia Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New Yorker Julie Powell, who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook in 365 days, a challenge she described on her popular blog, which made her a published author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julie Powell</span> American author (1973–2022)

Julie Anne Powell was an American author known for her 2005 book Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen which was based on her blog, the Julie/Julia Project. A film adaptation based on her book called Julie & Julia was released in 2009.

Judith Jones was an American writer and editor, best known for having rescued The Diary of Anne Frank from the reject pile. Jones also championed Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She retired as senior editor and vice president at Alfred A. Knopf in 2011. Jones was also a cookbook author and memoirist. She won multiple lifetime achievement awards, including the James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louisette Bertholle</span> French chef and author (1905–1999)

Louisette Bertholle was a French cooking teacher and writer, best known as one of the three authors of the bestselling cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Gordon Hamersley is an American chef based in Boston and cookbook author. Arguably his roast chicken is his most acclaimed recipe. It was part of a meal he cooked for Julia Child in her show In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs. His personal trademark is his ever-present Red Sox cap.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avis DeVoto</span> American culinary editor, book reviewer, and cook

Avis DeVoto was an American culinary editor, book reviewer, and cook. She was highly influential in editing and guiding two famous cookbooks to publication: Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and the US edition of the British food writer Elizabeth David's Italian Food.

Madeleine Kamman was a French chef and restaurateur, cookery teacher and author of seven cookbooks, who spent most of her working life in America bringing the rigors of French technique to American ingredients and audiences.

Laurie Goldrich Wolf is an American food writer and entrepreneur. Her husband since 1984, Bruce Wolf, who is a professional photographer, sometimes collaborates with her.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen McCully</span>

Helen McCully (1902–1977) was a Canadian food writer, critic and cookbook author from Nova Scotia. She was influential as a food editor of McCall's and House Beautiful and was at least partially responsible for helping to discover the unknown Julia Child in 1960. Besides writing regular columns on food, she used her influence to help promote the careers of many in the food industry, as well as writing her own cookbooks.

Melissa Clark is an American food writer, cookbook author and New York Times columnist. She is the author of over 40 cookbooks and has received multiple awards from the James Beard Foundation and IACP for her work. Clark is a regular guest on television series such as Today show, Rachael Ray and Iron Chef America and on radio programmes such as The Splendid Table on NPR and The Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC.

Barbara Haber is a culinary historian and speaker. She is the former book curator of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University. Haber is credited with expanding the library's focus on women's social history to include food-related books and cookbooks, as well as fiction and memoirs, despite critics that were originally against it. She has authored and co-written books on subjects related to culinary history.

Molly Baz is an American chef and food writer. She was a senior food editor at Bon Appétit magazine and appeared frequently in videos for the magazine's YouTube channel before leaving in 2020. In 2021, Baz published the cookbook Cook This Book, which became a New York Times Best Seller.

Luisa Weiss is an Italian-American writer based in Berlin. Weiss was employed as a literary scout and cookbook editor in New York where, in 2005, she started the food blog The Wednesday Chef. She has written two books—the memoir My Berlin Kitchen (2012) and the well-received cookbook Classic German Baking (2016).

Tracey Medeiros is an American chef and cookbook author. She wrote The Art of Cooking with Cannabis as well as several cookbooks that collect recipes from farmers and local businesses in Vermont, and co-authored a similar collection from Connecticut.

Elissa Altman is an American food writer and author. She has written three memoirs: Poor Man’s Feast: A Love Story of Comfort, Desire, and the Art of Simple Cooking, Treyf: My Life as an Unorthodox Outlaw, and Motherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing. Her blog "Poor Man's Feast" won a James Beard Foundation Award for Individual Food Blog in 2012.

References

  1. 1 2 "Shapiro, Laura 1946–". Encyclopedia.com . Retrieved January 7, 2023.
  2. ↑ Eichler, Jeremy (July 4, 2014). "Harry Shapiro; horn player had long tenure with BSO". The Boston Globe . pp. B11. Retrieved July 4, 2023– via Newspapers.com.
  3. ↑ "Obituary for Frances S. Shapiro". The Berkshire Eagle . Richmond, Massachusetts. July 12, 1997. p. 14. Retrieved July 4, 2023– via Newspapers.com.
  4. 1 2 3 Arnett, Alison (April 21, 2004). "Filling Her Plate With the '50s Writer Finds That Homemade Meals Didn't Disappear". The Boston Globe . p. E.1. ProQuest   404895749.
  5. ↑ Thomas, John C. (June 9, 1964). "Needham Youngsters Graduate With a Splash". The Boston Globe . p. 38. Retrieved July 4, 2023– via Newspapers.com.
  6. 1 2 3 Cassidy, Benjamin (May 11, 2018). "Author Q&A: Open Book with Laura Shapiro". The Berkshire Eagle . Retrieved July 6, 2023.
  7. ↑ Pilati, Joe (July 31, 1972). "Ex-Phoenix staffers join to publish the Real Paper". The Boston Globe . p. 5. Retrieved July 4, 2023– via Newspapers.com.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 "Laura Shapiro". Association for the Study of Food and Society. Retrieved January 17, 2023.
  9. ↑ Bundy, Beverly (August 15, 2001). "Diet (from 1D)". St. Petersburg Times . p. 5D. Retrieved January 7, 2023– via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ "Awards Search". James Beard Foundation . Retrieved January 7, 2023.
  11. ↑ "What She Ate". Kirkus Reviews . May 15, 2017. Retrieved January 7, 2023.
  12. ↑ Levitt, Aimee (April 30, 2020). "An appreciation of Laura Shapiro, a historian who found her place in the kitchen". The Takeout. G/O Media . Retrieved January 16, 2023.
  13. ↑ "Fellows and Their Topics for the Year 2009-2010". New York Public Library . Retrieved January 16, 2023.
  14. ↑ Rothstein, Edward (June 22, 2012). "Filling Up on a Midday Bite of New York History". The New York Times . Retrieved January 9, 2023.
  15. ↑ "Lunch Hour NYC". New York Public Library. Archived from the original on June 22, 2012. Retrieved January 9, 2023.
  16. ↑ Griffin, Annaliese (April 20, 2018). "Ox Tales: A fantastic food podcast without recipes, tools, or techniques". Quartz . Retrieved January 17, 2023.
  17. ↑ "Arts Council Grants Spread Around". The Recorder . Greenfield, Massachusetts. December 18, 1974. p. 18. Retrieved July 4, 2023– via Newspapers.com.
  18. ↑ "Dukakis names six to state arts council". The Boston Globe . Associated Press. March 17, 1976. p. 64. Retrieved July 4, 2023– via Newspapers.com.
  19. ↑ "John Stratton Hawley". Barnard College . Retrieved July 4, 2023.
  20. ↑ Eck, Diana L.; Hawley, John Stratton; Mehrotra, Rahul; Hausner, Sondra L. (September 1, 2021). "Portrait: Diana L. Eck". Religion and Society. Berghahn Journals. 12 (1): 1–20. doi: 10.3167/arrs.2021.120102 . This, after all, is the person who so loved the "pressing crowds" she encountered in north India that my wife Laura Shapiro sometimes found herself x-ing out a few when Diana asked her to give her Harvard dissertation a pre-submission edit.
  21. 1 2 Ehrenreich, Barbara (March 23, 1986). "Women and White Sauce". The New York Times Book Review . p. 36. ProQuest   111057810.
  22. 1 2 Margolis, Maxine L (February 1, 1987). "LAURA SHAPIRO. "Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century"". The American Historical Review : 225. doi:10.2307/1862952. ISSN   0002-8762. JSTOR   1862952. ProQuest   1289708471.
  23. 1 2 O'Neill, Molly (September 1, 2003). "Food Porn". Columbia Journalism Review . Retrieved January 6, 2023.
  24. ↑ "Perfection Salad". Kirkus Reviews . March 15, 2001.
  25. 1 2 "Something from the Oven". Kirkus Reviews . February 15, 2004. Retrieved February 3, 2023.
  26. 1 2 3 Smith, Dinitia (April 14, 2004). "When Flour Power Invaded the Kitchen". The New York Times . Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  27. ↑ Levy, Paul (April 18, 2004). "Lime Jell-O Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise". The New York Times Book Review . p. 16. ProQuest   217294775 . Retrieved February 3, 2023.
  28. ↑ "Something from the Oven". The New Yorker . April 12, 2004. Retrieved February 3, 2023.
  29. 1 2 "Julia Child: A Penguin Life by Laura Shapiro". Publishers Weekly . Retrieved February 3, 2023.
  30. ↑ "Culinary group casts wide net in cookbook awards". Star Tribune . April 30, 2008. Retrieved January 7, 2023.
  31. 1 2 Kalins, Dorothy (August 26, 2007). "Dropping the Chicken". The New York Times Book Review . Retrieved February 3, 2023.
  32. ↑ "Julia Child". Kirkus Reviews . January 15, 2007. Retrieved February 3, 2023.
  33. ↑ Carpenter, Mackenzie (April 8, 2007). "'Alice Waters and Chez Panisse' by Thomas McNamee and 'Penguin Lives: Julia Child' by Laura Shapiro". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette .
  34. 1 2 3 Reese, Jennifer (July 28, 2017). "What a meal can reveal about a woman's life". The Washington Post . Retrieved February 3, 2023.
  35. 1 2 Corrigan, Maureen (August 9, 2017). "'What She Ate' Reveals The Plates And Palates Of 6 Notable Women". Fresh Air . NPR . Retrieved July 5, 2023.
  36. 1 2 Daley, Bill (July 25, 2017). "Eleanor Roosevelt to Eva Braun, 'What She Ate' recounts prominent women through food". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved February 3, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.