The Warmest Room in the House
How the Kitchen Became the Heart of the American Home
Gdula, Steve
Hardcover
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BOOK SUMMARY
Thomas Jefferson once wrote that if you really want to understand the workings of a society, you have to look into their kettles and eat their bread. Steve Gdula gives us a view of American culture from the most popular room in the house: the kitchen. Exa
BOOK SYNOPSIS
Thomas Jefferson once wrote that if you really want to understand the workings of a society, you have to “look into their kettles” and “eat their bread.” Steve Gdula gives us a view of American culture from the most popular room in the house: the kitchen. Examining the relationship between trends and innovations in the kitchen and the cultural attitudes beyond its four walls, Gdula creates a lively portrait of over 350 years of American domestic life. The Warmest Room in the House explores major historic themes, including the challenges of procurement in the seventeenth century, preservation in the eighteenth century, industrialization and enlightenment in the nineteenth century, and modernization in the twentieth. Gdula traces the evolution of American foods, recipes, trends, and styles of cooking, beginning with the exchanges that took place between the Powhatan Indians and the Jamestown settlers about nutrition through today’s polyglot international cuisine. Filled with fun facts about food trends, from Hamburger Helper to The Moosewood Cookbook, and food personalities, from Catherine Beecher to Martha Stewart, The Warmest Room in the House is the perfect addition to any well-rounded kitchen larder.
AUTHOR BIO
Steve Gdulas writing has appeared in Details, the Washington Post, the Advocate, and Cooking Light magazine. He lives in Washington, D.C.
BOOK REVIEWS
A worthy candidate for the kitchen shelf. Star TribuneA wealth of information on how the kitchen, and the food Americans prepared there, has changed since 1900..Gdula's scholarly approach will have you amazed at just how far we have come in easing the drudgery of cooking...a worthy candidate for the kitchen shelf. Chicago TribuneSteven Gdula's The Warmest Room in the House will warm you right up. This whirlwind tour of the past hundred years or so sheds light on how the kitchen was often a reflection of our society at any given time...You'll emerge armed with a wealth of kitchen-related tidbits..From Typhoid Mary to Martha Stewart, Gdula paints a portrait of America's culinary characters and how they fit into our changing sense of how to cook and eat. GothamistForget heart and hearth, argues the author of this inviting study of domiciliary evolution - home is where the stove is. Tracing the American kitchen's century-long rise from lowly back room to glowing center of domestic life, Gdula scours the historical pantry, illuminating the development of food preparation, scullery technology, gastronomic design, and culinary celebrity. The decade-by- decade survey he serves up is a delight, rich but restrained. Atlantic Monthly[Gdula] demonstrates in ample and fascinating detail. 'The Warmest Room' traces the evolution of the kitchen decade by decade through the 20th century. New York TimesYes, of course, you are what you eat, but you may well have to cook whatever it is you are eating, and the tools and techniques for doing so can say as much about you as the food itself...[Gdula] is interesting when he outlines the rise of Julia Child, the abiding tension between diet books and cookbooks, and the appearance of appliances as faddish as the fondue pot and as durable as the microwave...[He] does an especially good job on the food-related double consciousness of Americans in recent decades. Wall Street JournalIn a more than 100-year odyssey, writer Gdula documents more than 10 decades of progress (or not) by American manufacturers, food producers, food experts, the government, and, yes, the consumer in the effort to transform the kitchen into the heart of the home...Gdula makes a strong case for the constant and continuing role of food and its associated topicsFascinating. Booklist Well-researched and entertaining...Gdula successfully personifies the American kitchen. Publishers Weekly
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MORE BOOK INFO
ISBN: 1582343551
ISBN(13-digit): 9781582343556
Dewey Decimal: 643/.30973
Library of Congress: 2007009768
Book Publisher: St Martins Pr
Language: ENG
No. of Pages: 238
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