All stirred up Suffrage cookbooks, food, and the battle for women's right to vote

Laura Kumin

Book - 2020

A look at how suffragettes brought their political messages into American homes through cookbooks that appealed to women in nonthreatening and accessible ways and ran counter to the militant and stern caricatures often associated with the movement.

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Subjects
Genres
Recipes
Published
New York : Pegasus Books 2020.
Language
English
Main Author
Laura Kumin (author)
Edition
First Pegasus books edition
Physical Description
xxxvii, 357 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 319-343) and index.
ISBN
9781643134529
  • Timeline
  • Introduction
  • Part 1. The Suffrage Battle
  • 1. Time Travel: Imagining the Pre-Suffrage World
  • Breads, Breakfast, and Brunch
  • 2. Launching the Campaign
  • Appetizers, Finger Food, and Beverages
  • 3. From Seneca Falls to the Ballot Box
  • Soups and Salads
  • 4. We Can Peel Potatoes and Fight for the Vote, Too! Suffrage Strategies and Battle Tactics
  • Meat and Poultry
  • Part 2. Food for the Suffrage Legions
  • 5. Revolution in the Kitchen
  • Fish and Seafood
  • 6. Unique, Yet Connected: The Suffrage Cookbooks
  • Rice, Noodles, and Vegetables
  • 7. Entertaining and Eating, Suffrage-Style
  • Condiments, Pickles, and Preserves
  • Part 3. Beyond Suffrage
  • 8. What Suffrage Means for Us
  • Desserts and Other Sweets
  • Acknowledgments
  • Endnotes
  • Chapter Heading Image Credits
  • Color Insert Image Credits
  • Index
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Part cookbook and part spirited history lesson, this book examines a little-known aspect of the women's suffrage movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the many techniques used by American suffragists to persuade voters was the production and distribution of "suffrage cookbooks" with titles such as Little Tastes of Enfranchisement. Kumin, a former Washington, D.C., attorney who now teaches cooking and food history, makes a case for the importance of "mainstream" suffragists, who often play second fiddle to their more colorful "militant" sisters in history books. The author opens with an extensive timeline of the history of the suffrage movement in the U.S., including not just noteworthy political events, but such culinary landmarks as the invention of the Moon Pie (1917) and the opening of the first A & W root beer stand (1919). Kumin intersperses the history of the movement with sizable collections of recipes in categories such as "Breads, Breakfast, and Brunch" and "Condiments, Pickles, and Preserves." For each recipe, the author provides the original and a modern reinterpretation, often tossing in more vegetables and seasonings and including more detailed instructions. Some readers might complain that the portion of the book devoted to analysis of significant cookbooks and booklets and their roles in the suffrage movement is relatively small compared to the pages devoted to rehashing others' studies of the movement as a whole--not to mention that many of the recipes are comparable to others of the day. However, it's difficult to question the author's enthusiasm and impossible to resist the kind of historical tidbits that pop up frequently along the way--e.g., novelist Jack London's recipe for stuffed celery, which he suggests is "a very appropriate prelude to a dinner of roast duck." Kumin makes some thorny history go down easily. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.