Few names are as memorable as Clementine Paddleford, and yet our collective culinary conscience doesn't seem to have filed hers in the right place. A prolific columnist for the New York Herald Tribune in the forties and fifties-- and the writer of the "Food Flashes" column in Gourmet --Paddleford spent the better part of her life traveling the country in search of America's best regional fare. She is variously credited as the first person to ever publish recipes for fried chicken, barbecue sauce, and cioppino. True? Probably not. Still, she was way ahead of her time. She was, in many ways, introducing us to our own cuisine. It makes me sad to think that she never got to know that her time had come; she died in 1967, just a few years before food became an important part of popular culture.
Clementine Paddleford
Clementine Paddleford
Clementine Paddleford
Few names are as memorable as Clementine Paddleford, and yet our collective culinary conscience doesn't seem to have filed hers in the right place. A prolific columnist for the New York Herald Tribune in the forties and fifties-- and the writer of the "Food Flashes" column in Gourmet --Paddleford spent the better part of her life traveling the country in search of America's best regional fare. She is variously credited as the first person to ever publish recipes for fried chicken, barbecue sauce, and cioppino. True? Probably not. Still, she was way ahead of her time. She was, in many ways, introducing us to our own cuisine. It makes me sad to think that she never got to know that her time had come; she died in 1967, just a few years before food became an important part of popular culture.