What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories

by Laura Shapiro Narrated by Kimberly Farr, Laura Shapiro

Overview

A*Washington Post*Notable Nonfiction Book of 2017
One of NPR Fresh Air's "Books to Close Out a Chaotic 2017"
NPR's Book Concierge*Guide To 2017's Great Reads

“How lucky for us readers that Shapiro has been listening so perceptively for decades to the language of food.”*-Maureen Corrigan, NPR Fresh Air

Six* “mouthwatering” (Eater.com) short takes on six famous women through the lens of food and cooking, probing how their attitudes toward food can offer surprising new insights into their lives, and our own.

Everyone eats, and food touches on every aspect of our lives-social and cultural, personal and political. Yet most biographers pay little attention to people's attitudes toward food, as if the great and notable never bothered to think about what was on the plate in front of them. Once we ask how somebody relates to food, we find a whole world of different and provocative ways to understand her. Food stories can be as intimate and revealing as stories of love, work, or coming-of-age. Each of the six women in this entertaining group portrait was famous in her time, and most are still famous in ours; but until now, nobody has told their lives from the point of view of the kitchen and the table.*

What She Ate is a lively and unpredictable array of women; what they have in common with one another (and us) is a powerful relationship with food. They include Dorothy Wordsworth, whose food story transforms our picture of the life she shared with her famous poet brother; Rosa Lewis, the Edwardian-era Cockney caterer who cooked her way up the social ladder; Eleanor Roosevelt,* First Lady and rigorous protector of the worst cook in White House history; Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress, who challenges our warm associations of food, family, and table; Barbara Pym, whose witty books upend a host of stereotypes about postwar British cuisine; and Helen Gurley Brown, the editor of Cosmopolitan, whose commitment to “having it all” meant having almost nothing on the plate except a supersized portion of diet gelatin.

Editorial Reviews

AUGUST 2017 - AudioFile

In this culinary biography, a newly established genre, food historian and journalist Laura Shapiro provides a different take on the lives of famous women, among them Eva Braun, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Helen Gurley Brown. Her focus is on the language of food. The author narrates the beginning and ending of the audiobook, and adds little. Principal narrator Kimberly Farr, however, impresses from the very beginning of her part. Entertaining and spirited, Farr is convincing and intentional as she demonstrates that special talent of being able to disappear behind the words and allow the biographical food narratives to do the communicating. This is a fun, different look at people you may feel you already know. See them and hear them now at the dining table. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

From the Publisher

Both a biography and a book of culinary history, What She Ate is charming, well-researched and thoughtful. Food has never meant so much.”
—Adriana E. Ramirez, Los Angeles Times

“Laura Shapiro has put together a rich meal. . . . A seriously and hilariously researched culinary history.”
—Susan Stamberg, NPR Morning Edition

“[F]ascinating . . . Shapiro, like a consummate maître d', sets down plate after plate . . . and an amazing thing happens: Slowly the more familiar accounts of each of [the women’s] lives recede and other, messier narratives emerge. . . . How lucky for us readers that Shapiro has been listening so perceptively for decades to the language of food.”
—Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air

“Who could resist?”—People

“It’s great fun to read about notoriously abysmal dishes served in the Roosevelt White House”
—The New York Times Book Review

“If you want to know what makes a woman of substance, consider the substances she consumes. . . . Fascinating.”
—The New York Post

“If you find the subject of food to be both vexing and transfixing, you’ll love . . . What She Ate.”
—Elle

“Such a fun read . . . Shapiro deftly uses food to link one woman to another—and to us today. . . . Writing this book, Shapiro notes, has made her ‘aware of all the food stories that will never be told’ . . . A deliciously satisfying read.”
—Chicago Tribune

“Shapiro approaches her subject like a surgeon, analytical tools sharpened. The result is a collection of essays that are tough, elegant and fresh.”
—Washington Post

“A delectable and sometimes spicy dish on some intriguing women and their sustenance of choice.”
—The Plain Dealer

“Fascinating.”
—Moira Hodgson, Wall Street Journal

“A collection of deft portraits in which food supplies an added facet to the whole . . . What She Ate redeems the whole sentimental, self-indulgent genre of food writing.”
—Slate

“Delectable . . . Buy this book, read this book and then spend a few seconds before every meal thinking about what message the dish sitting in front of you could be sending to your dinner companions.”
—PureWow.com

“History gets plated.”
—Vanity Fair

“Simply a fun read.”
—Bon Appetit

“Fascinating . . . you’ll quickly see that food choices are more revealing than you might expect.”
—Bustle 

“Clever . . . This dissection of diet is a telling window into the lives of these fascinating historical figures.”
—PopSugar

“In studying these women’s meals and attitudes toward food, [Shapiro] reveals surprising insights into how they lived.”—Hello Giggles

“Mouthwatering.”
—Eater.com 

“Like a textbook for my own feminist food studies curriculum.”
—Austin American Statesman

“An unconventional approach…[that] works deliciously.”
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Fascinating.”—Tampa Bay Times

“Chock full of ‘iconic repasts’ and lesser but no-less-piquant morsels, What She Ate establishes Laura Shapiro as the founder of a delectable new literary genre: the culinary biography. ‘It’s never just food’ is Shapiro’s mantra as she sifts through letters, journals, manuscript drafts, and of course scads of recipes, to derive six thrilling ‘food stories’ spanning two centuries and a spectrum of appetites. Only as fundamental a subject as food and as skillful a writer as Shapiro could bring Dorothy Wordsworth, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Helen Gurley Brown together happily in one richly satisfying volume.”
—Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast

“Laura Shapiro has done it again! She’s given us a fascinating and wonderfully entertaining history of six women of the last two centuries you might never have thought of as foodies, yet here they are, distinguished by how differently they dealt with the overwhelming importance of food in their lives. What She Ate argues—and proves—that every woman has a food story. It ought to inspire all of us who love food to get busy on our memoirs.”
—Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University and author of Soda Politics

“Six crisply written, ardently researched, and entertainingly revelatory portraits of very different women with complicated relationships with eating and cooking…. A bounteous and elegant feast for hungry minds.”
—BookList, (starred review)

“Offering an interesting angle from which to view the lives of various women, [What She Ate] will appeal to not only food readers but also to anyone wishing to learn more about women’s history.”
—Library Journal

“[Laura Shapiro] changed the way I thought about American food, and did so in the most entertaining and informative way possible.”
—SheKnows

Library Journal

06/01/2017
Culinary history writer Shapiro (Perfection Salad) has studied both women and cooking throughout her career, focusing on those who have made a lasting impact on the world of food and beyond. Here, she considers the lives of six very different women throughout history, maintaining that examining their culinary lives provides an intimate picture of their personal experiences. English author Dorothy Wordsworth delighted in caring for her poet brother William and prepared simple meals. Rosa Lewis, an Edwardian-era caterer, leveraged her fame as a cook to put her in touch with a society that normally would have been out of reach. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt presided over a White House notorious for serving terrible food. British novelist Barbara Pym's love of food inserted itself into her novels. Both Eva Braun, wife of Adolf Hitler, and Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown's relationships with food were dominated by their desire to remain thin. VERDICT Offering an interesting angle from which to view the lives of various women, this work will appeal to not only food readers but also to anyone wishing to learn more about women's history. [See Prepub Alert, 1/23/17.]—Melissa Stoeger, Deerfield P.L., IL

AUGUST 2017 - AudioFile

In this culinary biography, a newly established genre, food historian and journalist Laura Shapiro provides a different take on the lives of famous women, among them Eva Braun, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Helen Gurley Brown. Her focus is on the language of food. The author narrates the beginning and ending of the audiobook, and adds little. Principal narrator Kimberly Farr, however, impresses from the very beginning of her part. Entertaining and spirited, Farr is convincing and intentional as she demonstrates that special talent of being able to disappear behind the words and allow the biographical food narratives to do the communicating. This is a fun, different look at people you may feel you already know. See them and hear them now at the dining table. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2017-04-30
A culinary biographer serves up an eye-opening meal.Renowned food journalist and culinary historian Shapiro (Julia Child: A Life, 2007, etc.) takes her obsession with food in an entirely new direction. Focusing on six women over nearly 200 years, she hopes to prove that "food talks." Opening a "window on what [each] cooked and ate" reframes the narratives of their lives; it's like "standing in line at the supermarket and peering into" their shopping carts. Dorothy Wordsworth was a quiet, "very private, very conflicted woman" who devoted her life to her brother, William. But she also found time to write in her journal, an activity that was "her declaration of independence. And she chose the language of food." Entries about nature and their surroundings were often drawn upon for William's poems, but the notes on food "spoke directly to Dorothy herself." Cockney-born Rosa Lewis, a former scullery maid, was acclaimed in her time as one of the great caterers and a favorite cook of King Edward. He loved her signature dish, game pie. During this era of wealth and manners, food became a symbol of success, and Lewis was there to ride it to fame. Eleanor Roosevelt didn't really care what she ate; it gave her no pleasure. Her husband enjoyed oysters and champagne, and when she learned of his infidelity she got back at him via her terrible cook, Mrs. Nesbitt. The only thing that really mattered to the "passive, faithful, and decorative" Eva Braun was her love for vegetarian Hitler, champagne, and showing off her "slender figure." British novelist Barbara Pym was the great chronicler of food and eating throughout her many novels, and Helen Gurley Brown, longtime editor of Cosmopolitan, was an obsessive dieter ("skinny to me is sacred"); she cooked primarily to keep her man. A unique and delectable work that sheds new light on the lives of women, food, and men.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169092561
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	07/25/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Eleanor had never wanted to be First Lady. She hated the idea of surrendering her independence and pulling back from hands- on political work just to become a hostess. For the sake of the country she was glad FDR had been elected, but she knew exactly what First Ladies did: they got dressed up, they shook hands, and they made small talk, day after endless day. How could she submit to such a role? When FDR was nominated, she was the only person in the room who was stone- faced; and when he won, she wrote later, “The turmoil in my heart and mind was rather great that night, and the next few months were not to make any clearer what the road ahead would be.” As she was organizing the household for the move to Washington, she made a tentative suggestion to FDR: Wasn’t there “a real job” she could do in the White House? Perhaps answer some of his mail? “He looked at me quizzically and said he did not think that would do, that Missy, who had been handling his mail for a long time, would feel I was interfering. I knew he was right and that it would not work, but it was a last effort to keep in close touch and to feel that I had a real job to do.” Eventually, of course, she created that job. She had seen how home economics operated: it was a woman’s profession in a man’s world. No lines were crossed, no fiefdoms challenged, but the women gave heart and soul to work they cared about. Now she, too, set out to find a professional place for herself, even while confined to FDR’s sphere. She couldn’t set policy, but she could travel, meet people, listen to them, investigate, pull myriad strings in Washington, make brilliant use of symbolic gestures, and give speeches that heartened the poor, the exploited, and the powerless. As Blanche Wiesen Cook put it, “Her vision shaped the best of his  presidency”—an assessment that would have been supported overwhelmingly by the millions of Americans whose lives she touched, though Eleanor herself would have briskly turned away any such compliment.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "What She Ate"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Laura Shapiro.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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