Newspaper Food Columns

[Page 1022]Food Columns in the Women’s Pages

Initially part of the women’s pages, the food sections of newspapers reflected gender roles, health standards, and governmental policies about food in a community. They also reflected the developing demographic of many cities as new immigrants settled into communities and shared their dishes. This was a time, for example, when the pronunciation of the word pizza was clarified in the pages of the 1939 New York Herald Tribune with the food editor Clementine Paddleford explaining that it was “peet-za.”

Some critics have charged that food sections were repositories for “just recipes.” On the other hand, an ...