Karen Hess brought a sharp eye for accuracy and passion for primary sources to culinary history, debunking erroneous if charming notions of what earlier Americans grew, cooked and ate. She was also known — some might say notoriously so — for scathing assessments of the contemporary food scene that may have bruised some prominent egos but sparked a dialogue about food quality and sustainability that continues today.
“Her philosophy is so crucial to the understanding of American foodways,” said Robin Mather, senior associate editor at Mother Earth News in Topeka, Kan. “She is to the local foods movement what M.F.K. Fisher is to gastronomic food writing or literary food writing. She shaped the way people think about food.”
That shaping began with her first book, 1977’s “The Taste of America,” co-authored with her husband, John L. Hess, a journalist who served briefly as New York Times food editor in the early 1970s.
“We write with trepidation,” they began. “How shall we tell our fellow Americans that our palates have been ravaged, that our food is awful, and that our most respected authorities on cookery are poseurs? Can most Americans be wrong?”
Yes, the Hesses declared loudly.
American cooking, they asserted, had reached a peak in the second quarter of the 19th century and had been on a sugary, floury decline ever since. The Hesses pointed fingers at anyone they saw as either contributing to America’s sorry culinary state or doing nothing to better it. And they named names, including those of Julia Child, television’s beloved “French chef”; James Beard, often labeled the dean of American cookery; and Craig Claiborne, then the enormously influential food editor of The New York Times.
“They took no prisoners,” said Regina Schrambling, the New York City-based food writer and blogger (gastropoda.com). “They went after the big dogs. … They had total contempt for people who didn’t live up to their standards.”
The Hesses would be “excluded from the food coven” because of the book, Schrambling said. But Karen Hess’ later culinary scholarship would win respect even though she was not a trained historian, as was noted after her death in 2007, age 88, in her New York Times obituary.
“She basically carved out a whole niche of academia,” said John Martin Taylor, a cookbook author based in Chengdu, China, whose company, Hoppin’ John’s, sells stone-ground grits, cornmeal and flour. “She basically defined what culinary history could be. … What was there before Karen wasn’t very good. She demanded people do original research. She didn’t have much respect for people not doing it right.”
Hess’ caustic, combative streak has not been forgotten.
“I found that side of her so objectionable. It colored my whole feeling about her,” said Barbara Haber, the Winchester, Mass.-based food historian. “On the other hand, her work on American cookbooks was terrific.”
Despite her Nebraska roots and living nearly a decade in France with her husband, Hess’ work would take on a marked Southern accent as she began annotating various historic American cookbooks, including “Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery,” a collection of family recipes that had been passed down to the future first lady; “The Virginia House-wife” by Mary Randolph; and “What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking,” one of the earliest cookbooks written by an African-American cook, Abby Fisher.
Hess’ last published book, 1992’s “The Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection,” noted that “the early history of the rice kitchen in South Carolina is inexorably bound with slavery.” The book, she wrote, was “a hymn of praise for the African men and women torn from their homelands so long ago who made it all possible.”
That the Hesses were proud of Karen Hess’ work on the culinary impact of African-Americans is clear in a new forward to the 2000 edition of “The Taste of America.” Several of her books, they wrote, “have been widely credited with awakening a large public to the enormous contribution of Africans to the American diet.”
Hess is “profoundly important” to the study of African-American contributions to Southern cuisine, said Toni Tipton-Martin, the Austin, Texas-based author, community activist and creator of “The Jemima Code,” a pop-up exhibit, blog and upcoming book exploring the legacies of African-American cooks. Hess recognized Africans for their culinary impact, she said, noting how in annotating Abby Fisher’s cookbook Hess would talk about specific dishes and techniques rooted in African cooking.
“Karen Hess was an incredible cheerleader for the African-American culinary legacy,” said Michael Twitty, a Rockville, Md.-based writer, food historian and blogger at afroculinaria.com. “She put it in a certain language and in certain terms that made it available to a wider audience.”
Still, Twitty would give her “a vote, not a veto” in the ongoing discussion of this history. He takes some exception to a “mystique of infallibility” building around her work.
“Karen Hess’ work is not timeless. It is definitely in a certain age and mindset about culinary history. It has a date on it,” he said.
Yet, read “The Taste of America” book today and one is struck at how many of the themes touched on by the Hesses in 1977 still resonate today. Their alarm over dwindling sources for local fresh food, for example, helped spark a resurgence of farmers markets in New York City and elsewhere. Schrambling, in a 2013 article for Edible Manhattan, would call Karen Hess “a movement matriarch.”
For Mather, a former Chicago Tribune food writer, what counts is the meaning of Karen Hess’ message not the manner of her delivery.
“She will be remembered for her respect for three things,” Mather said. “Tradition, the dignity of food and … the honesty of food.”
About the Author
