Anderson, Jean

Jean Anderson (1929–) is one of America’s most distinguished culinary writers. The author of some twenty books on cookery, she has won many awards and the admiration of culinary professionals and the public alike for the thoroughness of her research, precision in recipe writing, and warm prose style.

Anderson is a native of North Carolina, born to parents who hailed from the Midwest. As she says in A Love Affair with Southern Cooking: Recipes and Recollections, her mother cooked hearty dishes from Illinois with some New England touches, but her daughter had become “absorbed with southern food … since the age of five.” She began collecting recipes and cooking them at a young age, setting the stage for her future career as a writer, editor, and culinary traveler. Anderson received a BS degree in food and nutrition from Cornell University and, later, an MS in journalism from Columbia University. Her first job, as an assistant demonstration agent with the North Carolina Agricultural Extension Service, and her position as women’s editor of the Raleigh Times allowed her to travel throughout the state and thus to explore local foodways in depth. Her later writing, especially about Portugal, was based on similar research techniques as well as her love of the dishes she encountered.