Journalism

Americans have been writing and reading about culinary matters since colonial times. Early concerns were agricultural—how to grow or raise food—and legal (the subject of laws related to adulteration, especially of bread, was widely covered), but colonial newspapers occasionally published recipes and even the occasional article about the kitchen or the table. Early American journals and almanacs occasionally included articles about food, but it was the advent of women’s magazines, in the mid-nineteenth century, that brought a real focus on cookery to the popular press.