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lizro1's review against another edition
1.5
I loved the premise of this book. The idea of “food stories” is something that deeply fascinates me and will stay with me. However, this book was WILDLY boring. The information presented was mildly interesting, but the presentation literally put me to sleep multiple times. Furthermore, the food stories of these women were often put second to the stories of the men in their lives, which I abhor. I would not recommend this book.
mvanhoeck's review
2.0
Great premise - I was excited to read this - but didn’t really pan out. The food theme lost focus and heft all along the way, accompanied by plenty of concern-trolling and overemphasis on the man in each woman’s life. BUT, I did learn a lot about some very interesting women. Planning to read Dorothy Wordsworth and Barbara Pym.
moomin333's review
3.0
Enjoyed the Eva Braun and Helen Gurley Brown chapters the most. Author truly did exhaustive research to complete these book which I respect. Sometimes gets a little too lost in minutia, and I’m not sure why the first chapter was devoted to who it was, but still interesting nonetheless. Good library checkout.
minty's review against another edition
1.0
I was going to give this 2 stars but I was SO BORED by it overall that I dropped it--I guess it's a 1.5-star. Because generally, I am intrigued by the concept! Looking at someone's life through what they ate, to glean more information. But there's also a reason that this short book profiles 6 people--there just aren't a lot of revelations to find when looking at already well profiled people.
Also: HOW in 2017 was a book published that only profiled six WHITE WOMEN???
Also: HOW in 2017 was a book published that only profiled six WHITE WOMEN???
setauuta's review against another edition
3.0
This book felt kind of scattered to me - the narratives in each chapter were a bit haphazard, almost forced.
skelleybean's review
4.0
This book focuses on six women with very different lives who are brought together in these pages by one common subject: food. What did these women eat (or not eat in some cases)? Where did they eat? How did it affect their relationships, their personalities, their lives?
The six women discussed are: Dorothy Wordsworth, the sister of author William Wordsworth, who was his personal cook and housekeeper for years; Rosa Lewis, a very famous Cockney chef and caterer around the turn of the 20th century; First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt; Eva Braun, Hitler’s hidden mistress; Barbara Pym, a domestic-themed author during the 1940s and 50s; and Helen Gurley Brown, the long time editor of Cosmopolitan.
Each of these women lived fascinating lives, and there is so much history to tell about each of them, its hard to stuff all the necessary information in a single chapter, yet Shapiro does it in a way that is both entertaining and insightful. With each woman came new ideas and stories about how the food these women ate shaped a part of their lives few have looked at.
If you are interested in food history at all, or are interested in a new way to look at these famous women, I highly recommend it.
The six women discussed are: Dorothy Wordsworth, the sister of author William Wordsworth, who was his personal cook and housekeeper for years; Rosa Lewis, a very famous Cockney chef and caterer around the turn of the 20th century; First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt; Eva Braun, Hitler’s hidden mistress; Barbara Pym, a domestic-themed author during the 1940s and 50s; and Helen Gurley Brown, the long time editor of Cosmopolitan.
Each of these women lived fascinating lives, and there is so much history to tell about each of them, its hard to stuff all the necessary information in a single chapter, yet Shapiro does it in a way that is both entertaining and insightful. With each woman came new ideas and stories about how the food these women ate shaped a part of their lives few have looked at.
If you are interested in food history at all, or are interested in a new way to look at these famous women, I highly recommend it.