New York – Karen Hess, who helped establish American culinary history as a field of study by insisting on primary research as the foundation for her books, lectures and articles about foods and recipes of the 18th and 19th centuries, died May 15. She was 88.
“The Taste of America” (1977), her first book, sounded an alarm for more healthful eating. She wrote it with her husband, journalist John Hess, when they returned to the U.S. after living in France for nine years.
Critical of the prepackaged “junk food” that the couple thought was all too common to the American diet, “the book was a scathing statement,” food historian John Martin Taylor said Monday. “The Hesses wanted to see more farmers markets and inner-city green grocers. Now we have all of that, but not then.”
Karen Hess next became interested in cookbooks from the Colonial era and Revolutionary War. At the time, most historians thought that food history was too frivolous a topic.
“Academic food history didn’t exist, at all,” said Barbara Haber, former curator of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University.
Hess began to update the cookbooks, replacing archaic terms with familiar words, annotating uncommon recipe ingredients and writing introductions that added historical context. In some cases she adjusted measurements to correspond with current standards.
One of her first works, “Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery” (1981), is considered by some historians to be one of Hess’ most important. It is a family cookbook that Washington used for years and later handed down to family members.
