Laurel's Kitchen Explained
Laurel's Kitchen is a vegetarian cookbook by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Bronwen Godfrey. It contributed to the rise of the vegetarian movement of the 1970s.
Background and influence
Carol Lee Flinders was a student of Eknath Easwaran, whose influence led to her interest in vegetarianism. She created the vegetarian cookbook Laurel's Kitchen (1976), with a few of his other students. Laurel's Kitchen had a strong impact on the natural foods movement within the American counterculture.[1] [2] A second edition, The New Laurel's Kitchen, was published in 1986. It had the same subtitle and the same first two authors, and Brian Ruppenthal was the new third author.
The book has sold over a million copies.[3] Laurel's Kitchen contained extensive nutritional information from a scientific point of view, and sold more than a million copies.[4]
In 1978, Yoga Journal contained two reviews of Laurel's Kitchen, by different authors.[5] In 1994, the Vegetarian Times, a leading magazine for vegetarians, surveyed the most admired cookbooks among a "panel of cookbook authors, food editors, and chefs." The New Laurel's Kitchen was the "clear winner" for "best cookbook for beginners" (p. 107).[6]
Scholarship
A book by Megan Elias (2008), published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, devoted 9 pages to analyzing the book and its place in American culture, contending that "Laurel's Kitchen was as much a lifestyle guide as it was a cookbook" (p. 153).[7]
A scholarly review stated that Elias "gives the renowned countercultural cookbook Laurel’s Kitchen its proper due in American history.... she sees Laurel Robertson and her comrades Carol Flinders and Bronwyn Godfrey struggling, in an intelligent and heartfelt way, against the manipulations of the market, which devalued nutritious food, meaningful domestic labor, and communal connections" (p. 417).[8]
A scholarly book by Mary Drake McFeely (2001) also spent several pages discussing Laurel's Kitchen, which it described as "the Fannie Farmer of vegetarian cooking" (p. 142).[9]
Bibliography
Editions
- Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Bronwen Godfrey (1976). Laurel's kitchen: a handbook for vegetarian cookery & nutrition. Berkeley, CA: Nilgiri Press.
- Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinderss, and Bronwen Godfrey (1978). Laurel's kitchen: a handbook for vegetarian cookery & nutrition. New York: Bantam Books.
- Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Bronwen Godfrey (1979). Laurel's kitchen: a handbook for vegetarian cookery & nutrition. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
- Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Brian Ruppenthal (1986). The new Laurel's kitchen: a handbook for vegetarian cookery & nutrition. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.
Additional Laurel's Kitchen books
Several related books have been published by the same groups of authors. These books were based on a similar underlying philosophy, and also included the phrase "Laurel's Kitchen" in the title:
- Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, Bronwen Godfrey (1984). The Laurel's kitchen bread book: a guide to whole-grain breadmaking. Random House.
- Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, Brian Ruppenthal (1993, revised edition). Laurel's kitchen recipes. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.
- Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, Brian Ruppenthal (1997). Laurel's kitchen caring: recipes for everyday home caregiving. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.
Notes and References
- Book: Belasco, Warren. Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took on The Food Industry. Cornell University Press. 2007. 978-0801473296.
- Megan J. Elias (2008). Stir it up: home economics in American culture. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. . (NB: Laurel's Kitchen is discussed in pp. 152-160)
- It was later republished in revised form as The New Laurel's Kitchen (1986).The back cover of the 1986 edition states "over a million copies sold" (see link https://books.google.com/books?id=TsChEsPHL5cC&q=over+a+million+copies+sold&pg=PA11).
- Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, & Brian Ruppenthal (1986). The new Laurel's kitchen. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press. . The 1986 edition is dedicated to "our teacher, Eknath Easwaran" (p. 13), and the back cover states "over a million copies sold" (see link https://books.google.com/books?id=TsChEsPHL5cC&q=over+a+million+copies+sold&pg=PA11). In an introduction to the 1986 edition, Flinders wrote of "the collection of friends who helped produce Laurel's Kitchen ten years ago", that "we share a commitment to meditation" (p. 20).
- Freda E. Elliott (pp. 52, 64); Suza Norton Hebenstreit (pp. 53-55) (both 1978, March/April, under same title). Vegetarian Cookery at Laurel's Kitchen, issue 19.
- Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin (1994, November). Cookbooks You Can't Live Without. Vegetarian Times, pp. 106-108, accessed 8 Nov 2009.
- Megan J. Elias (2008). Stir it up: home economics in American culture. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. . (NB: Laurel's Kitchen is discussed in pp. 152-160)
- Elizabeth Hearne & Robert D. Johnston (2009). Raising the Roof: Science, Feminism, and Home Economics. Reviews in American History, v37 n3, pp413-419. .
- Mary Drake McFeely (2001). Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?: American Women and the Kitchen in the Twentieth Century. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. (NB: Laurel's Kitchen is discussed in pp. 141-145)
