Have you ever heard the name Clementine Paddleford ?
I’d never heard the name Clementine Paddleford (b.1897-d.1967) until I found it on a recipe tucked in an old cookbook.
Turns out she was an early food writer who was a pilot, flying all around the country in her Piper Cub plane, writing about the food discovered in different regions of America.
Paddleford’s own book How America Eats (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1960) can be purchased but the least expensive price is $50
So I ordered a used book Hometown Eats written about her and learned a lot.
Hometown Appetites is a biography By Authors Kelly Alexander and Cynthia Harris include 55 recipes
A Paddleford quote in Saveur article (written by author Alexander)
“We all have hometown appetites,” Paddleford once said. “Every other person is a bundle of longing for the simplicities of good taste once enjoyed on the farm or in the hometown they left behind.”
Here’s a screenshot of one of her cookbooks you can still get from Abe Books (this is not a link)
