Professor explores Secret Ingredients in newest book

December 15, 2005

Professor of English at Miami University Hamilton Sherrie A. Inness exposes how women have used recipes and cooking to challenge the status quo in her latest book, Secret Ingredients.

Within seemingly ordinary cookbooks are revolutionary messages from women about social and cultural norms, according to Inness. “Surprising but true, something as mundane as a cookbook can contain subtle and not-so-subtle protests against traditional and accepted viewpoints.”

Secret Ingredients explores the cookbooks of the 1950s convenience foods, the 1970s natural foods, the 1980s “white trash” cuisine and the 1990s Two Fat Ladies books to reveal recipes for social change from pot roast to mini-marshmallow Jell-O salad.

Inness is the author/editor of over a dozen books including Action Chicks and Kitchen Culture in America.