He brought her a copy of Paddleford's "How America Eats." Its dusty peach book jacket was worn and frayed. Alexander's reaction: "You brought me a cookbook? Where are my earrings?"

But when she opened the book, she was intrigued by these words: "I have traveled by train, plane, automobile, by mule back, on foot -- in all over 800,000 miles. I have ranged from the lobster pots of Maine to the vineyards of California, from the sugar shanties of Vermont to the salmon canneries in Alaska. I have collected these recipes from a wide variety of kitchens: farm kitchens, apartment kitchenettes, governors' mansions, hamburger diners, tea rooms and from the finest restaurants with great chefs in charge."

Alexander's reaction: "Who is this person, and how could I never have heard of her?"

Paddleford's legacy

For decades, Paddleford was the country's most well-known food writer. She wrote for the New York Herald Tribune and the Sunday newspaper supplement This Week. At the peak of her career, she reached an estimated 12 million readers. Paddleford was so ingrained in the public's consciousness that she once was the punch line of a New Yorker cartoon.

Paddleford's more-than-40-year career led to the 1960 publication of "How America Eats." But she was soon overshadowed by Craig Claiborne and Julia Child, who published "The New York Times Cookbook" and "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," respectively. After Paddleford died in 1967, she was lost to history.

But Alexander, 35, who now lives in Chapel Hill, and her co-author, historian Cynthia Harris, hope to revive Paddleford's legacy. They have just published "Hometown Appetites: The Story of Clementine Paddleford, the Forgotten Food Writer Who Chronicled How America Ate."

After Alexander's husband bought her Paddleford's book, she took it to then-Saveur editor Colman Andrews. By this time, Alexander had discovered that Paddleford's papers were archived at Kansas State University. While her co-workers vied for story assignments in Paris or Rome, Alexander wanted to go to Manhattan, Kan. Andrews sent her.

Meanwhile, Harris had been assigned to organize the Paddleford archive a few months before. Alexander spent those few days in Kansas poring over the papers from the time the archive opened until it closed each evening.

"I really came to discover Clementine and fell in love with her. She understood that what a person eats tells you who they are," Alexander says. "I knew it was a crime that I had never heard of her."

Farm girl to force in food

Paddleford was a Kansas farm girl who studied journalism at Kansas State, then New York University. Within a few years, she had become women's editor at the former Farm and Fireside magazine. In 1936, she became food editor at the Tribune, where she remained until the paper closed 30 years later. She also contributed to Gourmet.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Paddleford lived a life few women experienced. She covered Winston Churchill's famous Iron Curtain speech and the coronation lunch of Queen Elizabeth II. She met the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. She earned a pilot's license. She traveled all over the world.

Paddleford, like James Beard, was an early advocate of regional American cuisine. "How America Eats," a compilation of her articles, reveals her experiences in America's kitchens.

"In the south, I learned to love squash," she wrote. "There, it is picked young and treated with all the delicate elegance a northern cook gives to the first garden peas or the season's first fresh asparagus."

Next page >

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.