What She Ate

Laura Shapiro has written on every food topic from champagne to Jell-O for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Slate, Gourmet, and many other publications. She is the author of three classic books of culinary history. Her awards include a James Beard Journalism Award and one from the National Women’s Political Caucus. She has been a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, where she also co-curated the widely acclaimed exhibition Lunch Hour NYC.

‘In this joyful examination of six women’s lives in food, Shapiro sets out to excavate the minutiae of domestic routines for insights into the connection between mental state and menu … Always entertaining and brimming with enticing small details, from an image of Roosevelt scrambling eggs at the table in a dinner-party performance piece, to Pym noticing that Philip Larkin refused Brie at lunch.’ Francesca Wade, Financial Times‘A bounteous and elegant feast for hungry minds’ BookList, (starred review)‘If you find the subject of food to be both vexing and transfixing, you’ll love What She Ate’ Elle‘What She Ate is a culinary and historical delight. Feast on it slowly so as not to miss a crumb’ BookPage‘I devoured the book in one sitting’ Washington Post‘Fascinating’ Wall Street Journal‘A deliciously satisfying read’ Chicago Tribune‘Fascinating. Shapiro, like a consummate maître d’, sets down plate after plate and an amazing thing happens: Slowly the more familiar accounts of each of the women’s lives recede and other, messier narratives emerge. How lucky for us readers that Shapiro has been listening so perceptively for decades to the language of food.’ NPR‘A collection of deft portraits in which food supplies an added facet to the whole.What She Ate redeems the whole sentimental, self-indulgent genre of food writing’ Slate‘A unique and delectable work’ Kirkus‘What She Ate establishes Laura Shapiro as the founder of a delectable new literary genre: the culinary biography. A richly satisfying volume’ Megan Marshall‘I wolfed down this wonderful account of the eating lives and habits of six notable and very diverse women … Shapiro … writes both engagingly and a trifle wryly’ Bookseller‘Riveting. Shapiro reveals with wit and irony so much that is fascinating and unknown. What She Ate is both menu degustation and grand banquet’ Claudia Roden