“We have not honored the masters of the culinary profession by keeping their memories,” writes University of South Carolina food historian David Shields in the introduction to his new book The Culinarians (The University of Chicago Press). “In a strange way, the memory of cooking has condensed around recipes, dishes that are performed in a general kitchen repertoire,” like vichyssoise, deviled lobster, or oysters Rockefeller, while “their creators have vanished into the ether.” The book is Shields’ attempt to correct that, through 176 profiles of the most important (and mostly little-known) cooks, chefs, caterers, and restaurateurs of the 19th and early 20th centuries, who laid the foundation of American cuisine.
The book profiles chefs like Othello Pollard, a black man born some 10 years before the Revolutionary War, who was…
