RECORD
Betty Fussell, Interview 1: March 18, 2009
- Permalink:
- https://hdl.handle.net/2333.1/7pvmcw16
- Interview Title:
- Betty Fussell, Interview 1: March 18, 2009
- Description:
- Betty Fussell discusses her life starting with her upbringing in California, her heritage, habits developing from childhood throughout her time in school and the beginning of her marriage. Fussell touches on her relationship with food throughout this interview, eating, cooking, and feelings about it.
- Narrator Name:
- Betty Fussell
- Narrator Biography:
- The distinguished historian Betty Fussell was one of the first American writers to focus on food as a legitimate subject of scientific, social, and anthropological inquiry. In her 1999, The Story of Corn: the Myths and History, the Culture and Agriculture, the Art and Science of America's Quintessential Crop, Fussel used the history of corn to tell a distinctly American story. She also created a genre, now much imitated by other writers, focused on a single foodstuff. Born in 1927 in California and reared there, she has made her home in New York's Greenwich Village for decades. She lives around the corner from James Beard's cooking school run out of his home. Her only contact was a week's worth of classes there, but they share an abiding passion for American food. Her essays in literary journals, major newspapers, national magazines and encyclopedias are written with a grace few food writers can match. She also lectures at museums, universities, state fairs, corn festivals, historical societies and culinary groups. In 1999, her food memoir, My Kitchen Wars, traced her life from her childhoood through her marriage to a college sweetheart, her travails as an academic wife, her own academic career, the women's movement, and her wider success when she found her essential subject: food.
- Interviewer Name:
- Judith Weinraub
- Interview Number:
- 1
- Date:
- 2009-03-18
- Total Length of Interview:
- 1 hour, 51 minutes
- Segment 1 Duration:
- 0:49:05
- Segment 1 Transcript:
- https://sites.dlib.nyu.edu/media/api/v0/service/fileserver/av/fales/beard/Fussell_Betty-interview_1/Fussell_Betty-2009_03_18-a-interview.precision.en.txt
- Segment 2 Duration:
- 1:01:51
- Segment 2 Transcript:
- https://sites.dlib.nyu.edu/media/api/v0/service/fileserver/av/fales/beard/Fussell_Betty-interview_1/Fussell_Betty-2009_03_18-b-interview.precision.en.txt
- Topics:
- Cooking - American Cooking - French Cooking - study and teaching Cooking history Dinners and dining Food habits Gender
- People:
- Beard, James, 1903-1985 Bocuse, Paul, 1926- Child, Julia Claiborne, Craig David, Elizabeth, 1913-1992 Fisher, M. F. K. (Mary Frances Kennedy), 1908-1992 Fussell, Betty Harper Fussell, Paul, 1924- Jones, Judith, 1924 - Hodgson, Moira Normand, Mabel, 1894-1930
- Organizations:
- Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. American Institute of Wine & Food Doubleday and Company, Inc. International Association of Culinary Professionals Ordre international des disciples d'Auguste Escoffier Ticknor and Fields Times Books (New York, N.Y.) Viking Press
- Places:
- California Midwest (America) Paris (France) Washington Square (New York, N.Y.) Greenwich Village (New York, N.Y.) New York, N.Y.
- Next Interview:
- https://info663-fa23.github.io/team3/items/bf_03_24_2009.html
- File Type:
- sound
- Resource Type:
- oral histories (literary works)
- NYU Call Number:
- MSS_309.ref22.1
- Object Identifier:
- bf_03_18_2009
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- "Betty Fussell, Interview 1: March 18, 2009", Voices from the Food Revolution- People Who Changed The Way Americans Eat, NYU Fales Library
- Reference Link:
- https://info663-fa23.github.io/team3/items/bf_03_18_2009.html