Article: Author Looks at 1950s Revolution in the Kitchen

By Judith Weinraub

The Washington Post

Anyone who grew up in America in the last half of the 20th century takes packaged foods for granted. A supermarket without bottles of already prepared salad dressings, ready-to-zap frozen meals, dozens of choices of cake and cookie mixes is unthinkable. But it wasn't always that way.

Laura Shapiro's fascinating, highly readable book, "Something From the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America'' (Viking, $24.95) looks at the forces that not only defined food in that decade -- and have ever since -- but also the way women defined themselves.

The major landmarks are all there -- the new packaged foods; the countless magazine articles portraying their ...

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