Braille and Large-Print Cookbooks for the Blind : Teen Writes Publications for Nation’s 11.5 Million Visually Impaired People

Cooking hurts when you’re blind. It is one of the most vexing daily chores for America’s 11.5 million blind and visually impaired people, according to the American Foundation for the Blind: that frustrating and defeating stumbling around the kitchen for sustenance, conducted dimly or in total darkness by people who long to be as self-sufficient as the rest of sighted America.

That’s why Elizabeth Warshawsky, 17, plucks our heartstring with the recent publication of her Braille and large-print cookbooks for the blind. The high school student from Shaker Heights, Ohio, took two years to write and design her cookbook, only part of a busy schedule of study and volunteer work at her local Society for the Blind.

“I couldn’t get ‘The Miracle Worker’ out of my mind,” said the senior. “I saw the movie in the second grade, and it changed me. It made me see how we could help the blind by just taking some time to think about them, to work with them a little.

It Began in Ninth Grade

“So in ninth grade this idea came to me,” she said, “I saw how the blind people I volunteered for had such a terrible time with food. It’s so frustrating--and dangerous--in the kitchen for them. They solve the problem of eating by getting into a rut, sticking to apples, lunch meats and sandwiches, and malnutrition is a real problem for many blind people.

“But what really excited me,” she said, “was all this new food that can be easily prepared, food that is nutritious and hot, the kinds of food blind people once had when they could see.

“I knew I could do something about it,” she insisted. “It was just a matter of tying it all together.”

With Stouffer Foods of Ohio just 15 minutes away from her high school, she decided to contact them, but they “just laughed when I called,” she said, “a 15-year-old girl asking to write a cookbook for them.”

But when she put it in writing, Stouffer took another look and surprised her by promising to underwrite the production and printing costs of the project and enlisting the American Foundation for the Blind to distribute the books nationally.

That finally happened this fall and already 1,000 copies have been sent to people across the country. Her book focuses on the new microwaved, frozen and boil-pouch foods mass-marketed by Stouffer, the national distributor of Lean Cuisine, frozen pizzas, TV dinners and other hurry-up single-portion products.

Readily available in supermarkets across the country, the Stouffer foods and similar products are convenient for blind customers, she said, “people who want the option of cooking single portions for themselves of food not requiring a great deal of attention--or help from others.”

Called “In Touch,” Warshawsky’s cookbook takes the blind reader through a step-by-step process of preparing baked, boiled and microwaved foods while offering handy tips--buy a timer, big oven mitts, for example--and suggestions particularly appropriate for blind and poorly sighted people--such as always keeping pot handles at 3 o’clock (9 if left-handed).

Great Help

“What’s so important about this book,” said Carol Morrison of the Braille Institute of America in Los Angeles, “is that nearly a million people are visually impaired because of injuries. That means they once saw well but now may have to learn all over again how to operate in the kitchen--this time without good vision.

“Beth’s book is a great help for these people,” she said. “At the same time, half of the visually impaired population in America is age 65 and older, a group that became blind as they aged. Census Bureau figures say this group will increase nearly 20% by the year 2000.

“And don’t forget the other sad numbers; the nearly 35,000 youngsters with sports-related blindness.

“All of them can readily use Warshawsky’s kind of cookbook,” Morrison said, “and maybe more manufacturers can see that they too can provide similar assistance for blind people who buy their food.”

Warshawsky’s books are not the only resources in Los Angeles for blind cooks. Hundreds of cookbooks in large print, Braille and cassette are available free through the National Library Service for the Blind and Handicapped, a congressionally mandated service organized by the Library of Congress.

“Our big favorites today,” said Ruth Nussbaum at the library in Washington, “are mostly cassettes of popular cookbooks, things like James Beard, ‘talking books’ that are perfect for the blind because they can just play it back and forth while cooking--a real break from having to cook with Braille instruction manuals right there in the kitchen.”

For a listing of these cookbooks and cassettes, which are distributed through local libraries in Los Angeles, telephone the National Library Service, (800) 424-8572 or 424-8567.

The Braille Institute of America in Los Angeles also offers a free catalogue of cookbooks and organizes an annual chili cook-off contest, cooking classes for the blind and much more. In fact, according to Morrison, “cookbooks are probably our most asked-for books.”

For a free copy of their Cookbook Catalogue Supplement, contact the Braille Institute of America, 741 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles 90029; (213) 663-1111.

American Printing House for the Blind sells the classic “Cooking Without Looking” cookbook, a 1959 Braille book no visually impaired person should be without. It’s only part of a four-page listing of mail-order books available by charge on MasterCard and Visa credit cards.

Write for a free listing to APH, 1839 Frankfort Ave., Louisville, Ky. 40206; (502) 895-2405.

Free single copies of Warshawsky’s books are available on request; ask for SFF1, the large-print version of “In Touch,” or SFF2, the Braille version, from the American Foundation for the Blind, Joe Gawronski, 710 W. Linden Ave., Linden, N.J. 07036; (201) 862-8886.