PERFECTION SALAD: Women and Cooking at the...

PERFECTION SALAD: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century by Laura Shapiro (North Point Press: $12; 280 pp., illustrated). During late the 19th Century, a revolution in attitudes about eating took place in the United States: Food became a source of nutrition and a force for moral uplift, rather than a sensual pleasure. This revolution was the product of the “domestic science” movement, which provided work for growing numbers of educated women. In her entertaining history, Shapiro notes that the domestic scientists “ . . . carved out an identity for women so powerful that we’re still trying to clamber out of it, and their influence on American cooking was devastating.”