Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens

“Skillfully researched, lucidly written, and thoughtful. . . . This book appears at a crucial moment, presenting a beautifully crafted historical narrative that contextualizes Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. . . . Highly recommended.” — CHOICE

“Thanks to Professor Sharpless for allowing these cooks to make real the travails and triumphs they endured. May her volume continue to break down the stereotypes that plague us to this day.” — Gastronomica

“A fresh and engaging read.” — Journal of Southern History

“[An] excellent new history of African American cooks in the U.S. South . . . . Sharpless’s book offers a valuable model for labor historians, as it portrays work and life as inextricably linked but not mutually definitive.” — American Historical Review

“A fascinating examination of black women’s domestic employment as they transitioned from being slaves to being free laborers.” — The North Carolina Historical Review

“Well written, painstakingly researched, and carefully situated in the scholarly literature about foodways . . . . A rich and much needed addition.” — Florida Historical Quarterly

“The robust descriptions of cooks' day-to-day tasks, their relationships with employers, and personal lives enrich the literature on domestic workers by drawing attention to specializations within the domestic-work labor market.” — Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

“Sharpless’ book is wonderfully detailed, and provides voice for the often overlooked African-American domestic. . . . Highly recommended.” — Labour/Le Travail

“Sharpless offers an in-depth and complete portrait of African American cooks and the nature of their work and lives in this period. The cooks’ voices are very compelling, and Sharpless does a good job of letting them largely speak for themselves.” — Oral History Forum

“Using plantation account books, memoirs from servants, Federal Writers’ Project narratives, cookbooks, and census records, Sharpless excavates the experiences of the black domestic working class in the South.” — Journal of African American History