Women's Works

The Working Wives' (Salaried Or Otherwise) Cook Book  
Theodora Zavin and Freda Stuart, 1963

No illustrations; just a jacket cover missing from this copy. (Image from a source I've lost)...

After a dedication listing names of both authors' husbands and children ("the world's most charming testing laboratory"), the text briskly gets to the point—

We have never known a man who waxed nostalgic over his mother's ability to mop floors or one who boasted that his wife could wash socks better than anyone on the block. But oh, the lovely pedestal that awaits the woman who cooks!

The authors acknowledge that there were already lots of shortcut cooking books available, but say they had found those books inadequate. Inadequate for a number of reasons; "Most important"—

... the really good "quick" cook books enable the cook to get dinner on the table within one to one-and-a-half hours after arrival home, provided that she dashes madly from the front door to the kitchen without removing her hat and juggles pots, chops onions, and generally goes frantic for an hour or so before dinner is ready. This procedure has a few obvious drawbacks.

While we are second to none in our admiration of the working wife, it must be admitted that she lacks some of the fine lasting qualities of an electronic computer. After a long day's work, no respectable IBM machine feels a desire to take off its shoes or have a drink. Woman, at 5:45 thy name is frailty.

This is a tough hour of the day in which to scramble. It is just at this time that children (and husbands, too!) want and deserve attention. It's hard to listen to the story of today's baseball game, prescribe for a wounded doll, and measure out ingredients simultaneously. What's the alternative—other than hiring a cook or spending precious weekend time cooking and freezing for the week ahead? The solution lies in preparing most of each day's diner the night before. And that's the essence of our system.

We know several things about the working wife. She is not an habitué of the Stork Club. She spends many, if not most, weekday evenings at home. She gets her second wind after the children are in bed, and that's the magic time to do the few things in the kitchen that will enable her to spend most of her post-homecoming hour with a chuild on her lap or a drink in her hand (both, if she's a talented type), with only an occasional foray into the kitchen to pop things into the oven or onto the dinner table.

While this book was planned primarily by and for working wives, we think it has great value for what are (laughingly, we hope!) known as "nonworking" wives—those "ladies of leisure" with three preschool children, a once-a-week maid, eighteen committees, and questions like "Honey, do you mind if I bring Bob Kirk of our Atlanta office home for dinner one night this week?" The cook-ahead dinner makes for lovely entertaining because Frazzled Hostess is not served as the first course.

The basic system: on Friday evening check the next week's calendar, choose dinner menus suitable for the time available each night, draw up a shopping list, and buy the ingredients Saturday.

That's from the Introduction, followed by—

THE WHEREWITHAL (OR, APPLIANCES YOU COULD LIVE WITHOUT, BUT WHY?)

To say that we are fans of the time-saving, labor-saving, woman-saving electric appliance would no more reflect the depth of our passion than to say that Rome had a "crush" on Juliet. We have been sisters-in-law for several years, and one of our great contributions to each other's welfare has been that the gadget not discovered by one of us has been unearthed by the other....

Top of the list is a dishwasher. After a couple of pages disposing of arguments against having one, the authors note of expecting husbands to wash dishes—

...the working wife must, of necessity, always be aware that the mere fact of her working may to some degree impinge on her husband's feeling of masculinity. She must be doubly cautious about not heaping "women's work" on him. We have the impression that most working wives are so sensitive to this that, whoever that beleaguered, emasculated, domesticated husband may be whom the magazines are always decrying, he is not the husband of the working wife.

Here, the authors cite research from a doctoral dissertation—

... In her study of 44 families with working mothers, Dr. Greenwald found that in only 17 of 44 households did the husband regularly take any part in doing the dinner dishes and in 14 of these 17 families, the wife was doing dishes right along with him.

The study found that amount of limited dish-washing was by far the highest rate of husbands' participation in household chores.

This cook book was published in 1963, the same year as this. Something was in the air...

Zavin and Stuart took a practical view of Woman's Work. They had found a system that gave them control, and they felt they could benefit other women by encouraging them to adopt it.

The recipes tend toward variations on a theme of meat cooked in a base of canned tomato (stewed and/or sauce). There are a few simplified items based on ethnic cooking ("Kusa Mihshi: Stuffed Squash in the Lebanese Manner"; "East Meets East: Syrian Meat Balls with Indian Curry Sauce"), and some recipes in the period style of women's magazine food writing ("Tropikabobs": cooked ham with canned mandarin oranges and pineapple chunks).

As in the introductory sections of the book, the text preceding some of the recipes is entertaining.

Instructions for making "Mrs. Albini's Baked Lasagna" opens—

Every time our friends, Emilia and Thayer Taylor, have a baby, Emilia's mother... comes down from Gloversville for a couple of weeks to help out. At some time before she goes home she cooks what she deprecatingly calls "just an old-fashioned Italian dinner" for a few of the Taylors' lucky friends. As a result, these may be the only babies in the world whose birth announcements make the recipients lick their chops in happy anticipation.

And introducing a group of molded salad recipes—

...if the traditional method of unmolding a gelatin salad (dipping the mold in warm water and then running a knife around the edge) doesn't leave you too happy, here's a very safe method you can try. It was suggested by our friend Marion Brown, whose cooking terminology seems to have taken on a slightly medical air, transmitted, no doubt, from her doctor-husband's office. (Marion is the only woman we know who makes a bouquet garni using medical gauze).

Followed by steps for Marion's method of loosening a gelatin mold with a hot towel ("She describes this as 'putting hot compresses on the mold.'")

The sister-in-law authors were a highly simpatico pair. With perhaps one exception: the ingredient list for Chicken Soup with Matzo Balls calls for

1 to 2 teaspoons of salt (sorry, the two of us don't agree on the amount; you'll have to make up your own mind.)

I've also lost the source of this image, but here's the back cover—

According to the author bios—

FREDA STUART is that rarity, a New Yorker who has always lived in the city where she was born. She graduated from the City College of New York. Later she was associate editor of a trade magazine. At present, Mrs. Stuart is an (unsalaried) Working Wife and cooks for her husband, one daughter and friends.

She may have remained a non-salaried wife, as I don't find reference to a further career or published work.

Theodora Zavin, on the other hand, had a very public career at the time she collaborated on this book. A lawyer who had co-written legal books aimed at laypeople, she was in 1963 vice president of Broadcast Music, Inc.

From a 2004 BMI obituary, after Zavin's death at 82—

BMI and the BMI Foundation mourn the passing of Theodora Zavin, one of the music industry's most respected copyright attorneys, who served as a senior executive at BMI....

Zavin served at BMI for 49 years, joining the company in 1952 as head of its legal department, rising to Senior Vice President and Special Counsel at her retirement in 2001. She founded the BMI Foundation, Inc. in 1985, serving as its President until her retirement and President Emeritus until her death.

Zavin was legendary in the music copyright community for her fierce defense of the rights of musical composers both here and abroad. Over her long career she also developed close personal relationships with many seminal composers including John Williams, Lionel Newman, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, John Kander and Fred Ebb, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, Alan Menken and Maury Yeston.

A graduate of Hunter College, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and The Columbia School of Law, where she was Notes and Comments Editor of the Law Review, she served as President of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., was a member of the United States Copyright Office Advisory Committee, and the Copyright Committee of the Bar Association of the City of New York. Internationally, she represented American interests as a leader of the Legal and Legislative Committee of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC).

Zavin combined her legal talents with a deft personal touch with songwriters, composers and music publishers at BMI. In 1965, she was appointed Vice President, Performing Rights, leading the company for more than 20 years during one of its most dramatic periods of growth, personally signing representation agreements with such songwriter/artists as Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Billy Joel, Carole King, Mort Shuman and Doc Pomus, and Neil Sedaka, such legendary Brill Building music publishers as Don Kirschner and Al Nevins, and international figures such as Beatles' publisher Dick James.

Zavin wrote prolifically for leading law journals on copyright and was co-author of several books aimed at demystifying and making the law accessible to the layman, including Rights and Writers and Your Marriage and the Law. One of the music industry's best-known hostesses, Zavin also authored two well-received cookbooks, The Working Wives Cookbook with Fredda [sic] Stuart, and The Everybody Bring a Dish Cookbook.