Toasted marshmallows stuffed with raisins? Green-and-white luncheons? Chemistry in the kitchen? This entertaining and erudite social history, now in its fourth paperback edition, tells the remarkable story of America's transformation from a nation of honest appetites into an obedient market for instant mashed potatoes. In Perfection Salad, Laura Shapiro investigates a band of passionate but ladylike reformers at the turn of the twentieth century—including Fannie Farmer of the Boston Cooking School—who were determined to modernize the American diet through a "scientific" approach to cooking. Shapiro's fascinating tale shows why we think the way we do about food today.

Laura Shapiro was on staff at Newsweek and is a contributor to the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Granta, and Gourmet. She is the author of Julia Child and Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America.

"Shapiro . . . recounts the story of scientific cooking with a deft humor some might find unbecoming to a work of impeccable scholarship. Yet how else are we to think about a movement that upheld mayonnaise, cream sauce, and the extended boiling of vegetables as cures for every social ill, from drunkenness and degeneracy to feminism and labor unrest? . . . . My only disappointment with Perfection Salad is that it ends too soon."— Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times Book Review

"A comprehensive, droll social history of a curious women's movement that's responsible for everything from nutritional education programs to TV dinners."—Maureen Corrigan, Village Voice