Restaurant criticism and newspaper food journalism
Craig Claiborne
1920–2000 · United States
Craig Claiborne was born in Sunflower, Mississippi, in 1920 and grew up in the kitchens of his mother's boarding house, where he learned to taste and season before he could write a recipe. After wartime service in the Navy and study at the Cordon Bleu, he talked his way into a job at Gourmet and then to the food editorship of The New York Times.
From 1957 he turned the Times into a serious platform for cooking, reviewing restaurants with stars and publishing recipes from around the world. The New York Times Cookbook (1961) became a standard reference, and his collaborations with the chef Pierre Franey produced decades of practical, tested dishes.
He was famously hospitable and famously extravagant — a 1975 dinner he and Franey won at auction cost a small fortune — and he championed ingredients and cuisines that most American readers had never met. He died in 2000.
Unknown author · Public domain
Dishes
Claiborne's shore dinner of clams, lobster, corn, and potatoes steamed over seaweed in a pit or a big pot.
A rich, broiled crab dish with mustard, mayonnaise, and a hint of sherry — a staple of Claiborne's Times recipes.
Claiborne's plain guacamole — ripe avocado, lime, onion, and chile, mashed but never puréed.
Hosted
An editor's table · 1963 · Manhattan, New York
A clambake at East Hampton · 1972 · East Hampton, Long Island
Attended
A supper on West Twelfth Street · 1957 · Greenwich Village, New York
A table in Provence · 1966 · Provence, France
Lunch at the Zodiac Room · 1968 · Dallas, Texas
A reunion in Boston · 1978 · Boston, Massachusetts
A summer supper at East Hampton · 1980 · East Hampton, New York
A Cajun supper in Louisiana · 1983 · Louisiana