Poppy Cannon (original) (raw)

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South African-born author

Poppy Cannon (August 2, 1905 – April 1, 1975) was a South African-born American author, at various times the food editor of the Ladies Home Journal and House Beautiful, and the author of several 1950s cookbooks. She was an early proponent of convenience food: her books included The Can Opener Cookbook (1951) and The Bride's Cookbook (1954). Other books included The President's Cookbook: Practical Recipes from George Washington to the Present (1968).

Her writing style was distinctive and has been described as "relentless." Her recipes might call for such measurements as "a splotch of wine," "a flurry of coconut," or "a great swish of sour cream," and she once advised readers that they could "rassle a lemon pie in a jiff" with "the new wonderstuff called Clovernook."

She was a contemporary of James Beard and Julia Child, and she collaborated with Alice B. Toklas on Aromas and Flavors of the Past and Present.

She was born Lillian Gruskin in Cape Town as part of a large Lithuanian Jewish community in South Africa. Her parents had been called Robert and Henrietta Gruskin, but had apparently changed their names to Robert and Marion Whitney at the time of their immigration to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1908.[1][2] Her sister Anne Fogarty became a popular fashion designer during the 1950s.[3]

Poppy Cannon married four times and had three children. Her third husband was restaurateur Claude Philippe of the Waldorf Astoria New York, with whom she had a daughter, Claudia. In 1949 she became the second wife of the NAACP leader Walter Francis White (with whom she had an affair while he was married to his first wife, Leah Gladys Powell White[4][5]) at a time when such a marriage was viewed as scandalous, not least within the Black community, some of whom viewed White's marriage to a white woman as a betrayal.[6][5] The couple lived in New York until White's death in 1955.[7] She wrote a biography of White, Gentle Knight, published the following year. (According to the family history of her second husband, he was descended from the ninth president.)

Cannon died on April 1, 1975, after falling from the 23rd-floor balcony of her apartment in New York City. She was 69 years old, and had been in failing health in recent years.[8]

  1. ^ "Walter Francis White and Poppy Cannon Papers". beinecke.library.yale.edu. Yale University Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Archived from the original on 20 March 2017. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  2. ^ Van Gelder, Lawrence (2 April 1975). "Poppy Cannon White, 69, Dead; Writer Was Authority on Food". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  3. ^ Shapiro, Laura (2004). Something From the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America. Viking. p. 92. ISBN 9780143034919.
  4. ^ "The Walter White Project: Walter White's personal life in the 1920's".
  5. ^ a b "The Walter White Project: Walter White's Divorce and Remarriage".
  6. ^ "Poppy Cannon White (Gruskin)". 2 August 1905.
  7. ^ "Welcome to nginx". Archived from the original on 2001-02-10. Retrieved 2006-04-13.
  8. ^ Gelder, Lawrence Van (2 April 1975). "Poppy Cannon White, 69, Dead; Writer Was Authority on Food". The New York Times.