Sunset Magazine's "Manly" Chefs

No publication has had a larger influence on the way Americans in the western states incorporate food into their lifestyle than Sunset Magazine. Originally established by the Southern Pacific Railroad to promote travel to California on its rails, the focus of the magazine changed when it was purchased from the railroad in 1929  by Larry Lane, a Better Homes & Gardens executive, who moved his family from Iowa to California to run the business. In the 1940s, Sunset officially adopted "The Magazine of Western Living" as its motto, and the magazine drove much of the content of Lane Publishing Co., its wildly successful book publishing arm. Among the Sunset/Lane pioneering publications was the Sunset All-Western Cook Book (1933) by Genevieve Callahan, one of the first truly comprehensive cookbooks focused on the abundance of western-sourced (primarily California) ingredients. Similarly groundbreaking, Sunset's Barbecue Book (1938) was the first book ever published that was dedicated solely to outdoor barbecue cooking. The book included blueprints for building your own outdoor grill, since the portable grill had not yet been invented. The Barbecue Book was bound in genuine redwood boards.

Although Sunset Magazine during the Lane era was primarily directed toward a female audience, in 1940 it launched its "Chefs of the West" column to specifically solicit recipes from its male readers. Contributors whose recipes were accepted received a "Chefs of the West" chef's toque; and those who had a second recipe accepted received a similarly emblazoned apron. In 1951, Lane published Sunset Chefs of the West, (subtitled "A Man's Cook Book"), featuring "575 winning recipes by 474 western men". Although the book's dustjacket blurb spouts reverse-mysogynistic notions about how the male species acquired its cooking skills, referring to "western men who cooked on the open trail", and "cowpokes presiding over the chuck wagon", the rather sophisticated collection of recipes belies those notions. Filets de sole vin blanc aux champignons; Dutch oven squab; Char Siu; stuffed zucchini; onion pie; ravioli a la Victor Herbert (with veal, pork and spinach); and peach ice cream hardly qualify as "chuck wagon" fare.

The Chefs of the West column was edited by a certain "Gordon Goodwin", the nom de plume of Robert Lawrence Balzer, whose family owned California's first high-end food market, located in Hollywood's Larchmont neighborhood. At the tender age of 27, Bob Balzer had become the youngest member ever elected to the exclusive Los Angeles Wine & Food Society, and he was a good arbiter of which recipes were worth publishing.

The copy of Sunset Chefs of the West that is shown below belonged to Ward Ritchie, the renowned book designer and publisher whose eponymous press was at one time one of the largest cookbook publishers in the country. Ritchie and Balzer were well acquainted, as Ritchie was a fellow member of the Wine & Food Society. The letter laid into the book from "Gordon Goodwin" (aka Robert Lawrence Balzer) to Ward Ritchie dated November 19, 1951 explained that Sunset would be reprinting Ritchie's recipe for Salmis of Beef in its December issue, the first time the magazine had ever reprinted a "Chefs of the West" recipe. A high honor indeed!