About Jean
I’m just an everyday home cook who’s found her way back to the kitchen and the garden. Along the path, I developed a passion for the idea that we don’t have to be gourmet to eat well—and that paint-by-numbers recipes aren’t needed for simple everyday meals. That’s because as a food historian, not a professional chef, I come to cooking from a different place on the elephant, if you will. Indeed, I’m not a pretty cook. My knife skills are poor. And when I’m in the kitchen it’s all about getting dinner on the table in fairly short order.
I was in college at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff during the Sixties when the first food co-ops started. Like so many others, I turned vegetarian and said adios to fast food joints and the land of crinkly packages. Not to say it’s been all up hill. I was lured back over and again to the snacky-goody aisles—and carried the extra weight to prove it.
In part, the problem was not knowing how to cook much besides good old meat and potatoes. So in early forays I steamed up pots of gluey brown rice and boiled vegetables beyond recognition. With dinners like that, it wasn’t surprising that the call of candy et al still blared in my ears.
But, life has a way…
- First the 1980s saw me on the Nava-Hopi reservations as a public school teacher where I spent time in the kitchens with the women. It was there I saw how to make much from little. Dish after dish just from the corn they grew, each seasoned nicely so that plain fare became the stuff you write home about.
- Then to grad school at Washington State University to study history and make friends from the Middle East, India, and Europe. As we ate together and I learned about new cuisines, I realized once again that making simple delicious food is fun, fast, and affordable.
(Ditto later on for trips to Thailand and Mexico. Gorgeous, delicious food made from a song with a whole lot of heart. Plain simple street food for the people.)
- Finally, I settled in Portland, Oregon. Here, between my experiences and the city’s natural food markets and gardens, I increasingly found myself turning out some pretty darn good food. It isn’t any particular ethnic tradition; rather it’s a blend—fusion cuisine that reflects our multi-cultural world.
Passionate as I am about food, I’m surprised I didn’t discover the field of food history while earning my doctorate. Back then, though, I hadn’t figured out that ‘women’s work’ was important enough to be studied by the academy. But even though I was slow, once I found the target, interest was focused and sustained.
So, it didn’t take long for me to read Laura Shapiro’s Perfection Salad and learn that Americans only got measuring cups 100 years ago. Before that we cooked like women all over the world, with measuring and following fussy steps. Radical news!
Life’s not been the same since. I looked at the course of SAD, the Standard American Diet, over the 20th century. What scholars, chefs, and food writers talked about was that
1) the rise of the food industry and
2) women going to work explained SAD.
It was just easier, the consensus concluded, to buy product since no one was home any more.
Perhaps, but I wondered why nobody talked about this measuring business. The idea that the art of cooking was completely and totally revolutionized in the 1890s when we got our first cups and formulaic cookbooks.
Could it be that the revolution—turning the art of cooking into a lockstep scientific exercise—alienated us from our kitchens? After all, our lives are so highly regulated already. One more set of orders-from-headquarters at the end of a long day aren’t very likely to get us inspired. Like Richard Olney wrote, “imprisoning the art of cooking in chilly formulas is like robbing a bird of flight.
The rest is history. I began to write my measure free cookbook trilogy. This website showcases recipes from those books my work and more. I hope you find it a useful guide in your own culinary journey. If you do, please join our growing community by signing up for the Measure Free Update. The first email you will receive is my Top 5 Thrifty Ways to Make Ultrafast Dinners.
To the delicious revolution!
All best, Jean
Follow Jean Johnson under the HippieCook on Facebook and Twitter.
SPRING SCHEDULE
FEBRUARY
- Feb 18, 1-3, Senior Studies Institute, Neighborhood House, Portland. Pink Mesas and Green Sage: Cooking and Living in the Colors of the Southwest. Presentation based on Jean’s decade of residence within the Hopi and Navajo Indian Nations.
- Feb 24-Mar6, Taking homemade snacks down to All Classical.Org during their pledge drive.
- Feb 25. 1-3, Senior Studies Institute, Neighborhood House, Portland. The History of Cooking in Twentieth Century America.
MAY
- May 5, 7p, Blackbird Wine Shop, Oregon Literary Review First Wednesdays Readings. Jean will join other local authors to read from her work.
- May 12, 6p, Stevenson Community Library, Cooking with the Little Aunties with girls 8-12 and their families. Stevenson, Washington. The hands-on pie making cooking class will be the first Cooking with the Little Aunties to be filmed and aired on YouTube.
- May 25, Senior Studies Institute, 1p, OMSI, Leave Your Measuring Cups Behind and Take Back Your Kitchen! This 2-hour powerpoint seminar is a sequel to the February seminar on what happened to the art of cooking in 20th century America and why we might care.
