In 1960, three years before the publication of Betty Friedan's seminal feminist text "The Feminine Mystique," Peg Bracken published her own book. It began like this: "Some women, it is said, like to cook. This book is not for them."
The aptly named "I Hate to Cook Book" was built on convenience foods — crushed cornflakes, frozen vegetables, powdered soup mixes and Spam. During an age when the United States' culinary godfather James Beard was ascending as an evangelist of sorts for "fresh, wholesome, American ingredients," Bracken's book was subversive — and it was successful for it. As the New York Times reported in the wake of Bracken's death in 2007, more than 3 million copies of the "I Hate to Cook Book" had been sold in various editions.
