A fascinating dive into a culinary baking staple and how it relates to Darien’s Great Island!
Darien Library welcomes author, Dr. Linda Civitello, who will talk about her book, Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight that Revolutionized Cooking.
Smithsonian magazine named Baking Powder Wars one of the “10 Best Food Books of 2017.”
What’s the Great Island connection? In the 1900s, Great Island was the summer home of industrialist William Ziegler, one of the founders of the Royal Baking Powder Company. Civitello’s book looks at the history of baking powder which was first patented in 1856 and how it sparked an American struggle for business supremacy.
For nearly a century, brands battled to win loyal consumers for the new leavening miracle, transforming American commerce and advertising even as they touched off a chemical revolution in the world’s kitchens.
The book chronicles the titanic struggle that reshaped America’s diet and rewrote its recipes. Presidents and robber barons, bare-knuckle litigation and bold-faced bribery, competing formulas and ruthless pricing — hundreds of companies sought market control, focusing on the big four of Rumford, Calumet, Clabber Girl, and Royal.
Exhaustively researched and rich with detail, Baking Powder Wars is the forgotten story of how a dawning industry raised Cain — and cakes, cookies, muffins, pancakes, donuts and biscuits.
If You’re Going …
The event takes place from 3 to 4:15 p.m., Sunday, March 30, 2025 in the Heron Room at Darien Library.
There were nine seats available as of late Wednesday afternoon, March 26. You can register here.
About the Author
Linda Civitello, PhD is the award-winning author of Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight That Revolutionized Cooking, and Cuisine & Culture: A History of Food and People, which is used to teach food history in culinary schools in the U.S. and other countries. The fourth edition will be out in 2025.
A frequent speaker on a wide range of food history topics, from James Bond to racism in food, Linda has also been a Food and Art consultant for the Getty Museum and spoken before the American Chemical Society. She has taught at UCLA, Quinnipiac University, and Florida International University. She also cooks professionally.
Her degrees are from UCLA and Vassar. Dr. Civitello is originally from Hamden.