Roman Housewright Prof. Yilmaz HIST501 March 6, 2024 A Historiographical Analysis of Linda Civitello’s Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Fight That Revolutionized Cooking In beginning my reading of Civitello’s text, I had not expected to find myself so ignorant of the subject. And yet, as the predecessors to modern baking powder were discussed, I was shocked. Emptins, pearl ash, and more recounted in detail, from how they were made to how they were used, and I had never heard of them. As the book progressed, I found myself engrossed in the history that is relatively close to my life and field of focus and yet completely foreign to me. Overall, I feel myself won over by the history, and must give the author credit for engaging my attention to this extent. Civitello’s work,…show more content… Instead, she divides the background into the usage of yeast/baking of bread in chapter one and the usage of early chemical leaveners/baking of cakes and other baked goods in chapter two. And yet, the real genius in her division comes from the fact that, despite the chronological overlaps in these two background chapters and their themes, Civitello incorporates differing chronology into the chapter narratives, having chapter one focus more on earlier European bread baking, brought to the Americas by settlers, and chapter two focus more on American usage of early chemical leaveners in cakes and other baked goods. Both chapters include references beyond these eras/themes to best encompass both of the themes and eras, but Civitello excels in doing so without losing the pacing that makes each chapter feel overall subject-focused and chronological. Another excellent example of her approach to chapter formation in the text is Civitello’s willingness to have regions as her focus for individual chapters, such as the Northeast in chapter three and the Midwest in chapter
