From our archives: Taste, in the beginning

By Rick Nelson

Here's an interview I conducted in 2004 with Beverly Kees, first editor of Taste. She held the position until 1973. (There's a sad footnote to this story: About a month after this interview was published, Kees, who was living in San Francisco, was killed when she was struck by a semitrailer truck while she was walking in a pedestrian crosswalk. She was 63.)

Q: Why did the Star launch a food section?

A: I think the feeling was that there would be both reader interest in the subject and a chance to package all the food ads in one place. And other papers were certainly publishing food sections, too. Taste was the first special section the Star ever had, and of course the paper went on to do many others.

Q: What's the origin of the "Taste" name?

A: They weren't sure it was going to be successful by just focusing on food, and they wanted to leave open the door to branch out into other things. So a name was chosen that could be used more broadly with fashion, decorating and other design-related topics.

Q: How did you get the job?

Q: What was the response to those first issues?

A: There wasn't a huge initial reaction. It takes readers a while to get used to the idea that something new in the paper will always be there, and it took us a while to develop a personality for the section. But it sort of grew on people as the weeks and months went by, and it really took off when readers found they could involve themselves in the section.

Q: You included a lot of reader interaction from the start, didn't you?

A: The Reader's Exchange was a forum where readers could ask other readers for long-lost recipes. It was enormously popular. Unless they're writing letters to the editor, readers really don't have much of a chance to contribute to their daily newspaper. Taste readers took this opportunity and ran with it; they flooded us with responses. We also started a restaurant recipe request column. We thought we'd do it once a month, but we got so many requests that it became a weekly feature. Over time it developed into an interesting status thing. We'd start getting letters like, `When I was recently in Indonesia and was shopping in an outdoor market,' that kind of thing. And honest to God, we tried to track them all down. It was fun detective work for us.

Q: Was Taste different from other food sections of the era?

Q: It sounds like a fun job.

A: It really was. We had a great deal of freedom to try things. We didn't have to follow a tradition because we didn't have one. We got to create our own traditions, and that's the most fun you can have at a newspaper.

Q: Do you read the food section of your newspaper today?

A: Yes. I still like to cook, and I must say that being with the food section changed the way I ate and the way I cooked, even the way I shopped. I'll never forget the time when I was making a recipe for the paper that required frozen peas. The next day a friend called and said that a friend of hers had been shocked to see me in the frozen-foods section of the grocery store. That's what happens when you're a food editor. No more frozen foods, no more McDonald's. You have a reputation to maintain.

Note: The very popular restaurant recipe request column yielded this recipe, from the now-defunct but fondly remembered Lincoln Del. Am I the only one who's struck by a Jewish deli using goyish Miracle Whip? What, no Hellmann's?

Serves 6 to 8.

Note: This recipe must be prepared in advance. From the "From the Chef" restaurant request column of the June 23, 1971 edition of Taste.

For dressing:

2 c. Miracle Whip salad dressing

2 tbsp. yellow prepared mustard

¼ c. white vinegar

For salad:

7 to 8 red potatoes

3 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and chopped

4 to 5 green onions, chopped, using some but not all green parts

1 to 2 oz. pimento, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

To prepare dressing: In a large bowl, whisk together Miracle Whip, mustard, sugar, vinegar and reserve.