A story of how flour makers and other industry titans fought to have the market for baking powder the reason why it became so much in demand and how it changed the commercial baking industry at a time when people could only have bread as such stay good for a few days. Plus it was a way to make bread and other baked goods lighter not as dense at that time. The behind-the-scenes fighting and litigation between them make me look at clabber girl and Clamuet differently. But the result was a change in cookies, cakes, muffins, biscuits, pancakes, and donuts. This changes the food industry. A good book.

First sentence: Business is war. Cooking is chemistry. Food is political.

Premise/plot: At its simplest, Baking Powder Wars is just that a history of the evolution/revolution of baking powder. The book begins pre-baking-powder-era and tells the story of what once was, of how bread [and cakes, etc.] used to be made. It then goes step by step through its evolution/revolution. [If it sounds dramatic, well, it's for good reason. It's a story of industry, corporations, commercialization and advertising, espionage, bribery, politics...and plenty of homemaking and 'domestic arts.' It has some to do with the role of women inside the home, and the role of the home inside society. The author uses baking powder to tell the story of convenience, of our love affair with convenience--fast, easy, cheap, consistent. This book truly offers a little something to every reader. It's got recipes. It's got stories about cookbooks and the role they play in society. It's got tension--as companies (and families who own companies) BATTLE it out literally and figuratively for supremacy. You might think naturally this would involve advertising, media, and market space...but it includes actual politics and politicians. It's also a history of what we eat, where we eat, how we eat, etc. (Bread, quick bread, muffins, pancakes, doughnuts, cakes, cupcakes, etc.) What we eat has definitely evolved through the centuries. It isn't just a story of one product--but of many. (Think Bisquick, Martha White, cake-mixes, etc.)

My thoughts: Until the last little bit--second half of last chapter--this one was actually fairly absorbing. I found that while it covered many subjects and seemed to present facts and factoids almost at random, it was almost always interesting and entertaining. The last half of the last chapter brings readers "up to date" on the families who started the big baking powder companies. These "updates" had nothing to do with food, advertising, cooking, etc. Most of them had to do with RACING. And it was like WHY IS THIS IN HERE? DO I CARE ABOUT RACE CARS? NO, I DO NOT. But so much of this one was interesting to me.

This one admittedly won't be for every reader. But for those who have an interest in the subject--be it food, cooking, baking, domestic arts, advertising and marketing, business, history of cookbooks, history of supermarkets, history of society/culture "becoming" modern and industrialized...I think this one has a little bit of everything.

A great title on an ingredient so vital in baking. It was an entertaining view on the history of baking powder!

Who knew that baking powder could be this interesting?! I was skeptical but proven wrong by Linda Civitello and her incredibly well-researched book on the topic.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book; it was not to my taste, however, and I will not be completing it. I have not rated or reviewed this book. (The rating below is because a star rating is required by Netgalley, and is not reflective of an opinion.)

Food historian Linda Civitello takes readers on an eye-witness, time traveling adventure of the truly cutthroat world of the creation, packaging, and marketing of baking powder. The author of "Baking Powder Wars" has researched every last teaspoon of America's relationship with bread and all things baked and nimbly provides a dramatic narrative of non-stop corporate dirty dealing that includes bribing government officials and journalists, as well as enthusiastic and colorful misdirection by advertising.
Civitello was a guest on my podcast Madame Perry's Salon and was as energetic and entertaining as her book.

Before there baking powder was invented, there were no fluffy cakes, no cookies, no muffins, no biscuits, and no quick breads. Everything had to be leavened with yeast, and since there was no dried yeast available at the grocery store, the baker had to capture and store their own live yeast, as one does sour dough starter these days. It was a lot of work- building up a starter, kneading, and allowing bread two or three rises took a day and a half. There were yeast raised pancakes and biscuits, just like there are sour dough versions of those today, but they weren’t fast and no one baked something on the spur of the moment. Baking powder- even those made at home- changed all that. Now you could bake something in an hour- and the texture was totally different.

This book- which actually reads like a thesis and I do wonder if that was its first incarnation- shows the history of the various mixtures used as baking powder. It also shows us the war between the various large sellers of baking powder- it was surprisingly nasty. Today, with all the mixes on the shelves and all the pre-made baked goods available, one wouldn’t think there would be big money in simple baking powder, but there was.

The first baking powders were homemade, where the home baker combined various ingredients to create a leavener. Some formulations had to be done immediately before baking because moisture caused them to go off right away. Some formulations were double acting- they started giving off gas when mixed with moisture, and were triggered again by the heat of the oven (or the griddle, if making pancakes). Some had aluminum- something many of us cringe at today. Because there were several formulations, cookbooks had to include tables showing what changes had to be made for the different types and brands. All of this experimentation was made in people’s homes, not in labs.

This is a great social history book. Baking powder really did change the way we eat. It didn’t change bread, but it did make a whole new world of baked goods available. And one could make quick breads with it, even though those don’t make great sandwiches- the crumbly texture of baking powder breads makes them fall apart easily whereas yeast breads stay together because of the springy texture of gluten.

There was a lot about the wars between the companies manufacturing the various baking powders that I found myself skipping. The book is incredibly detailed; the author did a lot of research in original records, in both the economic field and the social. If you’re interested in how life was lived in the past, it’s a great book, albeit over long at times. Four stars out of five.

Very interesting book on the history of commonly used food item as in Baking Powder. Good read if you like odd bits of history which I do.

There is a joke on my favorite television show "It was a documentary on the font Helvetica, and it felt like a murder mystery" - reading that book was like this. I felt like a giant nerd, but I had a lot of fun

I had absolutely no idea what on earth to expect when I began "Baking Powder Wars." So to put it almost criminally lightly, I was surprised to learn that the history of leavening agents in the United States is a tale more fascinating than I ever could have possibly imagined, with everything from ferocious competition across the country, to marketing and advertising innovations that are widespread today, to episodes of full-out government corruption.

The extensive research and passion that Linda Civitello has poured into this book clearly shows - not since Mark Kurlansky's "Salt" have I read a micro-history so comprehensive and unexpectedly eye-opening. Anyone who picks up this fascinating work will be given quite a lot to think about, especially the next time they're at the grocery store.

I enjoyed this thrilling story of the forgotten battle between companies. This book highlights the story in a way that shows the birth of advertising and the market loyalties it tries to foster with its products.

I admit to not knowing much about baking powder because I am not a big baker. I like to eat baked goods, but if I'm going to bake something, there's a good chance that a mix will be involved (not even a baking class helped). But, I like reading and eating so food history is something that I am interested in reading. The only thing is, I don't really find many books about this topic.

Baking Powder Wars fills a little gap in my huge chasm of ignorance about the history of food. Although it starts off as a history of baking and the troubles that women have traditionally had making bread and other baked goods, the bulk of the book focuses on the companies that made baking powder. Basically, baking powders were marketed as ways for women to successfully make bread and other things involving yeast with much less effort, and in an age where a women's abilities were (at least in part) measured by how well they baked, this must have been a lifesaver to them. But since it was so new, how could they figure out which brand to buy?

And this is how the marketing wars began. From what I understand, the big companies used different types of baking powder - phosphate and aluminium and they used every way they could to exploit the difference for their own gain.

To be honest, I found the marketing aspect a lot less interesting than the history of baking (whoops, not being a very good economics student here). I found the recipes and the snippets of how life was for women back then fascinating and if anyone knows a book that focuses on that aspect, please let me know!

I would recommend this to people who are interested in the history of brands and the (relatively) unknown history behind everyday products. If you're interested in marketing and brands trying to get favourable legislation passed, you'll love this, but even people who are just interested in the cooking will find something to like (mainly at the start of the book, but there are snippets everywhere).

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.

This book presents an in-depth history of baking powder from Europe to the new colonies to 21st century America. What an interesting product, with historic and current recipes provided. The author's statement that it created a paradigm shift and then dropped out of pubic consciousness is so true. I had to go check my cupboard to find out what brand of baking powder I have (Clabber Girl) and can not recall having made a conscious choice to purchase that brand. Industrial espionage, advertising wars, anonymous testimonials, price undercutting, worker layoffs, government regulation, deregulation... It all appears in the baking powder industry. Very enlightening. Only lost a star because some of the information got off topic.

Baking powder has been such a staple in our modern lives that we might easily forget that there was a time without such a small luxury. Author Linda Civitello has obviously done the time and research when it came to writing this book. That being said I found it a bit difficult to dig through. I’ve noticed that when it comes to nonfiction books I still enjoy the narrative approach to the type that reads like a text or essay one might do at school. The sheer amount of research and information that Civitello was able to discover and bring to the forefront in this book is astounding. Yet it feels like in order to justify the amount of time and effort, she included everything she found, even some things that really didn’t make much sense to me.
I was drawn to this book because I enjoy baking and it would recommend it for the same audience. I would simply make sure they were aware of the writing style and then let them dive in on their own. It is a good book all around, but in the end I found that it was simply not written in a way that I found incredibly enjoyable.

*This eBook was provided by NetGalley and University of Illinois Press in exchange for honest feedback*

History of baking powder and the path it traveled were discussed in detail. There are also some recipes with baking powder.....

Baking Powder Wars
by Linda Civitello
Making bread is a passion for me so The Baking Powder War by Linda Civitello caught my eye. I also got so much more than I expected. This was not a minor marketing battle between rival companies; the ‘war’ statement in the title of the book was in no way hyperbole. The creation and distribution of this product was important both in its time and today.
For those that don’t cook, baking powder is a product that leavens bread. Almost any bread product bought today as well as most cakes, cookies, and bakery products contain baking powder. If you put it in an oven and it gets bigger, or if it is soft and fluffy, you know it has baking powder.
Starting with the introduction of bread making in colonial America the author shows just how important bread making was in the time period; setting up just how revolutionary this simple product ended up being. The first couple of chapters move more slowly than the rest of the book, but don’t stop reading. It’s definitely worth your time.
The author explains how the product was changing society and what four major companies were doing to ensure they profited the most. Both of these non-fiction aspects were fascinating. I learned to cook from my granny and my mom and they both used Clabber Girl, so I used Clabber Girl. I had no idea there had been a marketing war over baking powder!
Bread making went from something that took all day (and constant prep to ensure the baker had yeast at hand) to something that could be done in a short time. This leavening was so important that the first patent issued in America dealt with a baking powder predecessor.
Many changes in daily life occured. The rise of the tin industry (baking pans were suddenly needed for breads that didn’t stay self-contained), adding chemical additives to food (baking powder is convenient but it adds neither flavor nor nutritional value) and eventually the rise of chain grocers.
But the majority of the book focused on the cut throat war the various companies engaged in during a time with less ease of consumer information. Wholesale bribery of state legislature type of warfare; these companies were robber barons every bit as crafty as any steel tycoon. Early marketing was as horrifying as it is fascinating; one ad basically told women that a can of baking powder saved so much time it was like owning a slave!
Give yourself a break and enjoy learning a little history!
I received this book from netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

The Baking Powder War covers far more than just an interesting balance between different companies, but the war against women. It wasn't enough to keep a perfect household, but one had to also make perfect bread for their families. I found myself both fascinated and uncomfortable reading this book, as there is still so much societal pressure on women to be "Pinterest Perfect."

Overall, I enjoyed this book, and would recommend it.

What I liked about the book:

I love books about the history behind everyday things you take for granted (e.g. Salt and Cod). This is one such book, and the author does a very good job of in this extremely thorough book. A wide number of issues were looked at from some interesting vantage points, including native American, advertising, industrial espionage, chemistry, and legislative. All in all, a very thorough piece of work.

What I didn't like about the book:

At the early stages of the book, the academic thesis is laid out pretty bluntly - gender studies is at the core of this title. Personally I am not a fan of this school, as I prefer less theoretical and more journalistic styles of work - particularly when it comes to history. But, as it is a boook through a Universty Press, it's inevitable that it's going to have an academic bent.

What else? I thought perhaps more of the internationalisation of baking powder could have been brought in. Some examination of baking powder in Germany took place, but understanding more about the export of the kinds of baking powder to the UK etc would have been interesting. Additionally, I thought there were a few things that were not really mentioned or were glossed over - the role of commercial bakeries in early America (surely they existed!), the role of self-raising flour as a challenge to the baking powder industry, some broader history of bread. However, these could be more points for the general reader, as opposed to the academic reader.

I received a free electronic copy of his history from Netgalley, Linda Civitello, and University of Illinois Press in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all, for sharing your hard work with me.

I am old, and I have always dearly loved to cook. I am so old that I remember when every country road we traveled had Clabber Girl ads painted on old barns. One of my main complaints when I was a new cook in the late '50's and early '60's was the lack of any sort of consistency in recipes that included a leavening of any sort. As you cook, over the years, you make up your own rules, as did the ladies and gentlemen who wrote the receipt books quoted in this fine history of baking powder and cutthroat advertising. And thanks to the baking powder wars our quick breads, cookies, muffins and biscuits are dependably great every time we make them. But I knew all that when I picked up this book.

What I didn't know that would fill volumes is packed tightly into this very readable journey as Linda Civitello brings us through centuries of the evolution of cooking. Thank you for all the great effort obvious in this work, Ms. Civitello. I am full of facts and hungry for my lemon quick bread. And my Daddy's recipe for Bundt cake. And my daughter's Ranger cookies.

Baking powder made fascinating

I enjoyed this book. It has everything I like in nonfiction: science, commerce, history biographical information, and very sharp writing. I would reread certain passages because they were so well written. And it takes a certain writing skill to make a history of baking powder so interesting that the book is hard to put down, especially for someone like me who has no interest in baking. I strongly recommend this book.