Ida Bailey Allen: first TV cooking show

Ida Bailey Allen was one of the most prolific, steady cookbook authors of her generation. As many cooking experts from this era, she wrote cookbooks—yet she wrote over 50 cookbooks; hosted a radio show—but she was co-owner of the radio show and sold her own advertising; she even hosted an early television cooking show, some say the first; and presented lectures and food demonstrations world-wide.

Ida Cogswell Bailey was born Jan 30 1885 in Danielson, Connecticut to Ida Louise (Cogswell) Baily and Frank Garvin Bailey, a bookkeeper, both New Englanders. The year before Ida was born, her older brother died, thus she was the oldest living child, and had three younger brothers. From circa 1900 to 1912, she lived with her family at 21 Corning Ave., Worcester, Mass. where her father was bookkeeper for a wire firm. Ida’s grandfather John Bailey was a sea captain and it was said he recommended to Ida that she cook with rum. She prepared her first recipe when she was eight years old: gingerbread, and with her mother’s patient help, she graduated to supper for the family.

In high school Ida was an inspired member of the Britomart Society, a literary club at Worcester’s English High School. The Britomart Society was named after a character in Edmund Spenser’s poem “The Faerie Queene.” Britomart, a brave female knight, embodied virtues such as courage and righteousness. As part of the Society in 1903, she read from “Lovely Mary“ [google books] by Alice Rice at a South High School rhetorical. She wished to be a writer and to go to school for English. When she realized she couldn’t do that, and had to be trained in her home town at the Oread Domestic Science School, “she wept buckets.” But at 18, she reluctantly began her career in cooking. In 1903 she sang at a fundraising supper given by Worcester’s Ladies’ Aid Society, and in 1904 helped the same organization by being one of 12 young people on the wait staff at seven long tables for 225 people. Between this and other events, before she was aware of it herself, she was enjoying her new career very much. Also related to the domestic realm, she received house decoration instruction from Gustav Stickley, no less. Later, circa 1920, she was assistant editor of Stickley’s magazine, The Craftsman.

After domestic science training, Ida opened a Tea Room of which not much is known. Ida embarked on her educational and intern journey, earning her degree as a dietitian at New York Metropolitan Hospital on Blackwell’s Island after three years. [Maria Parloa was often a lecturer there for the cooking series] and Ida’s next opportunity was back home directing Worcester’s YWCA Domestic Science School. The class started with 28 students. The Worcester Telegram printed a weekly story of the class and by the end there were 700-1000 enrolled, as she traveled from factory to factory teaching the class. She was given the affectionate name, “Market Basket Lady” by the factory workers, which doesn’t sound so flattering today! With this success, she started correspondence classes, about which we’re still searching for information. During WWI she became an endorsed lecturer with the US Food Administration, and spoke about balanced meals and food conservation. And unrelated to the war, at some point she was invited to conference in New York with William Randolph Hearst [again, no less!] after she wrote him a letter criticizing his newspaper’s food pages. Once the meeting concluded, he tasked her to help with the pages.

Worcester was the setting for the wedding of Thomas Lewis Allen and Ida Cogswell Bailey in 1912. Thomas Allen was born on Jan 6 1883 in Anderson, Indiana and was described in 1918 as having brown hair, blue eyes, medium height and weight. He was a graduate of Cornell University, and bar graduate at what seems to read DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. At the time of marriage, he was a farmer in Colebrook, Conn. and also a stage singer—later singing tenor for the Metropolitan Opera. Besides the Wedding March [youtube] from Wagner’s Lohengrin, the couple had a New York Grand Opera soprano, Miss Vivian Holt, [wiki photo] sing “She is Mine” from Love’s Epitome. Ida’s maid of honor was Miss Ruth Ensign of New Rochelle, New York.

Newlyweds Thomas and Ida Allen moved to Newark, NJ, and in 1918 they lived at 68 Northern Ave., NYC. Their son was born Nov 25 1913, named after Thomas, and daughter, Ruth, was born Sep 3 1919, perhaps named after Ida’s maid of honor. Both children were born in New York. In 1920 the family lived on the Upper West Side at 636 West 158th St. Thomas was a singer on the concert stage at the Metropolitan Opera and author, she a cookbook author. She also wrote food articles for national women’s magazines. But to keep peace with her husband, she launched upon a $10,000 musical education for five years, taking voice, languages, and piano. She even took longed-for English classes. From this education she became an accomplished mezzo-soprano singer, yet professionally used her vocal training only for diction. The languages were beneficial for reading German, French and Italian cookbooks; and the piano training took her out of the realm of cooking and into the realm of professional piano for opera singer, Margaret Romaine. [youtube]

Her husband, Thomas, died at home in 1920. She kept his last name throughout her professional life. After his death she went back to Connecticut in the city where she was born and taught a cooking class. By this time, she had already taught cooking, written seven cookbooks and booklets, and was an editor in the Housewives’ Forum for Pictorial Review, but realized she had to commit more thoroughly to support herself.

Ida married again in 1921 in New York City, to widower William Brewster Chapman, five years older, born c. 1875 in Ohio. William had been the general manager of Boyne City Chemical Works in Ohio, and while Ida worked with magazine editing and food writing, he was an inventor in engineering. He brought to the marriage one son, Bruce W. Chapman, abt. 15 and Ida brought her two young children, abt. six and three years old. During their marriage Ida and William lived at 344 81st, Queens, NYC. Strangely enough, months after the wedding, Ida sued Hebe Publishing company for $100,000 because they misprinted her waffle recipe, claiming damages to her reputation. If the courts awarded her the amount remains a mystery. William died 10 years later, December, 1931.

Ida Bailey Allen began her radio career during her marriage to William. After a 1923 radio broadcast of her cooking lecture in St Louis, there was a response of 1500 letters. Encouraged from the St Louis radio show, she began broadcasting twice per week. She used the wealthy-sounding British-American Trans-Atlantic accent, popular in mid-century movies and radio—a voice brought to perfection from her earlier vocal training. Her step-son was in radio advertising–perhaps helping Ida sell ad space for her show, as she not only hosted the hour-long, then two-hour radio show, but also secured her own advertisers.

It is said that Ida Bailey Allen hosted the first cooking show on the radio. She could have had the first some-such on the radio, but not the first cooking show, as Anna J Peterson and Mrs. Julian Heath were on air earlier. In Ida’s book Step-by-Step Picture Cook Book, she wrote, “It was my privileged to inaugurate and maintain the first radio homemaking school which presented a radio kitchen with real cooking of foods, broadcast over a major network.” It had qualifiers and she didn’t claim to be the first radio cooking show host. It was also said she had the first cooking show on television. I have not been able to prove that she did or didn’t, but the 1932 date given for the show appears too early for any television show. Yet, she was a Britomart, the female knight, so perhaps so!

During the height of her radio fame she had a professional kitchen glistening with chrome at her home at 400 Park Ave. where a staff of dieticians tested and developed recipes. She later moved to NYC’s Hotel Iroquois.

By 1932 she was widowed again. She didn’t remarry but she formed a close professional partnership with Charles Weisbord, stage name: Charles Premmac, or Franz, the Singing Chef. She studied music with him, and he sang and cooked on her radio show. You can hear one of their skits at the following link:

ida_bailey_allen_and_the_chef-194x-05-10.mp3 [oldtimeradiodownloads.com] and from the same site, a Feb. 1941 guest radio speaker with just Ida: The Lady From Oklahoma.mp3

Charles was a tenor slated for the Metropolitan Opera, but he found himself drawn to her radio cooking programs. They became a cooking team from about 1935 to 1959. She was the expert cook and domestic scientist, and he was the Singing Chef, able to sing in 35 languages. In one show it was advertised that he would sing French Chasonette [youtube–these are not him, but examples], Italian Serenade [youtube], Spanish Romanza [youtube] and Portuguese Canzon [youtube]. They kept it light! They traveled the States and around the world entertaining, giving theatrical cooking demonstrations, meeting people, and representing companies. Charles was one of the “male perspective” co-writers of her syndicated column, Let’s Eat. Photo here is from May, 1959, the second to the last time that Singing Chef Charles Pemmac and Ida Bailey Allen are referred to together in a newspaper. All newspaper articles presented them professionally, except in June, 1959 when a Texas writer joked, “Today we expose Dr. Ida Bailey Allen” saying that Premmac really wrote all Ida’s cookbooks, and then described a situation that made it clear that Charles and Ida lived intimately together. At the time Ida lived at the Hotel Iroquois, 49 W. 44th St., New York City, a known gathering place for prominent literary figures and artists, and famous for the writers’ Algonquin Round Table. Technically, Charles’s address was always in Brooklyn, with his brother-in-law’s family, but the article had them singing before tucking a pet in at bedtime at the Iroquois. The photos in the June ’59 exposé were of Charles, and it appeared that he gave the interview. After that article, all news articles mentioning Ida Bailey Allen with Charles Premmac stopped abruptly, forever. Coincidence? They were still a couple given that she “dined with a Frenchman” which probably meant Charles, as it was his go-to persona. And she still had her wildly popular syndicated column, “Let’s Eat!” until 1968, but after 25 years of touring and promotions, no newly-issued press releases mentioned Ida Bailey Allen and the Singing Chef in the same breath.

In 1942 her daughter Ruth graduated with an honors degree in English, reminiscent of Ida’s original dream in the H. S. Britomart Society to major in English.

In 1948, besides music, Ida said her favorite past times were gardening and hat designing. Here is where we tip our hat to you with a list of 50 of Ida Bailey Allen’s 54+ cookbooks and cooking booklets. When we find the last four or five cookbooks, we’ll add them.

BOOKS

It was said she authored at least 54 cookbooks. Here are 51 that we found.

1916 – Good Luck Recipes, [reddit] John F. Jelke Co., Chicago
1917 – Mrs. Allen’s Cook Book [google books]
1917 – Mrs. Allen’s book on wheat substitutes [google books] Small, Maynard & Co., Boston, Mass.
1918 – Mrs. Allen’s book of sugar substitutes [google books]
1918 – Mrs. Allen’s book of meat substitutes [google books]
1918 – The Golden Rule cook book; [archive.org] The Citizens’ Wholesale Supply Company, Columbus, Ohio
1918 – Troco recipes [reddit] Troco Nut Butter Co.
1920 – A New Snowdrift Cookbook
1922 – Morrell’s Pride, Book on Hospitality; True Hospitality the Key to Happiness [Volume One]; John Morrell & Co.
1922 – Woman’s World Calendar Cook Book of Balanced Menus; Woman’s World Magazine Co., Inc.
1922 – For The Bride – Helpful Hints Practical Suggestions and Valuable Records; Reuben Donnelley Corp., Chicago
no date – Silver Plate and Why It Is Fashionable
1924 – Home Partners, or, Seeing the Family Through; Privately Printed
1923 & 1924 – The Beech-nut Book Of Menus & Recipes; Beech-Nut Packing Co.
1924 – The Kelvinator book of frozen delicacies; Kelvinator Corp.
1924 – How to Use the Foods You Can; Ball Bros.
1924 – Cooking Menu Service: 2500 Recipes [babel.hathitrust.org] Garden City Publishing
1926 – 104 Prize Radio Recipes With Twenty-Four Radio Home-Maker’s Talks; J. H. Sears & Co.
1926 – Your foods and you; or, The role of diet; Doubleday, Page & co.
1927 – Vital Vegetables with Menus and Recipes; Doubleday, Page & Co.
1927 – The Modern Method of Preparing Delightful Foods; Corn Products Refining Co.
1928 – Morrell’s Pride, Book on Hospitality; True Hospitality the Key to Happiness Volume Two; John Morrell & Co.
1929 – Your Foods and You; PF Collier & Son
c. 1930 no date – Dainty Desserts for the Family and Guests, with 8 Little Dessert Lessons; The Buzza Co.
c. 1930 no date – Luscious Luncheons and Tasty Teas: The Most Modern Recipes; The Buzza Co.
c. 1930 no date – Satisfying Salads; [reddit] The Buzza Co.
c. 1930 no date – Delightful Dinners; The Buzza Co.
c. 1930 no date – Dainty Desserts for the Family and Guests with Eight Little Dessert Lessons; The Buzza Co.
1932 – Ida Bailey Allen’s Modern Cook Book: 2500 Delicious Recipes. Garden City Publishing Co.
1932 – When You Entertain [HathiTrust] Coca-Cola Co., [sold 375,000 copies in under 6 months]
1933 – Service Cook Book #1
1934 – Round the World Cook Book; The Best Foods, Inc.
1934 – Ida Bailey Allen’s Wines and Spirits Cook Book; Simon and Schuster, New York.
1935 – The Budget Cookbook; The Best Foods, Inc.
1935 – The Service Cook Book No. 2. Educational Publishing Corp. for F. W. Woolworth Co.
1936 – Cooking within your income, Kitchen bookshelf series; Woolworth Co.
1938 – Ida Bailey Allen’s Kitchenette for Two Cook Book: Buying for Two, Menus for Two, Recipes for Two; Whitman Publishing Co.
1939 – Common Sense Cook Book, The: 200 Recipes and 100 Puzzling Food Questions and Their Answers; Whitman Publishing co.
1940 – Ida Bailey Allen’s Cookbook, Delicious Meals at Low Cost; Garden City Publishing
1940 – It’s Easy to Make Fine Candies at Home With Karo; Corn Products Refining Co.
1940 – Ida Bailey Allen’s Time Saving Cook Book; Rand-McNally & Co.
1942 – Money-Saving Cook Book; Eating for Victory. Nelson Doubleday
1943 Double-Quick Cooking For Part-time Homemakers; M. Barrows & Co.
1947 – Cook Book for Two; Country Life Press
1949 – Pressure Cooking; Garden City Books.
1950 – Youth After Forty; Halcyon House.
1952 – Solving the High Cost of Eating; Farrar Straus & Young.
1952 – Ida Bailey Allen’s Step By Step Picture Cook Book; Grosset and Dunlap.
1955 – Ida Bailey Allen’s Sandwich Book; Arco Publishing, Fawcett.
1956 – All About Eggs; Stevens Publications.
1957 – 1959 exciting easy-do-meals with sausage; Union Carbide Corp.
1958 – Gastronomique: A cookbook for gourmets; Doubleday & co.
1973 – Best Loved Recipes of the American People; Doubleday & Co. [posthumous]

Radio, Magazines and Newspapers [estimated dates]

• By 1918 – Pictorial Review, Housewives’ Forum, Home Economics Editor
  circa 1919 Diet editor, Medical Review of Reviews
• 1920s Woman’s World, Home Economics Editor
• 1924 Sunday New York American, Food Editor
  Good Housekeeping : Three Meals a Day column.
  Also: Family Circle, Parade, The Ladies’ Home Journal, New York Evening Mail, New York World, New York American, Parade, King Features Syndicate
• 1930s – Radio Home-Makers, weekly newspaper, editor.
• Radio Shows Radio Homemakers Club, Around the World Cooking School; Five Minute Meals; Majestic Home Program; Women’s Magazine of the Air; Sanitary Cleaning; Nucoa Budgeteers.
• 1946 -1968 Syndicated newspaper column, Let’s Eat, in US and Canada.

Affiliations

American Woman’s Association
National Radio Home-Makers Club
Daughters of the American Revolution

Notes