Female trailblazers shaped cuisine

If I asked you to name five famous trailblazing women of the culinary arts who weren’t propelled to fame by Food Network, who would be on your list?

Julia Child, Edna Lewis, M.F.K. Fisher,

Irma Rombauer, Alice Waters?

What about Malinda Russell, author of the 1866 publication Domestic Cook Book: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen (believed to be the first cookbook by a black American)?

Or Marie Harel, creator of Camembert cheese?

Or Cristeta Comerford, first woman and nonwhite person to serve as White House executive chef?

Or Sarah Josepha Hale, author of Mary Had a Little Lamb and the woman behind the push to create a national holiday of gratitude and unity, aka Thanksgiving.

Or Hattie Burr, compiler and editor of The Woman Suffrage Cook Book published in November 1886 and the first of several volumes published to raise funds for the suffrage movement.

Or Melitta Bentz, inventor of the paper coffee filter? (I thank Bentz daily as I prepare my morning coffee using the cone and paper filter that bear her name.)

All of these women, (save Rombauer and Waters) and dozens more are profiled in A Woman’s Place: The Inventors, Rumrunners, Lawbreakers, Scientists & Single Moms Who Changed the World With Food by Deepi Ahluwalia and Stef Ferrari ($25, Little Brown).

The book, illustrated by Jessica Olah, combines so many of my passions — cooking, women’s equality, writing and history, to name a few.

From dishwashers to doughnuts, chances are there was a woman with an untold story behind it.

Speaking of doughnuts, the book includes 10 or so recipes, including this one, a nod to Elizabeth Gregory, mother of the modern-day doughnut.