Elaine Corn Papers, 1927-2020

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Summary

Creators:
Corn, Elaine
Abstract:
The Elaine Corn Papers contain materials from Elaine Corn's career as a food editor, including newspapers, magazine stories with accompanying photographs, recipes, and interviews, freelance projects, teaching materials, drafts of articles and her books, published writings about Corn, and audio clips from Capital Public Radio.
Extent:
9.2 linear feet
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Elaine Corn Papers, D-679, Archives and Special Collections, UC Davis Library, University of California, Davis.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection contains:

Newspaper sections and columns, including Sacramento Bee weekly food sections from 1986 to 1991

Bee Sunday magazine stories with food photography, tested recipes, and interviews

Freelance proposals, projects, op-eds, and essays

Reviews and letters

Teaching materials, including syllabi from journalism workshops and writing courses

Published writing about Corn, including reviews of her work

Audio clips of radio stories for Capital Public Radio and NPR

Description of materials found in article by Raina M. Cates. https://library.ucdavis.edu/news/leading-local-food-journalist-donates-archive-to-uc-davis-library/

Biographical / historical:

Elaine Corn is a food editor, award-winning culinary journalist, and author of six cookbooks. Corn's journalism career started in Texas, where she received a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and worked as a copy editor and telegraph editor for the Dallas Morning News, and a copy editor and page one news editor at the Austin American-Statesman. While working at the Austin American-Statesman, Corn realized they were "the last major newspaper in Texas to start a food section" (Anderson 2018), so she lobbied to start one, becoming the founding food editor in 1978.

In 1980, Corn left Texas and traveled through Europe and Israel, refining her culinary repertoire along the way. In 1981 she returned to the United States and took a job as the food editor at the Louisville Courier-Journal. In 1986 she was hired by the Sacramento Bee, where she spent the rest of her newspaper career. Under Corn's tenure, the Sacramento Bee won awards for Best Food Reporting and Best Food Section. She also met her husband, David SooHoo, a Cantonese chef, while working on a story. In 2005 Corn joined Capital Public Radio as a broadcast culinary reporter.

Corn published her first cookbook, Gooey Desserts: The Joy of Decadence in 1993. Her second cookbook, Now You're Cooking: Everything a Beginner Needs to Know to Start Cooking Today was published in 1994 and won the Julia Child Cookbook Award and a James Beard Award in 1995. She went on to publish four more books over a ten-year period, with her last book published in 2002. In addition to writing cookbooks, Corn has been a contributor to publications including Cook's Illustrated, Food & Wine, Woman's Day, the Chicago Tribune, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She has also provided writing and recipes to other cookbooks such as Food Lover's Handbook to the Southwest and The Festive Table: Recipes and Stories for Creating Your Own Holiday Traditions.

In recent years Corn has combined her love of food with a new hobby, ceramics. Living with Parkinson's, a nervous system disorder, Corn believes "working with her hands has made a tangible difference in her quality of life" (Wall 2019). Most of her creations include bowls, serving dishes and platters which she then pairs with food. When designing her ceramics, Corn puts great emphasis on "what the food is going to look like, to either contrast or compliment the dish….Certain colors really set off the food" (Wall 2019). Corn also crafts ceramic menorahs, one of which graced the cover of the Jewish News of Northern California in 2019. When talking about her art, Corn compares her work with ceramics to her writing, stating, "I approach my writing as a form of art. I think about the structure, and building it, and how it's going to communicate, and how I move the reader along in some way. The same thing occurs with clay. It's not an easy medium, and if you don't start out strong it's going to fall apart" (Wall 2019).

Sources

Anderson, Annemarie. 2018. "Elaine Corn." Southern Foodways Alliance. November 12, 2018. https://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/elaine-corn/.

Cates, Raina M. 2021. "Leading Local Food Journalist Donates Archive to UC Davis Library." Ucdavis.edu. April 7, 2021. https://library.ucdavis.edu/news/leading-local-food-journalist-donates-archive-to-uc-davis-library/.

Corn, Elaine Resume, Elaine Corn Papers, D-679, Archives and Special Collections, UC Davis Library, University of California, Davis.

"Elaine Corn." n.d. Capradio.org. Accessed June 13, 2024. https://www.capradio.org/about/bios/elaine-corn/.

Wall, Alix. 2019. "After Food Writing Career, Artist Finds Appetite for Ceramics." Jweekly.com. December 20, 2019. https://jweekly.com/2019/12/20/after-food-writing-career-artist-finds-appetite-for-ceramics/.

Wall, Alix. 2022. "Wise Sons, Sababa, Proposition Chicken Join Mountain View Hub." Jweekly.com. January 14, 2022. https://jweekly.com/2022/01/14/wise-sons-sababa-proposition-chicken-join-mountain-view-hub/.

Acquisition information:
Donated by Elaine Corn in August 2020.
Processing information:

Elizabeth Wood and Michelle Trujillo created this finding aid.

Arrangement:

Files are arranged in six series, with two further arranged in subseries. Original folder titles are preserved as often as possible to convey arrangement and in other instances, titles were devised or edited for clarity and context.

Subseries 1.2 Louisville Courier-Journal was arranged chronologically and the regular feature "Cook's Corner" was separated and arranged chronologically per a note written and placed with the C-J newspapers by Corn.

The series and subseries arrangement of the materials is as follows:

Series 1: Food Editor Activities

Subseries 1.1: Austin American-Statesman

Subseries 1.2: Louisville Courier-Journal

Subseries 1.3: Sacramento Bee

Series 2: Books and Publications

Subseries 2.1: Books and Publications Contributed to or by Elaine Corn

Subseries 2.2: Development and Reviews

Series 3: Teaching, Speeches, Appearances, and other Work

Series 4: Letters, Resumes, and Professional History

Series 5: Travel and Photographs

Series 6: Capital Public Radio (CapRadio) Audio Interviews

Physical location:
This collection is stored off-site at the Northern Regional Library Facility. Researchers should contact Archives and Special Collections to request collections in advance.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research use.

Terms of access:

Copyright is protected by the copyright law, chapter 17, of the U.S. Code. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Department of Special Collections, University of California, Library, Davis as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Elaine Corn Papers, D-679, Archives and Special Collections, UC Davis Library, University of California, Davis.

Location of this collection:
University of California, Davis, Special Collections, UC Davis Library
100 NW Quad
Davis, CA 95616-5292, US
Contact:
(530) 752-1621
speccoll@ucdavis.edu
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