Found in the Stacks of the Los Angeles Public LIbrary: Chef Wyman (1927)

Trusted Southern California culinary arts experts of the 1930s and 40s, such as the pseudonymous Marian Manners of the Los Angeles Times and Prudence Penny of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, owed a debt of thanks to Chef A.L. Wyman for locally demonstrating and popularizing the economical preparation of food in the home. While the household tips and recipes of Marian Manners and Prudence Penny are still referenced today, Chef Wyman remains largely forgotten.

Born in Sacramento in 1875, Arthur Leslie Wyman represented Globe Grain and Milling Company (known for Globe A-1 flour) and Southern California Edison in cooking demonstrations across Southern California beginning in the 1910s. The press touted him as “a culinary artist of international fame,” possessing a Master of Culinary Arts degree plus experience at large bake shops and hotel kitchens around the world including the Waldorf Astoria (New York), Rector’s (New York and Chicago), Alexander Young Hotel (Honolulu) and Shepheard’s (Cairo).

During World War I, in addition to teaching housewives how to use their new electric stoves, Chef Wyman lectured on “war economy cooking” and food conservation. This included tips on cooking with food scraps; canning fruits and vegetables; finding substitutes for wheat, flour and butter; conserving sugar; and introducing meatless dishes (using walnuts, beans or peas as meat substitutes) to your family. Interested in how to bake “war bread” by combining potatoes with barley or oats? Chef Wyman, along with his wife and cooking assistant Mabelle, taught you how.

Beginning in 1922, Chef Wyman parlayed his fame into a weekly column in the Los Angeles Times titled “Practical Recipes: Helps [sic] for Epicures and All Who Appreciate Good Cooking.” Readers were invited to submit questions and recipe requests to Chef Wyman’s Glendale test kitchen that he would answer in the column. Requests poured in from residents and tourists alike and the column featured 12-16 recipes each week. In addition to requests for specific recipes, Chef Wyman tackled topics such as growing and drying your own herbs, cooking with locally caught fish, and making jelly and preserves with locally available fruit (one example used the fruit of the Spanish Bayonet). His recipes, written out as an instructional paragraph, proved popular and readers often asked where they could buy his cookbook. After explaining he did not have a cookbook to sell, he urged readers to cut his recipes out of the newspaper and file them away.

Sadly, Chef Wyman passed away in October 1926. His wife Mabelle took over duties on the Practical Recipes column in the Times and finally published a cookbook of the late chef’s recipes. The cookbook features recipes using California fruits and vegetables, including dishes he created and named after the towns of his readers– Sunland Salad, Eggs Riverside, Eggs Shirred Willowbrook, Hollywood Salmon, Pomona Salad, Gardena Sandwich and Los Angeles parfait. Check it out for yourself, Chef Wyman’s Daily Health Menus (1927) is available at the Los Angeles Public Library.

Curious about the history of culinary coverage in the Los Angeles Times? The library has past Culinary Historian of Southern California lectures available to borrow on CD, including “Food and the Times: A Century of California Cuisine as Recorded by the Los Angeles Times” and “The L.A. Times Food Section Gals.”