The Food Writer that was Johan Mathieson

Sidney Mintz, the anthropologist and author of Sweetness and Power, sent Johan notes about books.  Maida Heatter, cookbook author and ‘legend of desserts,’ sent him batches of cookies. John Thorne, whose newsletter Simple Cooking was an inspiration to more than one budding food writer in the late 20^th century, passed his companion newsletter, Cookbook, on to Johan, who transformed it into Word of Mouth. In the 90s, there was a booming culture of culinary newsletters that I wrote about some time ago, Johan Mathieson’s culinary newsletters were outstanding.

Johan wrote constantly, turning out newsletters whose subjects varied with his interests.Food was an abiding enthusiasm. He had run restaurants and bakeries and he supplemented that hands-on knowledge with wide reading in the used and rare culinary books that he sold. The catalogs, of course, had to be prefaced with his musings about food. I encountered him, as did so many others, through these Food Words.

Although Johan and I corresponded through the 90s, perhaps longer, and although he published some of my work in his newsletter, I met him, and his wife Kay, only once. It must have been around 2000 and it must have been when I was at some now-forgotten academic conference in Oregon. From his writings, I already knew that Johan, of Norwegian ancestry, had moved to Oregon in the late 1960s and that, when not working in the food world, roamed the back roads of the state exploring its history through its cemeteries.

Now I discovered a tall man with grey hair pulled back in a pony tail, whose solemn and gentle demeanour gave little clue to his mordant wit. We had lunch in a place where the staff could afford the meals, the only kind he patronised. Back at his house, I bought a few gems from his collection. The Canning Clan was one that I remember. And his wife, Kay, finished work in time to join us for tea. A memorable day.

Over the years we gradually lost touch as Johan spent more time on cemeteries and less on food.

Then last week, a couple of decades later, a message from Kay popped up in my blog (or perhaps it was Facebook). Tomorrow, July 4th 2023, would be the first anniversary of Johan’s death.

The years disappeared. Our correspondence seemed just last week, our meeting just a few days ago. My heart goes out to Kay, to the four children and the five grandchildren. May tomorrow be a day full of their best memories of Johan.

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I have a couple of dozen of Johan’s newsletters. Kay has boxes of his archives. What a fitting memorial it would be if a place were found for these ephemera that deserve a place in food history.

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