Women in the Kitchen at Home

[Carrot Top]

I've been thinking about this subject ever since these posts in another thread . . . the first part in a general sort of way and the second one with a more specific wondering:

Does how we think about food affect our daily lives, or our lives within our various cultures in any way? Beyond the simple fact that we all make decisions each day as what to eat and perhaps what to cook?

Yes, and moreso than most might suspect. After all, as dissimilar notables as Brillat-Savarin and Tiny Tim more or less agreed that we are what we eat.

Are women responsible in fact for most of the home food preparation/family food preparation across the board in all cultures? How does this affect the food being served? And perhaps not answerable in this forum, how does that affect women in general?

Women may be "responsible in fact", (although at least in our culture not quite as exclusively as in earlier times), but perhaps not in principle?

In my own family's case, my parents came from culinarily disparate backgrounds; my being Mother second generation Serbian-American and my Father nth generation Scots/English. While my Father wasn't a fussy eater, and apreciated native Serbian delicacies, the majority of the food my Mother prepared was of the 1950's meat and potatos school, filtered through her own ethnic background and her degree in Home Economics.

In other words, she made what my Father liked.

How this affects women in general I can't say, but from my particular point of view, when my Father died, my Mother quit cooking.

←

Our generation has expanded its way of living to include other ways of being rather than just man/woman husband/wife, of course. So anyone that has thoughts upon this subject is welcome and invited to add thoughts, for all are valid. I posted the subject as women in kitchen/guys at the table based mostly on history, for I like to think of history and how it affects us.

Do we still cook, as women in the home kitchen (or men sometimes?) for our romantic interest mostly, on a day to day basis? Who do we wish to please when we cook? Our life partner, ourselves, our friends, or our children? How does this affect what we cook? How often does it happen that a lifetime of cooking is set aside when the one(s) we cook for are no longer there? Is this a good thing, a bad thing, or just a "that's the way it is" thing, when a wife and mother (even a mother of grown children) just quits cooking, as above?

Obviously there is no one true answer, but it would be interesting to hear thoughts.

I'm going to bet that the hardest question to answer will be whether women who have been through fifty or so years of feminism as part of life and culture in whatever way - still tend to use and think of the skills of the kitchen with a man, in some romantic sense, layered on top or underneath it all somehow.

I'll be bold and risk derision to say that indeed, I do.

And that makes me both smile wryly while still doing it while wanting to hit myself upside the head at the same time.

Edited March 6, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[srhcb]

Do we still cook, as women in the home kitchen (or men sometimes?) for our romantic interest mostly, on a day to day basis? Who do we wish to please when we cook? Our life partner, ourselves, our friends, or our children? How does this affect what we cook?

On a personal level, being the primary cook in my household, I get to make what I want, (ie: last night we had chicken cacciatore because I felt like making it), but I prepare it in a fashion I know my partner will enjoy rather than how I would fix it for myself, (ie: no whole mushrooms or peppers).

On a more macro level, I think even professional cooks, aside from their obvious pecuniary interest, cook to please others. It may be something about providing others with life-giving nourishment that evokes a more personal level of involvement than there is in other professions, (the medical field being an obvious exception).

So cooking is primarily giving, or at least sharing. In a metaphysical sense, cooks might believe that if "you are what you eat", then they are what we feed them.

SB (excellent questions)

[hathor]

CarrotTop: why are you even thinking of hitting yourself upside the head?

Feminism does not mean that you don't care for someone, you are expressing your caring thru making a meal that your partner enjoys.

That's not anti-feminism, that's just being human and civilized.

Both halves of the female mind: the nuturing and the intellectual can coincide peacefully.

(It does occur to me that female minds have more than 2 halves...!)

[Carrot Top]

(It does occur to me that female minds have more than 2 halves...!)

←

Ah, Hathor. I'll have to expose myself in answering you.

First (and least, but always nagging) there is the thought that one should be bringing oneself to a state of being where they "look out for #1" before they look out for others. This was one of the tenets taught me by my own (ardently feminist) mother, but it never quite took. The reason given for doing this, in theory, is that when you are looking out for others first "you" come behind and therefore suffer in ways. Traditionally women had the role of supporter in this sense. Today we are taught to fight the nurturing-others urge in lieu of a nurturing-ourselves urge, to equalize balances of other things. In cooking, this would translate to cooking what one wants oneself rather than cooking what others want.

Sigh.

Secondarily (exposure moment) I find that I do not enjoy cooking for my children on a daily basis as much as I have enjoyed cooking for romantic partners (i.e. spouse/boyfriend types) in the past. I can explain this to myself by the fact that the children's tastes are limited (though I've always tried new and different things, they still prefer the "same old standards") but sense there is more to it, for me. When I read of the story of the mother who stopped cooking when her spouse died I had a shock of recognition. Which was odd, to say the least.

So I ask myself, do I really need to have a romantic partner around to really enjoy cooking again?

That's a pretty wierd question for me to look at.

[annecros]

There are practical reasons why women "quit" cooking after losing a loved one, that go beyond the please others/please myself schema.

It is easier to cook for four, than to cook for two. It is easier to cook for two, than to cook for one. Women generally live longer, and tend to find themselves in that position more often. I've known older men who go through the same process.

[Milagai]

I'm going to bet that the hardest question to answer will be whether women who have been through fifty or so years of feminism as part of life and culture in whatever way - still tend to use and think of the skills of the kitchen with a man, in some romantic sense, layered on top or underneath it all somehow.

Do men of similar background feel the same way about their

Mr Tool Belt skills?

Milagai

[dividend]

I'll take a stab at answering this very complex questions. I wrote more than I intended, and I apologize if I strayed slightly from the original question.

I grew up in a suburb of Kansas City, born in the early 80's, with one slightly younger brother. My mother was a stay-at-home mom, and sitting down together for a dinner she had prepared always happened. It was never explicitly emphasized and waxed poetic about, as seems to be the case in other cultures, rather it was just part of the our routine. Simple, classic midwestern suburban dishes - casseroles, meatloaves, chilis, pot roasts, always around the cramped kitchen table with the TV off. I never really learned to cook at home, mostly because I was more interested in math and science and debate tournaments. Mom stopped cooking every day at home once my brother and I were out of the house. She confessed to me later that she was burnt out on it. She cooks now when she feels like it, simpler food, and Dad cooks for her some. They've found a new balance.

When I went to college, I lived for several years with my boyfreind and two brothers who were his best freinds. This was after a year of living in the dorms, where I ate nothing but fast food or the cafeteria, so I was ready to start cooking for myself. Because my three roommates were pretty typical college boys, left to their own devices, they would have eaten vending machine fair alternating with take out pizza. My wallet (and my waistline) would not have stood that for long, so I started cooking for the four of us. I was terrible at first, leaning heavily on recipes from my childhood, and then episodes of Good Eats. But I came to look forward to the ritual - plan a week of meals, get up early in on Saturday when the college town was still and quiet to grocery shop, cook dinner each night. The brothers (who I came to think of as my own brothers), have told me since then how much those family dinners meant to them through the whirlwind of our college experience. Those years imparted to me a deep understanding of the importance and power of providing sustanence for the ones I love, and a fresh appreciation for the family dinners of my childhood. I lived on my own for a few years, and I took great pleasure in shopping and cooking just for me. A long day at work could fade away eating a simple plate of pasta with pesto and shrimp, and drinking wine from a proper wine glass even though it was just me. A long week was brightened by a trip to my favorite bakery, the Saturday farmers' market, the process of baking a loaf of sourdough that spans the whole weekend. Now I cook for my roommate and sometimes lover, and I feel the same joy in providing for him. It can be romantic in the passionate sense, but more often it's romantic in the idyllic sense, the feeling that this is how life should be.

I studied aerospace engineering and computer science in college, and now I do database programming work for a living. So I understand on an intellectual level why woman cast off the duties of the kitchen as a sort of slavery, unappreciated housework and kitchen work seeming to be chains that held them back from external, high compensation work. But I don't agree on an emotional level that it has to be a trade off. Sharing food that I have prepared with my own two hands is my way of creating bonds, celebrating family, enriching my own life and (I hope), that of those who share my table. I think one of the negative aspects of feminism is the attitude that traditional women's duties are inherently inferior, that choosing to cook and care for a family is somehow a lesser choice. I think that's a dangerous message to send to bright young women.

Think there is an inherent romance in the preparation of food, from the drawing up of the menu to the shopping to the actual cooking or baking. Reading the words of certain food/cookbooks authors, indeed even certain posters around here (and some who are both), it leaps out immediately. I think particularly of Snowangel's posts. You can feel the love and beauty when she shares even the simplest of stories about cooking for and with her husband and children. I hope that someday when I have children, I will feel and write similar words.

[BryanZ]

I heard that women can't cook

[dividend]

I heard that women can't cook

←

Then I guess it's a good thing you can!

[Busboy]

I heard that women can't cook

←

I heard that men make a fetish of it, trying to reduce a soulful art to an ostentatious science.

[KarenSherwood]

Interesting questions and answers!

At the risk of starting a socio-political fight, my OPINION is that I never much cared for some feminist doctrine particularly because of that 'looking out for #1' stuff. I do what I do the way I wish to do it because it gives me pleasure, not because I'm being measured by some 'cause.' And it gives me immense pleasure to cook for my family...husband AND kids!

I'm blessed with reasonably adventurous eaters in my home (thanks be to the kitchen goddess!) We try new things on a regular basis...some stick around, some disappear, as do some tried & true dishes. It's all an adventure. Some days I'll try something for me, sometimes for one kid or the other, sometimes for my husband. He's great at getting me out of culinary ruts, and a fantastic co-cook, as well.

Ultimately I guess I cook for me, purely because I enjoy it. (But it's a treat when my son makes me breakfast in bed, for the same reason. <G>)

Just a side note about a man hanging up his tool belt....My uncle was always Mr Fixit for my aunt, and built her many beautiful and useful things. When she died, his shop gathered dust in a matter of months. When DH and I expressed concern about this, he told me he tried, but he just didn't know what to make without her suggestions/requests. She was his motivation. I suspect many couple-cooks are the same way.

[hummingbirdkiss]

pure and simple ...

I love that my cooking turns men on!!!!

[Milagai]

I studied aerospace engineering and computer science in college, and now I do database programming work for a living.  So I understand on an intellectual level why woman cast off the duties of the kitchen as a sort of slavery, unappreciated housework and kitchen work seeming to be chains that held them back from external, high compensation work.  But I don't agree on an emotional level that it has to be a trade off.  Sharing food that I have prepared with my own two hands is my way of creating bonds, celebrating family, enriching my own life and (I hope), that of those who share my table.  I think one of the negative aspects of feminism is the attitude that traditional women's duties are inherently inferior, that choosing to cook and care for a family is somehow a lesser choice.  I think that's a dangerous message to send to bright young women. 

Wise words dividend. From the sociologist's perspective, I think it is

*one brand* of Western, upper/middle class feminism that has focused on:

1) women looking out for # 1

2) making efforts to participate in high compensation work

3) consequently pooh-poohing the realm of unpaid and unappreciated

housework

that seems to be operating here (after all, this style of operation

served the boys so well).

This has been one reason why

large numbers of women in the West who always worked (poorer women,

women of colour, etc), who always had to juggle home and work,

and who were doubly debarred from high paying professions, their

voices got left out of that vision of feminism.

The result seems to have been:

1) criticism of ALL feminism as being ultimately about selfishness

(so many writers female and male start with "I am not a feminist but..."

and then go on to articulate classic feminist ideas) but not about

the positive virtues of connectedness, co-operation, and nurture....

(seen as code words for domestic servitude).

2) devaluing of the "sphere of reproductive labor" (=housework

to you and me) because it's seen as servitude, holding women

back, etc.

So the message being sent to bright young women AND men is that

this stuff is not worth doing; focus on what brings big bucks.

The message is not going out, as it should, that CARE WORK

(=again housework) is something everyone should do well because

we all need it emotionally and physically.

And all young men and young women need to learn this stuff, like

they learn any other basic skill. If you can program a computer, drive a car,

etc. you can jolly well run the dishwasher and washing machine

and whip up decent (_______ insert iconic dish here); and freeze

a week's worth of dinners.

Milagai

ps: dividend, the three young men you lived with, what chores if

any did they do? It was great that they appreciated the meals

you enjoyed making for all, but did they ever learn to cook anything

however basic?

Edited March 6, 2007 by Milagai (log)

[Jaymes]

I'll take a stab at answering this very complex questions.  I wrote more than I intended, and I apologize if I strayed slightly from the original question.

I loved this post. Very thoughtful and insightful. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

[BryanZ]

I heard that women can't cook

←

I heard that men make a fetish of it, trying to reduce a soulful art to an ostentatious science.

←

Respect.

[Henry dV]

Whoooooa there.......how many generalisations do we need here?

I`m a firefighter and work a shift pattern, 2 dayshifts then 2 nightshifts(48 hrs in total) then 4 days off and this gives me the pleasure to cook for my wife for 6 days out of 8 and 50% + of the days I can`t cook I will have made something that only needs heating.

I don`t iron, except in an emergency and I provide 90% of the meat in this household and if/when I loose my wife I don`t know whether I will be able to continue breathing never mind cooking.

2 sides to a coin.

[Kouign Aman]

Last week my husband took great pains to cook a delicious and special dinner for me. he does this regularly. He is especially wonderful at weekend breakfasts, leaving me free to cuddle the munchkin. I'm pretty sure he goes to the effort to show love, romantic and otherwise. Does he need to go back to feminism school? Do I have to give back my tools? Am I barred from the kitchen, is he barred from the workbench now?

He is more fun to cook for than the munchkin is. He's more likely to try new things, and to have good table manners. Plus, I worry less if I dont put quite enough veggies in the meal plan.

When I was single, I about gave up on cooking because I dont like leftovers & I hate to throw food away. If ever (godforbid) I am single again, I shall try this time to follow fifi's example instead.

[Carrot Top]

If ever (godforbid) I am single again, I shall try this time to follow fifi's example instead.

←

I'm trying to remember what fifi's example is, Kouign Aman. Can you remind me of what it was that she did? I seem to remember her working outside the home as a professional, and seem to remember a housekeeper? maybe? and of course I remember many good recipes of fifi's, but the specifics are vague. Can you fill in the blanks for me and for others who may not know exactly what you mean in this sense? fifi, is, of course, an excellent example in many ways, so a more definite categorization of example is required here.

[Carrot Top]

Do men of similar background feel the same way about their

Mr Tool Belt skills? 

Milagai

←

You may not have meant this to be humorous, Milagai, but the idea of "Mr. Tool Belt skills" had me laughing all afternoon.

Oh. It's *still* funny!

[Kouign Aman]

As long as my memory is working correctly (I usually double check names before posting but didnt on that one):

fifi is cooking for one. Mindfully and creatively, and reducing recipes etc to suit.

(at least, I thought I was referring to fifi.... she of the much-envied steel mushroom)

[shellfishfiend]

Growing up, my mother was a stay-at-home mom for the first 12 years of my life. She seemed to enjoy cooking for me, my sister and my father. I know she enjoyed us gathered around the table each night.

Since before I married my husband 11 years ago, I have taken a great deal of pleasure and joy in cooking for him. I like the feeling it gives me to know that he enjoys soemthing I have made with my own two hands.

He also enjoys cooking for me and on the weekends we spend our time in the kitchen together. In fact, the first time I met him, he was in the kitchen of my rent house frying deer steak.

A year ago, my husband took a new job that has him traveling a great deal during the week. I was suprised by how much I missed having someone around to cook for. I don't think this is simply because I am a woman and therefore, some would say my role is to cook for my husband. Rather, I think it is because I take a degree of pride in my cooking and I take a great deal of pride in being able to nourish people at my table. I am not ashamed, nor do I feel less accomplished, when I admit that I am a wife who likes to cook for her spouse.

[purplewiz]

Two examples, that may serve to illustrate different sides, or just provide a moment's worth of reading:

As I've posted before, my mother in law is a self-admitted lousy cook. She's admitted that she gets no joy out of it, and while she's taught herself to be a competent cook, her meals reflect her lack of interest in the subject. Yet she still does it, almost nightly, apparently because she feels it's a woman's job in the marriage to do so, even though there are many other options available.

My stepfather in law always voices his appreciation for the meal and does the cleaning up work. Maybe that's enough for her to keep doing something she really doesn't like doing.

Then there's me.

I was proud of the fact that when I left home for college I was barely competent at "women's work", yet I could use power tools rather handily. I never learned to cook because my mother, somewhat like my mother in law, didn't seem to enjoy cooking. My mother always seemed unhappy to me, and since I didn't want to be that unhappy, I rejected pretty much everything she did - which were all the traditional women's chores.

(Side note: I did, however, learn to bake chocolate chip cookies to the point where I'd memorized the recipe because I discovered guys liked them. REALLY liked them. But I digress.)

It wasn't until college that I learned any decent cooking at all, and that was through the patience of a male friend of mine. He taught me really basic stuff like grilling hamburgers and baking chicken....and I found out I LIKED cooking. I liked it to the point where I asked for a good general cookbook for Christmas that year.

And when I moved out on my own, I STILL cooked for myself. For one. People looked at me like I was nuts, but how could I explain that I liked making the food and I liked eating the food I made? I just said that it was a lot cheaper than eating out all the time.

I've continued to do the lion's share of the cooking since I was married - not because I feel it's the woman's role, not because I'm trying to please my husband, but because I like cooking. I'm very pleased when he likes what I make (he says he eats like a king!), but even that wouldn't be enough for me to put the time and effort into doing something I truly despised. At the risk of being risque', there are other ways I could make him happy.

And yes, I could see myself putting it all aside if the day came where I no longer enjoyed it, when it became a continual burdensome chore. But boy, that's really hard to imagine.

Marcia.

[Kent D]

I have "cooked" since I could sit on the cabinet and hold a spoon to stir cookie dough. All four of my grandparents were good cooks (one grandfather ran a small-town diner, the other a lunch-counter/grill and was a great breakfast cook). Both my grandmothers encouraged/demanded our hands in the kitchen when necessary. My mother taught me everything she knew about cooking, and would turn the kitchen over to me at least once a week once I hit 12. I read every cookbook in the house, checked ones out from the library. I attempted to introduce "ethnic food" into our diet , other than just Chef Boyardee pizzas and Old El Paso tacos. However, I took the "family classic" recipes with me in my heart, and I reproduce them often, although I "tweak" them somewhat. My brother and two sisters ALL know their way around a kitchen to varying degrees.

It's never been a "the kitchen's a woman's place" in our family. My wife can cook, when I let her, but she prefers to clean, since she thinks I don't know how to do that, and I don't debate her. I love to cook for my family, my friends, my coworkers, but I would enjoy it almost as much if I was alone. I love to share my ability with others, but sometimes it's just for the selfish joy of creation. Is that so wrong?

[maggiethecat]

I cook to please anyone of any gender, particularly me. Because my husband and many of my dearest male friends cook as well or better than I do, I'm often on the receiving end of their skills and largesse. (eGullet men seriously rock: I've been the lucky recipient of nightscotsman's cakes, Varmint's pig, ronnie's charcuterie, Dave's Hollandaise, guajolote's turkey mole, ivan's skill at the grill, Alex's breakfasts ...) I'm sure they cook for the ladies in their lives, but, like me they I think they mostly do it because they love it.

My mother's celestial cooking is aimed directly at my father, who considers it just another reason that she's the most beautiful, fascinating, generous woman in the world. They're proof that the old Pennsylvania Dutch proverb "Kissing don't last, cookery do" is only half right.

[dividend]

From the sociologist's perspective, I think it is

*one brand* of Western, upper/middle class feminism that has focused on:

1) women looking out for # 1

2) making efforts to participate in high compensation work

3) consequently pooh-poohing the realm of unpaid and unappreciated

housework 

that seems to be operating here (after all, this style of operation

served the boys so well).   

This has been one reason why

large numbers of women in the West who always worked (poorer women,

women of colour, etc), who always had to juggle home and work,

and who were doubly debarred from high paying professions, their

voices got left out of that vision of feminism.

The result seems to have been:

1) criticism of ALL feminism as being ultimately about selfishness

(so many writers female and male start with "I am not a feminist but..."

and then go on to articulate classic feminist ideas) but not about

the positive virtues of connectedness, co-operation, and nurture....

(seen as code words for domestic servitude).

2)  devaluing of the "sphere of reproductive labor" (=housework

to you and me) because it's seen as servitude, holding women

back, etc. 

So the message being sent to bright young women AND men is that

this stuff is not worth doing; focus on what brings big bucks.

 

The message is not going out, as it should, that CARE WORK

(=again housework) is something everyone should do well because

we all need it emotionally and physically. 

And all young men and young women need to learn this stuff, like

they learn any other basic skill.  If you can program a computer, drive a car,

etc.  you can jolly well run the dishwasher and washing machine

and whip up decent (_______ insert iconic dish here); and freeze

a week's worth of dinners.

This hits the nail on the head, IMO. There's a line in an Incubus song that captures this: "Isn't it weird, how a privelege can feel like a chore?" When the attitude is that this care-work (I like that phrase very much) is a chore instead of an important, integral, life-enriching function, quality of life suffers, both for the care-worker, now styled as a drudge, and the recipient, now styled as a burden.

Right now, I have a high paying technical job that I enjoy. But someday I want to have children, and stay at home to raise them and keep house, with a husband who supports me in this. I worry sometimes that I won't find someone whose vision matches mine. I worry that men my age see partnerships like marriage as a math equation adding our two incomes.

ps:  dividend, the three young men you lived with, what chores if

any did they do?  It was great that they appreciated the meals

you enjoyed making for all, but did they ever learn to cook anything

however basic?

←

They cleaned up after dinner every night, everything except handwashing some stuff that I'd rather do myself. They never hesitated to have next week's grocery money for me by Friday. I'd find that many nights when we'd go out to the bars or to house parties that my drinks were paid for. I always had rides to class if I was running late no matter how early it was. Also, after discovering that they didn't have any kind of system for tracking their mail, including utility bills (my name was never on the lease), I developed a system and made sure there bills got paid regularly. After that they refused to let me chip in for utilities, saying I had more than earned it. Most of these things I never asked for - it was just them doing the things they could to make my life easier as I did for them.

As for cooking, one of the brothers was a chemical engineering student with many classmates from India. He was always bringing home interesting authentic recipes, or strange ingredients/mixes without English writing on them. So he'd cook Indian dishes that were either delicious, or so unbearably hot we'd be sweating at the table. The other was in law school and too busy to do much of anything. The boyfreind was completely hopeless, and is referenced in my sig.