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In “Recipes for Reading,” Leonardi reminds us that recipes are narratives and are a form of storytelling. Like other narrative forms, there are generic conventions for the recipe. You begin a fairy tale with “once upon a time” and you begin a recipe with a list of ingredients. This is what Leonardi means when she writes that recipes are “embedded discourses”: recipes are forms of communication (i.e. a “discourse”) in which the style of the communication is shaped by the expectations of others (i.e. “embeded” = “in bed with” or “has a direct relationship to”).
Assignment
In a reply to this thread, write a 300 (or so) word response after seriously examining one of the cookbooks in this online collection: https://archive.org/details/cbk
Questions to consider while examining the cookbook and writing your response:
- What time is the cookbook published?
- For whom does the book seem to be written and what do the books suggest about the lives of readers?
- How is gender, class or culture portrayed?
- What kind of knowledge does the author assume readers already have?
- What kinds of food are featured?
- How long do recipes take to prepare?
- How do you think the recipes were chosen?
- What kinds of ingredients do they feature?
- What connections to Like Water for Chocolate come to mind?
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The cookbook I picked was the “Aunt Caroline’s Dixieland Recipes” book. I picked this one because it grabbed my eye very quickly and Aunt Caroline on the front reminded me of my grandma. I like that every other page is left blank for your own recipes or notes, it’s a cute little addition to a cookbook I’ve never seen before; though I did leave blank laminate pages in a cookbook I made for my friend so she can add her own recipes so kind of the same thing right? This cookbook has a ton of recipes which I really appreciate because variety is the spice of life and I don’t like bland food which means I definitely don’t like a bland life. These recipes and this book are from the civil war era which we know because right in the title it says they’re Dixieland recipes which was what the South was called when they were the Confederate states. This book seems to be for anyone really, there are a lot of comfort food recipes such as fried chicken, chocolate fudge, and macaroni which are good for everyone’s soul. The recipes do look like they’re for poor people because there are a lot of simple ingredients that everyone would have. The book looks like it would be marketed specifically for poor women (probably of color) to cook with because of the use of the phrase “Milady’s favorite recipes” on the blank pages and the types of recipes included like creole patties (which, just a side note, Haitian patties are better than Jamaican patties every day of the week and I need everyone to know that’s the truth) . Not all of the recipes have cooking times associated with them, some do and say the exact cook times, but others just say to “bake in slow oven” or “cook until thick”. Honestly what really reminds me a lot of Like Water for Chocolate is that there is are blank pages for your own recipes because Tita was improvising on recipes she knew and that would have been a space for her to write her ideas down.
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Sooo…. some questions…
The copyright page lists the publication date as 1922, so you’re off by over 50 years. “Dixie” refers to the South, but because of the Mason-Dixon line that designated where slavery was legal.
Does it strike you as odd that the title is “Aunt Caroline’s…” when the authors are listed as Emma and William McKinney? Who is “Aunt Caroline” and whose “aunt” is she?
The answers to some of these questions are found in the (short) introduction and suggest an uncomfortable history that is nostalgic for a time of “plantations and cabins” and the “old Southern Mammy” (always an enslaved woman who is charged with caring for the white children who may or may not be also her children).
I think more likely this cookbook was a way of rebranding the south. Instead of thinking about slavery, you think of food and “mammy.”In a quick look, I noticed “Jeff. Davis muffins” on page 32–Jefferson Davis was the president of the Confederacy. It’s also, oddly, published in Chicago (a city that has historically had a large number of African Americans).
I think more time exploring the book would have been useful on this assignment.
Your note about the patties is interesting although I remain agnostic on the Jamaican/Haitian distinction.
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After reading Rebecca W. Oppenheimer’s “Diabetic Cookery; Recipes and Menus”, I think that I would deem it as more of a textbook than a cookbook. The amount of information contained within this book is enormous.
The author specifically wrote this cookbook for those with diabetes; she states in her introduction that “little has been done in the general public for this country in preparing special recipes for the diabetic”. In contrast to today, a time where every type of minority or special needs category is extremely catered to, I was curious what time period this could be that people were not paying attention to those with diabetes- there is so much awareness of it nowadays. So, I looked up the history of diabetes research, and found out that only at the turn of the 20th century did big findings in diabetes come out- we only discovered the role of the pancreas in diabetes in 1889, and we only specified exactly what about the pancreas was significant in diabetes research in 1910! So, being that this cookbook was published in 1917, very, very shortly after this breakthrough came out, I think that this cookbook makes perfect sense in context. I think that because the research and findings on diabetes were novel at the time, people wanted to look more into it and transmit more information about the disease in a widespread manner; what better way to transmit information about a developing field in disease research than through a cookbook?
Although it is honestly kind of ironic, I would think, to write a cookbook on diabetes, since diabetics cannot use most cookbooks and have a huge restriction on what they can eat, the author here was trying to expand the pallet of those with diabetes and provide a means through which those with diabetes could feel that there is something out there for them and that there are delicious recipes for them to make and enjoy- this disease will not take over their lives. Even more so, this cookbook is a way for diabetics to bond and create some sort of community- they can share the recipes with each other and eat together and still feel like they can use food as a means of coming together and sharing recipes and lives. It is a way for them to create a community of their own.
Now, the reason that I stated previously that this cookbook seems like more of a textbook to me was because there is no real creativity embedded within the book- although the cookbook is obviously a novel idea within itself, all of the recipes in the book are kind of just stated dryly. There are no outside or fun references, instead there are very specific instructions on how to do and how much to do everything. Although this takes some fun out of the cookbook and of cooking, it does apply to the audience reading the book- those reading are clearly reading BECAUSE they have no other cookbooks to read; their diets are extremely restrictive and they have to be extremely careful with how much of which substances they consume each day. The cookbook is overtly informational so that the reader has all of the information that he or she needs to cook. When it comes to diabetes, the specificities make or break your health.
Although this is true, I was a little bit confused about the amount of informational detail, because I would think that those with diabetes know all of the details of their diseases and diets, and do not need to read the warnings and forbidden foods provided in the cookbook. I think maybe since the research was so new, this was a good way for the author to provide all of the new information summed up in a book so that the readers had a concise pamphlet-type of book to read without having to double check what was right and what was not. I looked up the author’s history, but could not find anything about the author besides that she worked with diabetic patients in the past (it says so in the introduction).
It almost sounds as though the author is a doctor/specialist advising the readers with diabetes the specifics of living with the disease. I found this extremely different than Like Water for Chocolate, because even though the two books are very detailed, they are in different ways. This cookbook is more more information oriented with detail, and Like Water for Chocolate is very detailed, but in prose.-
It sounds like your author may be trying to bolster her authority by purposefully invoking scientific discourse. A cookbook is traditionally a women’s genre with medicine being a masculine one and this books sits between them. I looked briefly at the introduction and the author states that these are recipes she’s adapted for the management of her own diabetes, so she is playing the role of doctor here (even modifying treatments she’s received elsewhere). An interesting find!
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After reading the cookbook titled “The Fireless Cook Book” by Margaret J. Mitchell, I noticed how many recipes there are that do not require the use of fire. The reason I picked this book is because since I cook and bake often, I find it interesting to see how many recipes can be made without the use of fire. This cook book could have been written for people that didn’t have access to fire, or children that would like to cook but are either not allowed to cook with fire or they are scared of fire. This cook book was published in 1909 which is over a hundred years ago. In that day in age, only the wealthy had electric or gas stoves. Since most women did the cooking, the women had to come up with creative ideas to prepare food without the use of fire. These recipes also allow you to cook for your family but also gives you the opportunity to multitask. The author also points out that if one is only cooking for two people and not a large family, it is a waste of gas to heat up more water than needed, so she recommends using a utensil and a pail. There are many different recipes in this cook book. There are recipes for soup, spices, breakfast cereals, fish, beef, and much more! Every recipe has a different preparation time. There are recipes like Braised leg or shoulder of Mutton that takes about six hours to cook and then there is a recipe to make Turkish Pilaf that only takes one hour of cooking. I think most of these recipes were chosen based on the foods that were popular during that time. Using recipes that people would be interested in cooking, makes a lot more sense than creating recipes that people do not usually eat and will not enjoy. A recipe like stewed tomatoes consist of 1 qt of tomatoes, 2 t of salt, 1/2 t of pepper, 1 onion sliced, ¼ of a cup of butter crumbs, and 2 t of sugar. This recipe takes about an hour- two hours to cook. A dessert like Chocolate Bread Pudding contains a lot more ingrediants than stewed tomatoes do. This recipe calls for a qt of milk, 1 pt of soft breadcrumbs, 2 oz or squares of chocolate, 2/3 cups of granulated sugar, 2 or 3 eggs, ¼ t of salt, 1 t of vanilla, and 2 T of powdered sugar. This recipe takes about two hours as well. I find it very interesting how one recipe that has many more ingredients than another recipe, can take the same amount of time to cook. I think this is very similar to Like Water for Chocolate because the process of making each food is very detailed. I also think they are very similar because in the book, I find Tita does not fully follow a recipe and she adds a certain number of ingredients based on what she thinks is needed. An example in this cook book of doing something like that is the recipe for Chocolate Bread Pudding that calls for two or three eggs because it is not an exact recipe.
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I have to admit, this one caught my eye and I read a bit to figure out what, on earth “fireless cooking” meant…it means putting hot food in a cooler, basically, so that it keeps cooking (or stays warm). Seriously, it’s just a way of using an insulated box (I read this in the first chapter).
The advantages listed seem bizarre. You don’t have to smell the “odours of cooking” for example (why would you not want food smells?). But the introduction also offers the tool as a convenience device. The first chapter begins “Does the idea appeal to you of putting your dinner on to cook and then going visiting, or to the theatre, or sitting down to read, write or sew, with no further thought for your food until it is time to serve it? It sounds like a fairy-tale to say you can bring food to the boiling point, put it into a box of hay, and leave it for a few hours, returning to find it cooker, and often better cooked than in any other way!” (3).
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After scrolling through the many possible cookbooks to choose from/investigate, I came across one that piqued my interest just because it was relevant to us, in a strange way. The cookbook I chose was written specifically for women in college (“The College Woman’s Cook Book”). It was published in around 1923 by the College Woman’s Cook Book Association, which I definitely was not aware was a thing until stumbling across this. The book was put together by a group of recent, female (mostly) Northwestern University graduates from Evanston, Illinois, where they had about 2,500 recipes from other college housewives, and picked the “best and most unusual” 500 recipes.
I think the book suggests, based off of the time of publication and intended audience, that young women will want to start learning how to cook for their husbands/families, as this was a woman’s job at the time. It’s kind of ironic because college is intended for people to get an education to prepare for a career, but most of the women just end up being housewives anyways, as the household took precedence.
The book itself is broken up by types of dishes, ranging from breads, soups, meats and fish, to desserts, salads, and marmalades. I think these specific recipes were chosen because, as mentioned, some of the recipes are quite obscure: potato caramel cake, mint sauce for meats, and prune cake. I also think they were chosen, though, because they’re relatively easy, and they wanted easy recipes for the young woman just learning how to cook. There are multiple recipes on each page, as no instructions are that long, so they couldn’t be that involved if there are only several steps.
Similarly to the recipes in Like Water for Chocolate, everything’s pretty straight forward and not too long/involved. They’re short little blurbs that say the least as possible. The “intended audiences” also correlate, as Tita is the young woman of the house in charge of the food, and that’s exactly who would be learning from this book. The cookbook assumes a young woman is the one who’s learning to serve her family, and Tita is the embodiment of that.
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On a hunch, I looked up when Northwestern first admitted women and was disappointed to find out it was as early as 1869 (I had wondered if this book was published around the time the school first started admitting women). But when I read the introduction to which you refer, I noticed that the book isn’t primarily for women in college. The recipes are all from women who went to college (most, but not all “housewives”) and the publication supports a charity for disadvantaged youth. It also makes a point to show that women graduated from all the “leading colleges in all parts of the United States and Canada” (1).
Maybe the point is to draw attention to how many women have successfully gone to good colleges? In 1923 that would have still been a big deal.
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After a lot of browsing, I settled on California Mexican-Spanish Cook Book by Bertha Hafner Ginger. This book caught my eye because Bertha Hafner Ginger is not a Mexican or Spanish name, so my initial thought was “what the hell does this lady know about Spanish food?” Evidently, she’s not as incompetent as I assumed.
From Bertha’s introduction, I gather that she is some sort of celebrity domestic goddess, or that the U.S. was seriously lacking in flavorful food, saying that her book on Spanish dishes drew large crowds. Considering this book was written in 1914, when racist sentiments were more socially acceptable, I find it extraordinary that Bertha actually distinguished between “Mexican-Indian” (okay, yeah, she called them Indians instead of Native Americans, but can you blame her? It’s nineteen freaking fourteen) and Spaniards when people nowadays still confuse Spanish, Hispanic, and Latino labels. Good for Bertha! However, there’s a picture on page 20 which says “the mission of the old padres was to make life brighter for such as these.” Do they mean priests? If they mean priests, how do you explain the whole “convert to Christianity or die” tactics? Hmm…
I think that this book was written for women based on page 42 when Bertha says “they refuse to make them any other way and take the same pleasure in making a perfectly thin and round tortilla… as you and I do in trying to make a beautiful loaf of bread. Truly the heart of women are the same all over the world.” Here, Bertha is likening the Mexican women’s tortilla making to American women making bread; I think that this comparison is somewhat problematic only because it sounds as if she’s trying to say “Mexican people: they’re just like us, but brown!” Again, I have to forgive my girl Bertha for she know not what she does.
I found it interesting that Bertha included an estimate for the price/plate for some of the dishes. I don’t know if $1.50 was a lot of a plate of food back then, but it sounds pretty reasonable to me. Despite Bertha explaining that people were demanding Mexican-Spanish dishes, it seems to me that the price may be a selling point for taking the risk and trying to make these “exotic” dishes, after all, you only have $1.50 to lose.
I think Bertha assumes that people are already familiar with this type of food, and now all they have to do is get the ingredients ready and make it themselves. Although it might sound silly to think of someone not knowing what a taco is, I think about all the Colombian food my mom makes and me having to explain to my American friends what an arepa is or why cow tongue is delicious. That being said, Bertha definitely chose more popular dishes rather than chicken foot stew or something to that effect.
Not all of the recipes include times, just “cook until —” but as someone who cooks, I think these recipes would take quite a while. I loved page 68 — tamales. Us Colombians also make tamales, and let me tell you, this is no small feat. It takes about a day to get everything ready and then another 3-4 hours (as Bertha mentioned) to get the tamales steamed and ready to eat, but it’s worth it– yum yum yum.
I love that there’s a list of Mexican ingredients towards the back of the book, but I see that there are a lot of typos. I figured the missing ñ’s were due to the printing press(es) not having that character, but somethings here just look wrong. I don’t know if this is because she did not consult a Spanish speaker when writing the book, or if the Spanish speakers she did consult were not formally educated, but cilantio should be cilantro, appelito marado should be something morado (I have no idea what she meant by appelito but we do not repeat consonants in Spanish), and gueso Mexicano instead of queso Mexicano? When queso was spelled correctly the line above (p 122)? Come on Bertha…
Despite this book being about Mexican food, I was reminded of Like Water for Chocolate because of the assumption that only women would be cooking these foods. I guess this isn’t the strongest connection to make, but it’s the only one I have! Also the pictures gave an idea of what Tita and her family members may have dressed like, so that was cool!
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This sounds interesting, indeed. From what I could pull from your post I found this article that fills in the backstory. She was based in L.A., so the Mexican food seems less strange. She worked for the L.A. Times teaching cooking, so she was definitely the white lady teaching other white folks how to make the local exotic dishes.
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It took me a while to find a cookbook i thought would be interesting enough to read. I’ve never in my life owned a cookbook and i really don’t like following recipes. The only times i’ve actually skimmed through cookbooks is when i’m walking through the books aisle at costco, i’ll occasionally skim through a few. The one cookbook that caught my attention is called “cooking for profit; catering and food service management”. This book doesn’t even seem like a cookbook instead it’s more of a book geared towards people who already know what they’re cooking and need more insight on how to make money off of that food.I’ve been cooking for my entire family for as long as i can remember and i run my own meal prep/catering business so it makes sense why this book appealed to me. I noticed there were alot of key differences between the styles of cooking in this book in comparison to today’s, But there was a lot of similarities in the business aspect. I wasn’t surprised that the first line of the book was “cooking is essentially a woman’s profession because during the time when it was published (1921) the kitchen was the woman’s place, butttt during the 1920s women were gaining more freedom ( 1920s was the era of “new woman”, and women had just gained the right to vote). so i’m guessing this book was written for women in the 1920s who were trying to own their own business while still maintaining their role of cooking in the house .I noticed a difference in the styles of cooking between this book and today’s society . Most of the foods that the author presents as things women might sell are items like jams, jellies, candies, and baked goods. (No offense to anyone out there who specializes in these things) but the book makes it seem like these are the only things women could actually handle to sell, as if cooking actual meals was too much for her. This is probably because most of these things could be done from home and then distributed by someone else so the woman could still maintain at home. I also noted that the kinds of foods that the author speaks about as being popular seem like foods we no longer use. For example, in the chapter about catering for a party almost all the desserts mentioned seemed to be gelatin based (jelly molds).I can’t think of one restaurant today that advertises their specialty dessert as being a fruit jello. Also the terms used for measurements were weird such as “a peck of apples” today no recipe is going to call for a peck of apples instead it’ll say 12 pounds of apples. However, i did notice a lot of things haven’t changed from the 1920s to today in regards to the food industry. There were a few chapters in the book that give examples of how to calculate costs and profits based on a single food item, how to properly calculate revenue, etc. many of the strategies the author was talking about are strategies we still use today (things like taking total earnings – costs – labor – utilities = profit, how to calculate serving size, what to do to minimize waste etc)
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This is a fascinating find, especially for you it sounds.
I think you’re right about being the newly empowered woman taking a place in the economy and beginning with something that is already domestic. The accounting section you mention seems important–where else might a woman acquire these accounting skills? Not only would it be unlikely for women to have business training I imagine that most men would prevent women from learning basics of finance by keeping that activity from them at home (Dad works and takes care of the bills; mom cleans and takes care of the children… that old trope). So you might also think of this as a kind of early business textbook for people who often couldn’t go to business school.
Those jellies.. all those jellies!
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The cookbook I decided to choose was “Things mother used to make: a collection of old time recipes, some nearly one hundred years ago and never published before”. This was because as I glanced through the title I automatically thought of some recipes my mother makes and was curious to see what recipes the authors mother made. Going into this, I had never read a cookbook and did not know what to expect from this cookbook. This book was published in 1922. Before starting to read, their was an authors foreword which stated “good food depends as largely on the judgement of the cook, as upon the materials used”. I thought it was pretty insightful and interesting. Moreover this, in the foreword it also says “they are very simple, not expensive, and if followed closely, will ensure success. It is the hope of the writer of this book that the young and inexperienced housekeeper may find it a real help”. This suggests that this book was designed for basically anyone but specifically amateur cooks/housekeepers. Also the materials used are not expensive so anyone can use these recipes without the fear of not being able to afford it, which reaches out to the lower class. From all of this I can assume that the author did not expect the reader to have little or no experience in cooking/housekeeping to prepare these recipes. Also the author in the foreword does not specifically give the housekeeper a gender, which reaches out to both genders to be able to use these recipes. In this cookbook, there are a lot of different recipes, which shows a lot of variety. Also each different recipe is divided into a category. There is a breads, cakes, old fashioned candies, desserts, eggs, fish, meat dishes, pickles, miscellaneous, pies, preserves, puddings, sauces, soups, vegetables. Each category had numerous different recipes in it. Some foods involved are omelettes, cakes, muffins, toast,soups, etc. It covers recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even dessert. The recipes are pretty simple, they provide the ingredients and then a small basic instruction of how to make it. There aren’t really any type of specific time allotments. They include a lot of basic and cheap ingredients such as flour, eggs, sugar, salt, water, etc. This cookbook differs from “Like Water For Chocolate” in the way the recipes are not as meaningful or detailed as is the ones in “Like Water For Chocolate”
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I think the most interesting part of this cookbook is the appendix with all the cooking hints. It has tips on how to mend broken china, clean old jewelry, tips for increasing storage space, but also how do determine if eggs are fresh, etc. The fact that not all the skills are related to food precisely (jewelry?) is interesting. It shows, in some small way, that “household management” was much more than cooking and entailed a whole range of work and skills that we often forget about.
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The cookbooks that caught my attention the most were the cookbooks with politically influenced titles. The one I chose is called “Twentieth Century Club War Time Cook Book”, published in 1918 in the last year of WWI. There are many cookbooks that give the readers the same feeling (warm, cozy, yummy food) but not all of them are like this which is why I chose this one.
Every American was given a ration book where the amounts of sugar, oil, meat, canned goods, etc. were controlled in order to conserve as much as possible for the troops abroad. You’d expect cooking during a crisis as significant as a world war to be one of the last things people would be concerned with. But because of rationing many cookbooks were published around this time aimed towards women at home to encourage them to practice cooking conservatively. In fact, if you do a quick search, you’ll find numerous books with similar titles such as “Win the War Cookbook”, “Sugar in Wartime”,”Forty-four ways to Win the War”, “War-time Cookery”, “Wheat for liberty”, “Everyday Foods in War time” and much more.
The recipes in this book makes a list of substitutes for common ingredients such as using molasses, honey, or syrup instead of sugar. There are substitutes for meats, butter, and wheat as well. The recipes are short and concise and unlike the other cookbooks, there isn’t much of a narrative or a story behind the recipes. The book lists tons of recipes according to categories so that anyone wanting to make bread can simply go to the section of where the breads are and pick off of the short lists. To give you an idea of how short they are, the author can fit 7-10 recipes in one page. Recipes are normally used during communal and familial events but since families were separated during the war cooking for the joy of cooking was no longer common.
Cookbooks during this time became a medium through which women contributed to political issues. For example, Mary G. Smith wrote a cookbook called “Temperance cook book” in 1887 (found in the archives for those of you interested) in efforts to support the temperance movement and condemn domestic violence. These books give insight to lives of women at home, the culture of a country during a specific era, and the expectations imposed upon them. The war time cookbooks show that even though women weren’t expected to fight in the war, they had a duty to indirectly contribute from their domestic circles and the temperance cookbooks became a form of protest by women to omit the use of alcohol to prevent the cultivation of “a taste for intoxicating drinks for the young.”
I thought of Like Water For Chocolate from a political context. It reminded me of the reading we did, “Nationalism” by Chasteen and the chinaman who appeared in the earlier chapters. I assume that the reason why we read that was because the book takes place during the Mexican revolution. We are not that far into the book but I sense that Tita would try to rebel against tradition (if not, what a poor plot) much like what was happening during the revolution. This is suggestive of two themes: the roles women played in the domestic sphere during political conflict (wartime cookbook) and rebelling against tradition in a social context (temperance cookbook).
**I realized I slowly incorporated two cookbooks instead of one. I thought they worked well together.
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Reading your post I instantly thought of another instructor’s class from last semester, I think, in which she asked students to actually experiment with British ration-based recipes. They’re pretty gross.
The temperance cookbook seems particularly interesting. Temperance and Suffrage were movements dominated by women activists until the 1920s (when both the right to vote and temperance arrived). So I wonder if this was almost a trendy kind of feminist identification–the way someone might where a “The Future is Female” kind of shirt?… because the recipes seem kind of basic. I’m aware that many traditional recipes make use of wine or beer, but that’s fallen out of fashion (perhaps because of prohibition?). So maybe it just seems too obvious to me that you can make soup without wine… but I imagine someone buys this to identify with the temperance movement. It might also suggest a way a woman show her political beliefs even though she doesn’t have the right to vote; a kind of early articulation go “the personal is political.”
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<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>After looking at the multiple cookbooks one caught my attention with its cover image “The hostess of to-day” by Lynda Hull Larned . This cookbook was published in New York in the year 1906. This book was written specifically for hostesses and housekeepers who may struggle with selecting a menu suitable for the most simple meal. It enables them to practice and economy to make it possible for the inexperienced hostess to calculate the exact cost of a meal project so that they know how to prepare and serve each dish and enough is made for at least 6 people. The author assumes the reader knows how to cook and prepare food themselves because she doesn’t provide in minute detailed instructions for beginners. The culture is portrayed as known to already have ordinary recipes and the point of the cookbook is to help hostesses serve a little out of the ordinary food to the company who appreciates the seasoning and serving. The kind of food that was featured types of dinners and lunch like formal dinner or informal dinners etc. The recipes are quite short and are divided into sections containing ingredients under heading headings like A,B,C, and D. What follows the letters were the method of combining , cooking, or serving. The ingredients used seemed to relate more to seafood because most of the dishes are made with fish like lobster, oysters, shrimp, etc but also have recipes that meat and bread. However, its made easy to know the ingredients and their amounts because they are featured in a list with their amount needed right next to them. The recipes ranged from little to normal amount of time for cooking since the author assumes the reader has prepared this before and is only altering it for their guests to enjoy something different. This cookbook differs from “Like Water For Chocolate” in the way that the recipes are not as detailed or significant because they don’t relate to a story of when it was actually being made . In general there is no back story to the recipe in which you can either relate to or make you feel closer to what you are making. </span>
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I haven’t mentioned this in anyone’s post so far, but for the most part the terms “hostess” and “housekeeper” in these cookbooks are not as specialized as we might imagine them. A housekeeper is just someone who “keeps the house” (cleans/cooks/manages food stores/etc.). If you’re rich, you can hire someone to do that. If you’re not, you do it. Generally, assume the housekeeper is the wife or a woman hired to perform this role for the wife. A “hostess” is just someone who hosts… so a housekeeper becomes a hostess when friends come over (the fact that only the feminine form of the word is used confirms the gender bias here).
It looks like this cookbooks more focused on etiquette than it is food. A formal dinner has to have twelve or more people eating eight to twelve courses which carefully unite in a “gastronomic symphony” (1). Don’t forget the formal invitations. Jeez.
To match the excess of those requirements, did you notice nearly all the names are in French?
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Things mother used to make was a recipe published in 1922 Lydia Maria Gurney. The recipes presented here were passed down from generation to generation, in which they finally ended up in the lap of this New England recipe conductor. The woman was passed down this cookbook from her ancestors via the word of mouth. They didn’t have textual recipes of the foods they make, they kept it traditional and would make it often enough that they would not need to write it down. The author of this cookbook decided that it was best to share the recipes with the rest of the world to show everyone what amazing and delicious foods her family would make. Gender plays a huge roll in this recipe book. The title reads “Things mother used to make”, the title points directly to women. The author states that the family’s background of recipes were handed down from women to women. There is no man in this equation. Through the given recipes, we could see that this family doesn’t believe in meat heavy meals. There are many different dishes that they could prepare, but not that many involve any type of meat. A main ingredient that is presented here is milk, milk is actively used in most recipes. This shows the background of the family and we could possibly tell where they come from that they love milk so much. This serves as a connection to Like Water For Chocolate because we could see the strong sense of storytelling of the main characters background and what led up to this moment where the event of the book is occurring.
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I don’t think Gurney claims the recipes are her mother’s in the introduction, although she does assure us she’s tried them all.
That’s an interesting note about milk. In one of the other cookbooks someone mentioned (I’m not sure which), I recall seeing a line that said “never throw out sour milk,” making the argument that it can always be used (sour cream, after all, is a thing). So maybe milk was just something people had more of and didn’t necessarily throw out as often as we do.
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After reading “Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for boys & girls,” I realized how simple cooking can be! This cookbook was published in 1975 and it is very clearly written for children. The book gives off the impression that children of this time were eager to help their mother’s in the kitchen. Their lives are portrayed mainly as the mother staying at home in the kitchen cooking, and the kids wanting to help cook, or at least wanting to learn to. I wouldn’t say that cooking and baking was specifically geared towards only girls because as it says in the title, it is for boys and girls. In the cookbook’s introduction, there are actually pictures of 12 kids that tested these recipes. These kids consist of girls and boys. Also, the pictures of all of the kids on each page actually varied between boys and girls, so I noticed that the main focus was actually not on just girls learning how to bake. The author assumes that the children reading this book have little to no knowledge. The pages are presented very clearly regarding the ingredients and steps. There are pictures on each page which make it easier to understand, and after each section there are even pages of pictures of the foods that have been discussed. Another way we know that it is assumed these kids have no knowledge in this regard is that at the end of the cookbook there are some helpful things- there is a list of kitchen manners, cooking terms are explained, and there are pictures of all the utensils that may be required, with the name of each one. I find this to be VERY kid friendly! There is even a page on how to set the table correctly! The types of foods are featured are very simple, kid friendly foods. There are child- sounding desserts such as Grandma’s Chocolate Layered Cake,and Clown cupcakes, and gingerbread cinnamon rolls. Then there are some other recipes that kids would enjoy such as milkshakes, sodas, and lemonades.The main dishes also seem to be simple and kid friendly (in regards to cooking AND eating) such as meatballs, meatloaf, hamburgers, sandwiches and mac and cheese. Each recipe takes a different amount of time to prepare. The recipes range from taking 8-10 minutes to bake, but sometimes 40-50 minutes. The kind of ingredients seem pretty simple too- Eggs, flour, sugar, meat, carrots,beans, vanilla, potatoes, etc. I think these recipes were chosen based on the foods that parents have noticed their children like to eat. They seem to be very simple, and the types of recipes that children would be willing to try. A connection to Like Water for Chocolate that comes to mind is the fact that it is geared towards children. The narrator of Like Water for Chocolate seems to be a girl, telling us about her great aunt Tita who was also in the kitchen from a very young age. The theme I sensed between both of these books were about children cooking, and not necessarily the mothers. Although, I did sense a difference. In Betty Crocker’s cookbook, the recipes seemed simple, and not to have any difficult or complicated ingredients. In Like Water for Chocolate, the recipes seem a bit more complicated and different. For example, some ingredients that Tita cooks with are rose petals, Quail, and she even has to kill the turkey on her own for her own recipes. This is the difference I picked up on, being that Betty Crocker’s recipes seemed a bit more simple for children to follow and go through with.
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<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Like Emily, </span><i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls</span></i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”> caught my eye. I thought it looked interesting because of the gender roles it seemed to be breaking. In 1975, the year this book was published, girls were still expected to do things like cook and clean. However, this book was, as it says in the name, advertised towards both girls and boys. Yet I suspect this was more specifically marketed towards white, middle-class boys and girls. This is not only because of the way the children in the book are dressed — dresses and bows for the girls, collared shirts and saddle shoes for the boys — but also because of the fact that the author of the book assumed that the children reading this book go to school, take camping trips, and have family dinners to set the table for. Another reason why I’m guessing that this book is marketed towards middle-class children, rather than upper-class children, is the simplicity of the recipes. Many of them are quick and easy, requiring few ingredients. There’s one section called “Tricks and Treats with Cereals” (90-91) that simply shows how to make different shapes in one’s cereal with fruit. Also, a few call for processed or pre-packaged foods, such the Whiz Cinnamon Rolls (98) and both of the pancake recipes (88-89) calling for Bisquick, almost all of the cakes suggesting both Betty Crocker cake mix and frosting, and the Doughboys (70-71) calling for Bisquick or Puffin. I would suspect that these are included in order to make these recipes easier for parents to supply for, as well as for kids to make. Additionally, in the foreword of this book, “Betty Crocker” not only promises that these recipes are fun and easy to make, but also that the child reading this could make “supper for the family some night to give mother a holiday,” which suggests that “mother” doesn’t usually have anyone to delegate the chore of making dinner to, such as an upper-class family might. This somewhat connects to </span><i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Like Water For Chocolate</span></i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”> because in the book, Mama Elena’s daughters were expected to help out around the kitchen, and while she did help out, and she had Nacha, Mama Elena delegated the work to her daughters (mainly Tita), much like we are to suspect the mothers of the children who owned this book did.</span>
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Certainly the fact that boys are included at all shows that this is one of the most recent cookbooks. It still hems closely to the 1950s-style image of the diligent housewife cooking with the kids, though.
The book might be most interesting for the pictures. Looking at how everyone’s dressed and how they represents a very particular vision for American life (middle-class, fun, easy, white, well-dressed, etc.) that is certainly different than the kind of world we see in Like Water for Chocolate (not just because that book is about Mexico, but because people go back and forth to America; people can be of different and mixed race, there’s mention of different cooking traditions, famine, etc.).
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The cookbook I chose was “The Italian Cook Book: the Art of Eating Well” written by Maria Gentile and it was published in 1919. The intended audience of the book is for people who want to prepare tasty foods that are healthy while also being economical. The impression that it gave off suggested that the lives of readers involve people being thrifty to save money for their households while still preparing nourishing food, even if it may not be healthy. As it mentioned people starting to be thrifty as a trend in the time, I assumed that the readers would generally be in the middle class or lower. Also, they mention housewives being the ones to prepare meals which assumes that men went to work while women had to take care of the household and children in those times. The author assumes that readers have a general amount of cooking experience as she mentions that the broth must be warmed until “the moment of immersion, but not at the boiling point.”(Gentile 6). She also gives instructions like boiling until the paste is tender which would mean that readers should at least know what it means as the ones cooking should be in charge of the household cooking. The foods featured in this cookbook are broths, soups, pastas, sauces, risottos, deserts like pudding or biscuits, and family meals like roasted duck and stewed rabbit. Some recipes are around 30 minutes or left to the reader’s judgement when they think the food is well-cooked while others span to hours like the soup stock which requires to be heated for six hours over a low fire, before being heated on a strong fire for ten minutes. I think the recipes were chosen based on foods meant for family meals since the recipes commonly involved foods which were used resourceful like how there were recipes which involved using several parts of an animal like liver or shoulder of a lamb. There were also foods which may serve as a snack for children like the biscuits, pudding, and omelets mentioned with several varieties based on extra ingredients and herbs added. The most common ingredients are seasonings like salt and pepper along with vegetables like tomatoes, celery, asparagus, and onions and meats like chicken, pork, and hare. Some of the less common ones are meats like veal, lamb, birds, and seafood like fish or eel. A connection to Like Water for Chocolate that comes to mind is the fact that both pieces have recipes for family meals like the quail in rose petal sauce that Tita prepared which was eaten amongst the family before Gertrudis ran away from home with the soldier and a recipe mentioned in the cookbook called a roast of lamb which used a leg of a lamb, hinting that the large amount of meat was used to sustain a family’s meals, even if it was over a few days. They would also make the most use of the ingredients as Tita resourcefully used the roses Pedro gave her instead of throwing them away like Mama Elena told her to do.
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The preface to your cookbook intriguingly argues that WWI (“The Great War”) taught American cooks thrift (because of war rationing). It might also have exposed people to international cooking–the preface also doesn’t make it sound like many people have tried Italian food outside of Italy (what a difference 100 years makes!). The condescending racism is pretty obvious too, stating that Italians are “simple people” who have learned to live well even though they’re poor.
This cookbook contrasts really well the The Hostess of To-Day, the book Kimberley reviews above. Whereas that book emphasizes ostentatious excess (multiple courses, french words without translation, a refusal to give basic directions), this book emphasizes practicality and attempts to make eating inexpensively a worldly experience rather than mean (in the “poor” sense of the word). It’s also interesting to me that this book writes the recipe names in English, followed by an Italian translation, so it’s trying to help people learn Italian food at a time when most Italian immigrants were viewed with significant suspicion.
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The cookbook I chose was From House To Home, published in 1879. It was written by a nurse who used to collect unique recipes from the homes of her patients. She ended up compiling this cookbook with the intention that it be used by the housewife who wants to try something a little different and out of the box. That is why she called it what she did because these are recipes that came from other houses and you are supposed to utilize in your home. This cookbook it’s a little gender bias, being that it is intended solely for the housewife. This tells us a little about the norms of the time. The women were usually the ones in the kitchen and the men didn’t even pick up a spoon. This cookbook is not only intended for the housewife but it also assumes that this housewife knows how to cook and would feel confident trying something new and unusual. These recipes are based on American style cooking, yet they are different than the classic recipes of the time. There are all different types of interesting meats, seafood, dairy foods, eggs, deserts. This cookbook is styled like an encyclopedia so under each letter there are many categories of foods that are listed. For example, under A there are foods that begin with A and it lists the pages where those foods are found in other recipes, as well. This cookbook features many foods that I have never heard of, possibly because it’s from over 100 years ago, or because these are unusual recipes that even people back then didn’t make. For instance, egg rarebit.
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Rarebit isn’t a word we use in America much, but it’s still used in the U.K. Basically, it’s an open-faced grilled cheese sandwich.
This is an interesting cookbook because it takes recipes from different houses (as you say), and the Preface pretends this gives credit to people (Mrs. Black’s fish soup, is the example they use). So we might see this as a kind of record of women’s achievements–sure in a gender segregated way, but that’s also the reality of the time.
It’s interesting also that the book invites women to write their own recipes in the book. You can customize it with recipes of your own or from your own friends (thus getting into the Encyclopedia in a way). It’s also a unique way of ordering the book.
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The cookbook I chose to examine is called ” Things mother used to make”. This cookbook was published in December 1913. This book seems to be written to anyone with no experience o little experience. In the cookbook it states how very simple, not expensive and if you follow every step carefully then you’ll have a success with the recipe. Gender is portrayed in this cookbook because both can follow the recipes. It seems that this book was meant to be written for those who are the young ones and inexperienced housekeepers so they can find it helpful. The author assumes the kind of knowledge readers have is very little because it states that anyone with no experience can follow those recipes. The kinds of food featured are a variety of them like breads, cakes, Desserts,Fish,Meat dishes, pies and etc. Basically all types of food are written in this cookbook. Some of the recipes take about 30 minutes to make or more depending on what you’re making. Like for baking types of recipe it would take about 30 minutes. I think these recipes were chosen based on how easy it is to make since its made for people with very little experience. The kinds of ingredients they feature include flour, sugar, salt, eggs, and vinegar as well. These are the most commonly that I see that almost every recipe has in the cookbook. The kind of connection it has to Like Water for Chocolate is the way that the recipes are explained on how to make. It seems to me that the recipes are well explained and detailed on what is needed. In the book we are reading in class the recipes are well explained in there as well and has a story behind it.
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It’s definitely for new cooks who are looking for some kind of comfort, right? Foods your mom makes are often the foods we most crave?
It also suggests a kind of inter-generational dialogue, as if you’re learning from your mother. It paints a picture of women teaching each other their expertise and learning to appreciate the time, skill and work that went into the food you ate growing up.
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I chose to flip through “The Golden Rule Cookbook”, which stretch me immediately as it boasted to contain “six hundred meatless recipes”. At first I was unclear as to weather the vegetarianism the book encouraged was for health, economic, or emotional reasons. I received my answer on the fourth page, which which expressed the hope that human beings will soon be reminded of “the love they owe to every living creature”.
The book was published in Boston in 1912. Honestly, I never considered vegetarianism as having played much of a role in the lives of people a hundred years ago where meat was far more of a staple and a necessity than it is now that we have a variety of foods the we can use as a substitute. I have heard my grandparents claim on a number of occasions that vegetarianism was not an option for them growing up. Yet right next to the publication date, there is a photograph of a young girl with a large cow, captioned “a carnivorous animal and her prey”. If I had any doubts before of the author’s incentive for writing the book, this image abolished them completely.
The book seems to be directed toward the wavering vegetarian, or one who is just beginning to consider the lifestyle. There are a number of quotes as well as an entire introduction in which the author supports her claims with facts about the meat industry, bible quotes, and contemporary (for the time) references. Following the introduction, there is a section that speaks about the kitchen, and how there is no other room quite like it, which was reminiscent of the way the kitchen is spoken of in Water for Chocolate.
The author assumes that the readers are fairly well off financially, as it becomes clear in the list of “suggestive comments” that vegetarianism at the time could prove quite pricey. At some point she writes, “The Vegetarian can well afford to do away with that doubtful economy cooking butter”. Clearly she is under the impression that she is catering to a wealthier portion of society.
Almost every recipe in the book seems to contain the name of a vegetable. There is, of course, no meat mentioned. The recipes take anywhere from an h0ur to a day to prepare.
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When I first read the title I assumed the “Golden rule” referred to a universal rule for cooking; I didn’t expect it referred to the social edict to “do unto others as you would have done unto you” or that it would include animals.
The book is fascinating, though. That picture of the little girl with cows you mention! The quote from Abraham Lincoln (obvious suggesting a connection between eating meat and slavery)… It’s an incredibly literate book, showing that the author (a woman named Maud Russell Lorraine who has hidden her gender with initials) is well-read in all types of knowledge (science, philosophy, religion, politics). It’s a cookbook, but it’s also a political tract.
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<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>While trying to find a cookbook for this assignment, I scrolled for a while until a cookbook called </span><i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>A cook book for the poor, the rich, the sick, the well</span></i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”> by Mary E. Wilkinson caught my attention. This cookbook was published in 1910 by the W. B. Conkey Company in Chicago. The description of this book reads “A Reform from the Old Wasteful Methods to the Saving, Scientific and Nourishing Ones.” Just from this brief explanation I already know that this book will be resourceful with its ingredients and readers will be able to apply it to everyday things that everyone has in their own kitchen. This description reminded me of the way my mother cooks. I remember once we had some rotten bananas lying around in the kitchen. Any person would have just thrown them away. My mother, on the other hand, could make a delicious dish out of trash. She sliced up the bananas and sautéed them with cinnamon, oil, and other sauces on a frying pan which ended up actually tasting good. </span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>This book is written for the laborers and the poorer class women to instruct them how to cook cheap, simple yet filling meals. The author of this cookbook is explicit in teaching those who are too poor to afford an education about the preparation of basic foods. The recipes include soups(</span><i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>potato soup, vegetable soup, fruit soup, beef juice</span></i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>), fish(</span><i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>bake trout, salmon loaf, broiled mackrel</span></i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>), meats</span><i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>(broiled steak, roast pig, spring chicken</span></i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>), etc. These recipes are mostly basic ones because they are directed toward an audience that is less educated. There are even pictures and diagrams that show and teach the reader about the different parts of the cow as well as inform the reader about the different kinds of fish. The author is not just trying to share recipes with the reader, but also to educate the reader about nutrition. </span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>In Laura Esquivel’s novel, </span><i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Like Water for Chocolate</span></i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>, many of the ingredients that Tita and Nacha use when they cook come from their ranch. They use eggs that their chickens lay and their own roosters in their recipes. These ingredients are basic ones which they can find on their ranch. Everything is homegrown and easily accessible to them. Also, when Tita accidentally presses the thorns of the rose which Pedro gave her into her chest and bleeds on it, she tries to find a recipe to use it in so as to not let the rose go to waste. She remembers Nacha’s recipe of quail in rose petal sauce and gets cooking.</span>
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This is some incredibly condescending writing! It’s sort of absurd to think that poor folks needed to be instructed in how to feed their kids, but all too often that is the view that takes hold.
There seems to be an emphasis on food and how someone acts (maybe that’s why it’s for poor people). In the preface, the author reproduces a poem from a newspaper that includes the line “Bad cooking is the curse that drives / A million men to drink” (14).
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The cookbook I chose was “Things Mother used to make” by Lydia Maria Gurney, which was published in 1922. The reason why this book, in particular, stood out to me was because it gives me a certain vibe that I would probably describe as homey. This cookbook reminds me of something I would probably find in my grandparent’s kitchen. The book’s title captivates me mostly because the name is “what a mother used to make” and this title makes me think of my mothers good cooking and see what this book might have in store for me. I don’t believe this book was made specifically or directed towards anyone, my reason being that the name was “what your mother used to make,” I don’t believe this book was tailored specifically to a certain person, all it consisted of was recipes. I believe the only thing that is portrayed in this book is also with the title, in regards to women being the only ones to work in the kitchen/ cooking, nowadays anyone can be involved in cooking regardless of your gender. When trying to look deeper into the book to try to discover anything regarding class and culture I could not find anything. When reading into the recipes that are listed in this book the author seemed to write it hoping the reader had a basic understanding of how to cook, it seemed almost like a cookbook you would find now. In this cookbook, you could find lots of interesting recipes form deserts to things involving see food. Now regarding the time, the foods would take to prepare it all depended on what you were cooking, everything was different. I am quite interested in this cookbook mostly because of the interesting and unique dishes that are listed, some of them being oysters on toast, dumplings, or even old-time custard pies, I think that this book definitely had a diverse set of foods. Now regarding “Like water to chocolate nothing really comes to mind other than the fact that they are similar because cooking is involved.
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I think the question here is whose mother is implied? The author notes that she’s from New England, so I think the food may be diverse in scope (soups to roasts), but not in cultural diversity. You wouldn’t expect Tita’s Christmas Rolls in the book, for instance. I probably wouldn’t expect matzo ball soup or empanadas, or stir-fry. Why not? Surely someone’s mother made those a hundred years ago, too.
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I analyzed “Chinese Cook Book” by Vernon Galster, which immediately piqued my interest its exhaustive list of recipes for Chop Suey. A few years ago I got very into researching how Chinese cuisine has been adapted internationally. Although Chop Suey was first served in Guangdong, many consider it to be the quintessential American bastardization of Chinese cooking. Regardless of its origin, it’s never been a staple for China, which along with the “in plain English” tagline and slurs like “Jap,” are subtle indicators that this cookbook is for a White American audience. Less subtle is the introductory “Is this book for you?” section that paints various images of bonafide Americans: a rugged outdoorsman, a suave businessman, a doting housewife (women apparently have to learn about Chinese cooking from “hubby”) to sell the book. Galster promises that the “rare” Chinese ingredients are sold by the publisher, which might suggest that this cookbook was compiled as a sort of advertisement. Ever the cultural liaison, he even offers to give his personal instruction to American cooks who write to him. It’s quite interesting that the book was published in 1917, a year where Congress expanded the Chinese Exclusion Act to ban all immigrants from Asia. While many Americans touted nativist ideologies to keep immigrants from entering, they were eating the same immigrants’ foods, with Americans like Galster even profiting, using their culture for his recipes’ credibility. Granted, I don’t know what Vernon’s political views were, and certainly, I don’t have the necessary extensive knowledge of American vernacular circa 1917 to provide you with a guess as to what they are. What I can gleam from reading, however, is that Galster is trying to sell himself as an expert without knowing all too much about Chinese cuisine. And yeah, I don’t know all too much about Chinese cuisine myself, but I know that lamb is not used as an ingredient much outside of the largely Muslim province of Xinjiang, which arguably wasn’t even apart of China at that point.
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How perfect that you’ve studied the early 20th century history of Chinese food in the U.S.! You probably know, then, that many Chinese immigrants worked on the railroad, so the “rugged outdoorsman” and the immigrant Chinese folks in the grasslands of the West offer a much more diverse picture of the U.S. than we often think about.
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The cookbook that caught my attention was “The Italian Cook Book, The Art of Eating Well” written by Mrs. Maria Gentile. It caught my attention because I love Italian food and due to my Italian heritage, I may be bias. The cookbook was written for Americans as Mrs. Gentile says, “It has therefore been thought that a book of practical recipes of the Italian Cuisine could be offered to the American public with hope of success. It is not a pretentious book, and the recipes have been made as clear and simple as possible.” (Gentile, 3) By this she means the recipes are written clear and precisely that you do not have to be Italian to understand. You do not have to be “rich” to afford the ingredients in the recipes it is intended for people who are careful about spending their money but who also want to eat flavorful food. It was published in 1919 generally during that time men did not cook the housewives were the ones who prepared and cooked meals for the family which is mentioned in the cookbook. Recipes included are for soups, ravioli, pastas, sauces, stock and artichokes. These are very common dishes in Italian families especially in my family. Most commonly used ingredients are olive oil, salt, garlic, pepper, beef, tomatoes, asparagus, artichokes, chicken and pork. I am thinking about trying to make a recipe one day similar to one of my mother’s recipe to see if it takes the same.
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Brian picked this one, too, and wrote about it above. I made a note on his about the Preface (particularly that line you mention) that might be of interest.
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I decided to look at the cookbook entitled “The All-American Cook Book—Featuring the Favorite Dishes of Famous Americans”. This cookbook was published in 1922 and compiled by a woman named Gertrude Frelove Brebner. This cookbook was written in honor and dedication of the American ex-servicemen of World War I. It is intended to support these veterans as all proceeds of the book will go towards helping them. The labor used to make the book was also in part from veterans. The cookbook also goes in depth in the beginning about how democracy is of utmost importance, and that the men who defend it deserve to be supported. This whole book seems to be written in order to stir up American pride, nationalism, and democratic support, while also helping shed light on the veterans of the war. This makes sense as the time period is right after the war when democracy was just threatened. The really cool thing is that each recipe—in keeping with the United States patriotic theme—is a recipe that comes from prominent US figures in government, military, politics, and diplomacy. While the book is written in honor of the brave veterans of World War I, I think the book is intended for the women of this time period. I believe this because in the beginning, Gertrude says that the recipes have been compiled and sent in by the wives and woman friends of the men who are listed before each recipe. It makes sense that if these recipes are compiled and written by woman, they are also intended for other woman to read and enjoy in a patriotic and democratic sense—feeling good that they are supporting the men who served the country at the same time. Gertrude allows this cookbook to be accessible to all however, since at the end of the book there is a helpful hints and tips section that details best practices for cooking and such. This is like a feel good cookbook for all. The recipes are pretty interesting, and while some base things are the same, like chicken, pudding, etc, there are also unique items like pigeon and duck, that is specific to certain regions. Most of the recipes are named for what they contain with an added word that defines their geography, like Dixie rice batter cakes for the south. Other than that, the recipes are pretty quick and short, and don’t seem too involved. The ingredients also seem to be accessible overall, with common recipes and ingredients that are perfect for all types of cooks. When I think of this cookbook, I think of the comparison between the revolutionaries in Like Water for Chocolate and the United States military. There is a presence of this revolutionary spirit and force in the book, and always talk about the military men who long for wives, like the man who took Gertrudis. This is comparable to this cookbook as the women of the house are cooking these recipes for their military men, while also supporting their nation as well.
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The link between Nationalism and the the cookbook is interesting. It would be interesting to see what foods are missing. Are there Tex-Mex foods? Are there recipes from Chinatown in New York? Are there recipes for babka or Vietnamese spring rolls (surely someone was making them in the U.S. somewhere!!). In other words, what is considered “all American” (things like “Dixie,” which refers to the line separating the slave states), and what wasn’t?
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The cookbook I chose to read is German Cookery for the American home, a dual translated list of recipes from Germany written by Emma Oswald. The book was originally published in England in 1906 as German Cookery for the English home, and then reprinted in the American edition. The recipes are clearly being chosen as a way for a person interested in German cooking or a person from Germany to make a variety of foods (Fish multiple ways, meat multiple ways, various soups, etc.) or any course of the meal entirely German and authentically German. The cookbook encourages the cook not to replace the German-specific ingredients with English food, and instead asks the reader to go to German store and find the ingredients. The book also translates certain words, assuming that the reader cannot read German. However, the book at points forgets to translates, with the assumption that the reader is proficient enough and creative enough in English to understand what the word is through the German words that resemble English.
The ingredients for the recipes are very simple and very classically Eastern European in their lack of variety. Most recipes call for pepper, salt, sugar, flour, parsley, and the main food that is being prepared.
The book is attempting to present to the reader a preservation of all aspects of German cooking, with a wide variety. Is so intended on preserving and sharing the recipes that it includes a “Rose-Hip Soup” recipe and then includes “Prune Soup” with no recipe besides for “Prepare in the same manner as Rose Hip Soup.”
The authenticity of the recipes and the encouragement to remain true to the ethnic origins of the recipes reminds me of the consistency and commitment in Like Water for Choclate of where the recipes come from and the origins of the food (Such as when she describes a recipe as “prehispanic”).-
This would have been a time in which German immigrants were coming to the U.S. in large numbers and also at time of rising German nationalism (German had only recently been unified under Bismark, anyway). It’s a short time until WWI when the U.S. viewed Germany as the aggressor. In other words, this book is likely published at a sweet spot in history in which this type of book would have been accepted (compare it to the All-American cookbook that comes after the war, written about above).
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The cookbook that I had chose was the Chinese cookbook by Vernon Galster, which was published in 1917. The reason why I had chose this book is because it fits perfectly in the time period that I am currently learning in history, and it may help me to infer on the lives of the Chinese during the early 20th century. Honestly, after reading the recipes of the cookbook, I was very disppointed in the choice, or lack of choices that are in the book. However, I remember that during this time, the Chinese populous had been ostracized from society, since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had limited jobs and the liberties of Chinese people. Due to this, there were little that the Chinese could scavenge for food, so they had to make due with what they had. Also, some of the ingredients are purchased from the publisher as shown in the first page where it says that the Chinese sauces can be purchased from the publisher of the book, so it also can be a form of advertisement. This book was meant for those who are homesick (which is the majority) and miss the food that had reminded them of home, so them cooking these meals are a way to feel like they’re home. The main gender group that the book is written for may be men, since most people who came to the United States were men however there were some women, so the book seems to not focus on one gender. He also writes in the book that he tries to bestow upon those who wish to learn the secrets of Chinese cookery, which shows that besides the Chinese people who may pick this book, there will be another group of people who want to learn. The book simplifies most of the details about the recipes but is still very detailed on how to prepare the meal, just like in Like Water for Chocolate, where the recipes were told in detail in how to prepare and how Tita felt the kitchen was her world, just like how the Chinese wanted to bring part of their world to the United States, to feel like they never left. Most of the food are chop suey, egg fo young, and mein, but with small adjustments. These dishes with small adjustments could be to acommodate for the lack of ingredients that the person may possess, since in each different dish there is something left out or added into.
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It’s interesting that this is one of the few male-authored cookbooks–that racist caricature on the cover certainly emphasizes the nativist history you refer to.
As Fiona mentioned above, the author is selling ingredients for everything in the packet, so the chances are this is as much about selling food as it is the ingredients.
There’s another cookbook called the Chinese Cook Book, published around the same time (1917) written by by Chan Shiuwong that serves as a good contrast. This work even teaches you to order ingredients by tracing Chinese characters and is geared towards potential restaurateurs. Noticeably, it argues that Chinese food is the best food, both in taste and health, bar none–a bold statement.
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The cookbook “A guide to modern cookery” by A. Escoffier, was published in 1907. This cookbook seems to have been written for those who have little to no experience to cooking because the cookbook contains information and recipes of many dishes and how someone can make these dishes from scratch. For example, the book had recipes of sauces and different types of stocks that can be compatible or used in different kinds of dishes. Since this book seems to be made for beginner chefs, it suggests that not every dish will come out as a perfect dish, and that not all menus in a restaurant can come out perfect without the cost of hours of work. Class and culture is portrayed through the authors experience as chef. In the preface of the book, he mentions that he has been a chef for forty years and is responsible for thousands of menus that have been ranked the finest in the world in modern cuisine. However, these menus that he created came with long hours of work, and that is the culture of cooking. A chef cannot simply create a fine world class menu or recipe over one night, but it comes through time. The author of this book assumes that the reader has little to no experience in the cooking world because he starts the book off with simple recipes of stocks, soups, and sauces which he considered is the “fundamentals” of cooking and what they are used for. This book included dishes such as fish, eggs, salads, desserts, drinks and refreshments, soups, sauces, butter recipes, and garnishes. The preparation and duration of the cooking process of the dishes that were featured depends on what dish is being prepared. The recipes were probably chosen based on the level of difficulty of preparing them and which dishes are commonly consumed. Some ingredients that were featured are, beef, carrots, turnips, celery, and onions. One connection of this book to Water for Chocolate that comes to mind is, Tita had to grow up learning how to cook since her mother passed on her role as a chef to Tita. This cookbook, is meant for beginner cooks and aspiring chefs. Since Tita has the position as the new house cook, she has to learn how to cook for herself and for the family.
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You actually picked what is widely considered to be THE French cookbook. There is perhaps no one else more influential in how we eat at most restaurants today. This is a quick article that introduces some about him.
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<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>The cookbook I chose was the “Betty Crocker’s Cooker for Boys and Girls.” I chose this book because it is something that I would buy at the store. I recently just started cooking and this book looks like something I would grab to start with. This cookbook was published in 1957. By the title it seems like if it is directed towards boys and girls. The cover has children on it to capture the main target and the introduction includes a photo of twelve kids who tested out the recipes, it seems like their approval. </span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>First of all this book is so cute and looks like something not only for children but for beginners as well. The model is very captivating. The fact that in every page there is a cute photo of children smiling and cooking. There are two ways into seeing what the pictures mean in my opinion. Either they author wants the readers to visualize what it looks like in the kitchen when the children help out their parents or it can me that the author believes the readers, in this case the children do not know how to cook so she has to teach them. </span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Looking through the book, I think it is very helpful. One page that stood out to me was page 102 in which they give the readers a tutorial on “When you Set Up the Table’’, this is useful when parents want their kids to setup the table for them. All the recipes that are in this book are easy recipes that children love for example: hamburgers, macaroni and cheese, pigs on a blanket, potato salad, meat loaf, the plates varies from dinner dishes to desserts. All the recipes vary from 10 minutes to even 4 hours, depends on what is being cooked </span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Looking through the whole cookbook, there are important key facts including the tools one may need in order to make the plate, there are the different measurements and even includes the utensils that were being used throughout the recipes. The last page consists of cooking terminology in a way that can be helpful to kids learning how to cook. </span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>The cookbook connects just a bit with </span><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Like Water From Chocolate</span><span style=”font-weight: 400;”> in my opinion. They are both dedicated to children just how in the book where we think the narrator is someone related to Tita and the cookbook is dedicated to boys and girls. </span>
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Emily and Julia wrote about this work, too. Take a look at what I wrote to them in my post above.
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<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>The book that got the most attention from me is “The Chinese Cookbook” by Chan Shiu Wong. The reason I choose this cookbook because I grew up in Chinese food and wonder how the recipe is different from the dishes I eat now. The cookbook was established in 1917, which is one hundred years ago. The interesting thing I figure out that there are English sound for the Chinese word of the dish’s title. The shocking part is the pronunciation is Cantonese. This suggests the author may from Guo Dong which is the southeast of China and the local dialogue is Cantonese. By looking at the ingredient they use in the recipes, I can tell the author is from a wealthy family or upper class. I can sure he is not from the Chinese royal family because they don’t speak Cantonese. </span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>At the beginning of the cookbook, it states good cooking is not only for the delicious taste but for the food nutrient provide to the body. This ensures the author is from a wealthy family because the majority of the common people can’t even support their daily basic in 1917. The cookbook was divided into different categories based on the different type of meat. The knowledge of the author assumes the reader already know is the basic seasoning like soybean sauce, sesame oil, and Chinese white cheese. The recipes that were chosen in the cookbook are the traditional food and popular food that still exist today. The ingredient is mainly meat which people only eat to celebrate the important festival like Chinese New Year. </span>
<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>The similarities between the Like Water for Chocolate and the Chinese Cook Book is they list out all the ingredient need before the step of cooking. Both cookbooks are clear and straightforward by easy explanation. Also, the significant connection between these two books are dishes that were chosen were cooked to celebrate a special event like a birthday or festival. The only difference is the Like Water for Chocolate have the narrator to describe how the food related to the personal experience and family background.</span>
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Cantonese was the more common Chinese language spoken in the U.S. until recently (and is why many “American” Chinese dishes still have Cantonese-sounding names).
It’s impressive to me that the author declares Chinese food as better than any other food in the world (!!) and also that the author expects readers to learn to write in Chinese characters. It makes no attempts to be “practical,” “economical” or “simple” like many of the other cookbooks.
Interesting observations!
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The cookbook that I examined was “The Mary Frances Cook Book; or Adventures Among the Kitchen People” which was published in 1912 and written by Jane Eyre Fryer and other contributors. During the time that the book was published, women’s primary jobs were to keep the home clean, cook the meals and care for the children. Their husbands always expected a meal on the table the second they got home. Because there were no microwaves at the time, everything had to be made from scratch by hard work and a lot of time.
While reading this cook book, it wasn’t difficult to understand who the intended audience was because there was a letter that started off the book that was addressed to girls. The letter explained that the story is about Mary Frances, a little girl, who wanted to help her mother in the kitchen. This book was more than a cook book to her, it unlocked many friends for her that no other little girl could have. She used this book for three weeks while she emerged from a little girl into a real little woman, completing the stereotypical roles of a woman. In the kitchen, Mary Frances discovered the “Kitchen People” who were personified. The “kitchen people” were the tools around the kitchen needed for the recipes in the book, like Auntie Rolling Pin and Toaster Man, who became her teachers. They talked to her, helped her, and shared mysterious secrets she could have otherwise never understood about the recipes her mother had given her.The chapter titles in the table of contents is a breakdown of creative and figurative names. When examining the recipe titles,
I noticed that it was 40 simple recipes kids can make. Each recipe was expected to take up to 40 minutes, some took less time and each required food that were around the house, nothing exotic. For example, baked potatoes, onions, butter, seasoning, eggs, coffee, milk, etc.
I can connect this cook book to Like Water for Chocolate because the little girl in the cook book was familiar with the kitchen like Tita. Tita stayed with Nancha, the lady who cooked in the house, since she was young because Mama Elena could not produce breast milk for her, so she needed to eat something. There, she watched her cook and worked her way around the kitchen. The kitchen was her home place, a sense of familiarity. The little girl in the cook book felt the same was as Tita did about the kitchen and even grew up in it as she transitions from a little girl to a little woman. Also, the ingredients were listed in a way where it wasn’t difficult to find and the recipes were portrayed through stories.
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I don’t think there was ever a time that the majority of women were employed primarily in the home. To my knowledge, most women have always worked outside the home–farming, service to wealthy families (cleaning/cooking/laundry/teaching/caring for OTHER families), textile production, service industry.
Man, the introduction reads like it could be straight from Like Water for Chocolate: “Some very wise people would call this a story book, some a manual training book, and others a cookery book, but Mary Frances knows better; she knows that it is a Book within a Book that introduced her to Aunty Rolling Pin and a lot of other dear, dear friends, such as no little girl ever had before, and whom she now wishes to introduce for the first time to all other little girls. (I know that she gained their consent to do this because she told me so.)” (iii-iv).
The sentence about getting consent from the talking kitchen supplies feels almost modern!
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The cook book I chose is “Things mother used to make”, by Lydia Maria Gurney. I chose this cook book because the title has me think about what my mom makes and how it may be different than the authors. The book was written in 1922, implicating the era of when woman would have the obligation to stay home and cook for the family. The author is specifically addressing the ” young inexperienced housekeepers” that now have the role and duty of taking care of the family. Thats why these recipes were made short and simple, as to be easy to understand. The author provides recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, including some desert treats. It makes sense the author would try to provide all these recipes as woman basically lived they’re lives in the kitchen cooking for the family. In general, woman were portrayed as being a housewife with obligations designated with the home and family. However, this cook book doesn’t really relate to “Like water for chocolate” due to the lack of story telling and depiction of connections/ memories that are brought to life due to specific recipes.
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Women didn’t live their lives in the kitchen. For most of the history of the world, women have worked outside the home in addition to in the home (just like men). Especially in agrarian societies, women are often equal laborers with men. Throughout most of even the modern world, at least half of women have worked outside their home, although usually in domestic service with someone else.
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For this assignment, I, like Jeffrey above me, chose Chinese Cook Book (In Plain English) by Vernon Galster, published in 1917. I must admit that I chose the book for its shockingly racist caricature on full display on the front cover, which instilled in me a morbid curiosity for how much lower the book would dare sink.
In spite of the abject embarrassment such a cover inspires, the book itself, notably, is near-absent of further such offenses, save for a recipe for Chop Suey which advises against the use of “Jap style rice”. Given that this is the only incidence of racial slurring to be found in the book, I almost want to convince myself that this is nothing more than an innocent abbreviation for Japanese rice; that would be naive, though, and I know better. A tome containing what its American-born author assures is the “ONLY GENUINE WAY” to cook Chinese food couldn’t be accused of open-mindedness.
Gender distinction doesn’t fare much better against the author’s rhetoric. Men who feel “that the connecting link to unalloyed happiness would be a good big dish of Chop Suey” and women who “hear hubby talk about the dandy feed he had at the Chinese Restaurant” and are chomping at the bit to cook for him are encouraged to try their hand at Chinese cooking in the book’s self-indulgent introduction. I am not kidding. The second-most outrageous thing about that introduction is “dandy feed”. Come on, man. THAT diction, by itself, would suffice to deprive the book of any credibility, to say nothing of the aforementioned chauvinism.
As for the question of the intended audience, this book was written for the exceptionally gullible. EVERY last recipe in the book (I checked!) calls for at least one ‘mystery ingredient’ (e.g. the so-called ‘Chinese salty sauce), all of which, the author maintains, may be purchased from a catalogue provided “FREE for the asking”! As if that weren’t generous enough, our humble author extends, in the final words of his book, an offer for “FREE ADVICE” in the event of any misunderstanding upon contact by you, his kindly reader. I shudder to think of the advice a charlatan like the author would give.
If there is anything at all to be said in the defense of the book, it is that its actual recipes are comprehensive and articulate enough; cultural authenticity aside, had I all the ingredients called for in the book, I think I should be able to follow each of the recipes with little difficulty. Nevertheless, it is telling – and not in a good way – that the best thing that may be said about this COOKbook is that you can use it to make food.
Comparisons between Like Water for Chocolate and this book escape me. You could say that they both contain recipes, but the similarities end there. Chinese Cook Book actually outstrips Like Water for Chocolate in its attention to detail, but then Chocolate‘s primary function was never as a cookbook.
Would you like to cook? Do you ascribe to ideas about race and gender that have been outdated for the better part of a century? Are you willing to cast aside reservations about trusting an author who obviously couldn’t be bothered to research his subject matter? Chinese Cook Book just might be the answer to your prayers!
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The cooking book that I had decided to read about is,”A Thousand Ways to Please A Husband With Bettina’s Best Recipes” by Louis Bennet Weaver and Helen Cowles Le Cron. This book first stood out to me due the title, it held a strong female bias, with the book being about how to please a husband, this book is usually going to be used by a wife. Then, what made it more interesting was the publication date of this book, this book was published in 1917, just over 100 years ago this was the ideas that females were supposed to mainly worry about. This time period is right before the roaring twenties, where flappers and had pushed for change in the average female lifestyle. This just shows what exactly a females role was and that was taking care of her husbands needs. The book follows a couple,Bettina and Bob, from the very start of their marriage, when they are on their honeymoon, and it goes in depth to a situation that would require different recipes that they speak on. The book continues to explain different milestones that occur between Bob and Bettina that lead to specific recipes per situation. For each situation the recipes are different and have different prep and cook times. there is usually a consistency of desert in every chapter from to pie to cake. The ingredients are always very different though, it varies with each recipe but these dishes are always very different in ingredient for example, chapter seven includes the use of lemon pie and the making of pie crust while, chapter switches over to chocolate cake. Each recipes changes varying on the type of situation that the wife is put in, whether it may be parents visiting or her and her husbands first official dinner together. This books main goal seems to be able to relate to its reader by putting the character Bettina in situations that a wife might find herself in.
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This book is crazy! Like the Kitchen People book D’Angeleze writes about above, this is part recipe book, conduct manual, and story. The sexual connotation of the title fascinates me, as do the suggestive illustrations (Yeah… I’m sure that’s really about serving a pie through a window at night!).
It also shows signs of new aspirations, like the “New Car” chapter (what does one cook for a new car?).
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The cookbook I chose was “ Original recipes of good things to eat”. To be honest, I have never interest in read a cookbook in my life, “Original recipes of good things to eat” really caught my attention after I roughly read these cookbooks.The book was published in 1919 written by Order of the Eastern Star. Logan Square Chapter No. 560.The introduction used Rhymed lines of iambic tetrameter to introduced the book.As author mentioned “good thing to drink and thing to eat” I think the intended audience of the cookbook is all people around the world who want to be healthy.The author assumes the kind of knowledge readers have is the ability to read because he wrote “ For all you have to do is look” , it emphasizes that the cookbook is not going to be hard.The kinds of food featured of The cookbook are general as it contains soups, salads, meats, vegetables, cakes, desserts, beverage and so on.The prepare time takes 4mins to 4hours, depends on what you making. I used to think chicken is the food need to spend the most of the time to boil until I read this cookbook. One thing break my understanding of boil is beets take 3-4 hours to boil.
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I think what attracts me to this book are all of the advertisements. The Order of the Eastern star is a coed Freemasonry group (so it’s a fraternal organization) and you sell advertising to raise funds. So this is promotional material.
One observation, most of the advertisements emphasize “sanitary,” “fresh,” “trusted,” “Pasteurized.” This must be at a time in which there was increasing worry about food safety.
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I really enjoy cookbooks because I like to cook myself. I enjoy looking at new recipes and imagining the tastes and flavors. After browsing through the selections I decided to open “Cooking for Profit: Catering and Food Service Management” written by Alice Bradley. I chose this specific cookbook because my family is in the restaurant business and I know a good amount about the topic. I thought it would be interesting to read and learn more to further expand my knowledge. After opening the book and seeing that it was published in 1922 by Chicago American School of Home Economics I realized that it will not be using the same strategies and value of money we use in todays generation. The book seems to be written for business owners or people looking to own their own business. I know this because it describes floor lay out plans, pricing, cost against price and more. The book suggests that the lives of readers were creative and in the life of marketing and sales of business. The book is written by a women and the author also describes that “cooking is essentially a women’s profession”, I happen to disagree with that statement but she proceeds to say “many women today enjoys a good income off cooking.”
The author is assuming that the readers already know the basics of starting a business such as how much money they would need and what kind of food business they’re looking to start. In the book they’re are a lot of foods featured more simple foods such as different types of breads and candies. For the breads the recipes take a couple of hours to make and they consist of flour water and sugar. For the candy a lot of fudge is being listed.-
This is an interesting book because it’s part of a “correspondence course.” We still have these, but we’d call them something different now: online courses. Correspondence courses are ones conducted via letter–before the internet, that’s what you’d have to do. You could do it at your own pace and at your own schedule, so like small proprietary colleges today, there was a lot of money to be had from people who were likely in desperate straights (and thus easy opportunity for exploitation). This seems linked to a semi-reputable school, though.
The gendered introduction is notable, but it also acknowledges a simple fact: women down on their luck (“if you are suddenly thrown on your own resources and need to earn money”) you have to use whatever skills you have. If women have been discouraged from getting other “useful professions,” then cooking is going to be a ready skill to put to market.
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<p class=”p1″><span class=”s1″>When searching through the cookbooks I thought I would find myself looking for an old-fashioned, traditional women’s or wive’s cookbook so I could share a modern feminist standpoint about it or analyze its values in the domestic life of a lady. However this was not the case and I found myself somehow in the opposite spectrum reading a book written for “bachelors” which is oddly enough not really the image of rugged masculinity. A bachelor in my mind maybe the most feminine (but still not very much) category in the spectrum of very masculine male roles. The cookbook is called, “A Bachelors Cupboard: Containing Crumbs culled from the cupboard of the great unwedded”. So here they define bachelor as unwedded but I looked up culled, which means picked in reference to meat, “selectively slaughtered”. The book was published in 1906, beginning of the 20th century, in Boston, MA. What is interesting about this book (or I guess could be not that surprising and pretty expected) is that of the 21 sections or chapters in this cookbook, six maybe seven of them are actually about cooking. In a COOKbook, there isn’t much COOKing because its for bachelor men. They probably would be still at home is unmarried being cooked for and fed by their mothers or sisters in the early 1900s. A funny connection to make is that even though the book has a few chapters on actual food preparation, the “dishes” they are given instructions on all relate to meat (“culled”) or snack-like foods (crumbs). Even though this cookbook is over a hundred years old, we still held on to the traditional masculine characteristic that is a man is in a cooking apron he is working on the meats, barbecuing or “easy stuff”. Like how on the website we saw in class where I believe Esquire had many postings on how men can make burgers taste like cocktails, this cookbook gives instructions on preparing game, seafood, cheese snacks, grilled food, and picking out wines- meat and alcohol like we still see today. </span></p>
<p class=”p1″><span class=”s1″>So since the cookbook doesn’t actually have a lot of cooking in it, the other sections are “On being a bachelor”, “the impecunious bachelor” (impecunious means having little or no money), “stocking the cupboard”, “bachelor etiquette”, “concerning condiments”, “a dissertation on drinks”, “what to pay for wines and how to choose them”, “correct wines for all occasions”, “correct clothes”, and “how a man may valet himself” (valet is defined as a man’s attendant to his appearance and clothing). Chapter 1 “on being a bachelor” begins with a quote from James Clarence Harvey, like how we had an epigraph in Like Water for Chocolate. The first line of the text is “being a bachelor is easy. staying a bachelor-ah! theres the hitch!”, making marriage seem like a dreaded thing and that being a bachelor is a freeing, wonderful status to hold on to as long as a man can. It says a “correct bachelor” has to know the “why” besides the “how”. Theres a quote from a man saying, “I am a bachelor because I love all womankind so well I cannot discriminate in favor of the one”. Wow. This to be just reads sexual freedom and demeaning to women entirely. The chapter on “the impecunious bachelor” is interesting because it connects manhood so closely with money. I don’t think in any women cookbooks at that time would have any sections on money with tips on how to save and spend it wisely. For the fact that money was men’s and women did not have any control over it, especially not when with a husband who takes care of all that as the breadwinner and “man of the house”. This chapter even states, “possibly it may be the invasion of woman into all the trades and professions of men that accounts for this dollarless position of many young men”… so I guess wow its nice women are at least mentioned but they are blamed for taking men’s high status and jobs from them. This scapegoating is misogynistic and attempting so hard to get the easy way out. In the “stocking the cupboard” section it lists all the serving and dining plates, utensils, bowls, pitchers and dishes that are needed, besides a list on the “silver” needed, pots and such “for the cooking”, glassware, and common spices and ingredient necessities. </span></p>
<p class=”p1″><span class=”s1″>To reach a chapter that actually instructs preparing food, one has to go at least 50 pages in, a quarter of the way, where they start with best ways to cook grouse and pheasant (looks like brown, medium-sized birds with red heads), duck, fowl ( defined as </span><span class=”s2″>a gallinaceous bird kept for its eggs and flesh; a rooster or hen</span><span class=”s1″>), quail and pigeons and partridge, turkey and goose, mutton (defined as flesh of sheep), rabbit, lamb, tongue and ham. Most of the chapters on the snacks, meats, vegetables and condiments come to be pretty self-explanatory in terms of what they contain. But one odd feature that threw me off is that none of those chapters actually contained any recipes, well no traditional-looking ones. This may have been avoided to keep this book from looking anything like a domestic wife’s cookbook. Within the chapters they bolden the name of the meat or seafood or sauce and describe it in a paragraph. There are no lists of ingredients anywhere which is one of the conventions we assume of cookbooks (which actually the word is not in the title at all but apart of this library). The same setup is used with the drink sections in the end, the title of the drink is bold with the “recipe” in the succeeding paragraph. </span></p>-
This reads very much like Esquire to me, or maybe something like the website The Art of Manliness, where masculinity is redefined to include previously feminine skills (grooming, sewing, cooking, cleaning). Here, “bachelor” is defined against “dude,” with the bachelor being smart, witty, fun, and of course masculine, while the dude is “the weakling” and effeminate (I looked up the etymology of “dude,” and most seem to agree it likely comes from Yankee Doodle, who of course was a “dandy”).
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<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>The cookbook that seemed to catch my attention was </span><i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>A thousand ways to please a husband with Bettina’s best recipes </span></i><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles Le Cron, published in 1917. The title of the book intrigued me because personally, I am aware that I want to get married and have a happy husband. Although the era for which this book was written is completely different then the one seen today, the life situations described in the book are still very much present. For example, in the book Bettina is seeing herself having to divide her meal into four when she has received unexpected guests. She explains how she had to add more ingredients to make to give out less potatoes so that there is enough. This is something I see my own mother do, she would add more milk to the sour cream to create more volume. Aside from this, Bettina also seems to care about the economic standpoint of her husband and her and how much she has to spend on food. However, through the first six chapters she explains her techniques when it comes to buying expensive meat like going on Fridays for fish or spending a little more meat instead of for a purse. These economical plan outs are something many women are still concerned about, they look through coupons, sales, and even buy in bulk. All in all, I am aware that the recipes she present may not be as delightful as they were for her husband Bob because of the different times(1912) but her advice for being a economical and strategist wife will come in handy for when I am faced with a husband to keep happy. From 1912 to 2019, the taste buds are bound to have changed and dishes are to have evolved but Bettina short stories still hold truth to the struggles of a loving wife.</span>
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I think you make some really smart connections here. Cooking was not simply about making “good” food, but contained issues related to nourishment, economy, thrift, budgeting, etc. Most of these skills are rarely discussed when we talk about how someone cooks, but it’s also why schools that taught these subjects were called Home Economics.
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I decided to pick the Most For Your Money cookbook because as a college student with no job, such a recipe book sounded appealing. Published in 1938, the text’s introduction has some general tips for how to better preserve the ingredients you have at home as well as some alternatives to common ingredients, such as honey for sugar. The book is written for the average working class American, and the statistic of 33% of the average family’s income going towards food is used. Based on the use of the pronoun “we” it seems that the authors can relate to the need/desire to cut costs for food. Additionally, the use of we made me believe that the book was going to be gender neutral in terms of who this cookbook was for, but with the next section regarding soup the authors reminisce about “frugal housewives” having a continuous broth going for hours. Additionally on the next page, a generic “French cook” is referred to as she. Despite the assumptions made about the consumers of this recipe book, there is an understanding of most people’s desire to save money. And given that in the preface the authors are referred to as the “famous Culinary Browns” one would expect this recipe book to be of a different title or have a tone of superiority. It has neither, which gives it a feel of universal versatility. The authors assume the reader has common qualms regarding food and is picky regarding ingredients such as watermelon rind and mussels, which is why they encourage a preservationist approach. Many of the ingredients and food featured are ones commonly found and used today, such as potatoes, celery, condensed milk, jam, seafood, and soup. Recipe lengths range from 5min to 45min, with some calling to soak ingredients overnight. According to the introduction, the recipes were chosen in order from cheapest to most expensive, which can be seen with the practical ingredients employed in the recipes. In Like Water for Chocolate, the events are taking place during the Mexican revolution, and it is even brought up how the family could not afford as much as they could before. A recipe book about stretching your dollar seems like it’d be pretty useful during a time of war.
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Rebecca W. Oppenheimer’s Diabetic Cookery ; Recipes and Menus was an interesting look into the perspective on diabetes during the the early 1900’s. This cookbook was published in 1917, and it caught my eye because of its fairly straightforward name. It was interesting to see how the perception of diabetes has changed from 1917 till now. While reading the cookbook, I noticed how there were a lot of desserts on the menu. Considering it is a cookbook for diabetics, there was a surprising amount of sweet recipes. One recipe that caught my eye was the large cake. It involved the regular recipes for baking a cake, but sugar was substituted for Saccharin tablets. I looked up saccharin tablets and turn out they are basically the tablet form of Sweet’N Low, which is an artificial sweetener. This was interesting to see because it shows how medicine has changed the way diabetics consume sugar. From Saccharin tablets to artificial sweeteners such as Splenda.
A section of that stood out for me was the section regarding forbidden foods. This was interesting because it listed a couple of foods that you really wouldn’t consider as forbidden for diabetics, foods such as rice, bread, or flour. You really wouldn’t expect these foods to harm a diabetic, but this may be due to the lack of research at the time, and the advancements we have made after 1917. Some of the foods listed seemed like they would connect to some of the recipes in Like Water for Chocolate. Maybe not in term of cultural background, but more in terms of comfort and family. A lot of the food listed in this book seem to have a strong connection for family, like the cake, which would be served to more than one person, or even the soups. They have some sort of home like connection, which is heavily seen in Like Water For Chocolate.
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Carbohydrates have the greatest impact on blood sugar levels than any other type of food, so it makes sense that these foods would be on an avoid list. This is before people could readily check their blood sugar with a pin prick and certainly before the automatic devices such as insulin pumps that automatically add insulin directly into people’s bodies.
Amanda also wrote about this book above and so you might be interested in my response.
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I chose an Italian cookbook, which was published in 1919. The books seems to be written for those who are Italian or those who only want to cook Italian food. All of the food names are also written in Italian, so the writer assumed that whoever reading would probably know the Italian name of the food, or to tech others who are not Italian the proper name. The writer also assumed that whoever is cooking, they know the proper ingredients and measurements for the recipe. The book just gives the directions on how to cook the recipe with no list of ingredients or times. The kinds of foods that are featured are ravioli, macaroni with sauce, cooked veal, different Italian soups and even stewed mushrooms. These recipes were probably chosen based on popular dishes in Italy, or dishes the writer themselves enjoys to make. Ingredients are not really featured in this book, the book consists more of tips on how to cook the dish. In the tips, a lot of garlic and olive oil is mentioned, which seems to be the base for most Italian dishes. This cookbook is similar to Like Water for Chocolate in that this cookbook is based on culture and heritage, and in the novel many of the recipes are passed down from generation to generation. Also, the novel has stories that comes along with the recipes, and in this cookbook the recipes also come with a story. Not exactly like in the novel, but each recipe in the cookbook has less direction and more tips. The cookbook gives backstory on certain foods, opposed to telling the reader exactly what to do.
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After looking through several of these cookbooks, what really caught my eye was the “Diabetic cookery Recipes and Menus” By Rebecca W. Oppenheimer. What really stood out to me was when the book was published, which was in 1917 and just around that time they discovered more about diabetes and how the pancreas contributes to this disease. The fact that it was made around that time period probably helped many individuals who are diabetic. If you think about it, there are many restrictions that diabetic people have, this cookbook just made it a while lot easier. While flipping through this book I noticed how detailed it looks and how specific each recipe is with all the ingredients. It almost looks like a textbook with so many contents and categories, it had charts and weights of almost everything. I also noticed it showed the nutrient facts for almost everything, going from how much protein, calories, carbs, fat, etc. Not many cookbooks would have this but since ingredients are important in a diabetics lifestyle this book makes making food a whole lot easier because you know how much of everything your using. Focusing on the topic of the food shown there, there is really not a specific type of food shown here or culture, its a mix of everything just in a way to follow a diabetics persons diet. There are may categories including; bread, muffins, cookies, dairy meat , etc. I noticed a lot of things are made from almonds maybe to give them flavor because you cant add everything you would like to. This can compare to Like Water for Chocolate because they are both very detailed but i would have to say that this book is on a whole different of level of detailed, it almost looks difficult to follow. But other than that these books are so different because its literately all about food for diabetics that its hard to compare.
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A cookbook that I chose was “The Southern cookbook of fine old recipes” by Lustig, Lillie S; published in 1935. One of the biggest reason why I chose this cookbook, in particular, was because if its cover, which was a picture of a bulky woman in old school dress smiling while she mixes batter in a bowl from what I presume. It made me feel a sort of happiness and comfort within the cover, also once you open the book and get to the introductory page, you see a picture of a women next to fire cooking while it looks like she’s sipping tea, from what I get of this I feel as if this cookbook was meant for women, also keep in mind this is an old cookbook which makes it authentic in its ingredients. I’ve always wanted to eat southern food but never got the chance to, but one thing I know is that Southern foods are really deep in culture and that different parts of the south are recognized for its particular food dishes such as Maryland being fried chicken and its seafood, Creole dish from New Orleans, and even said at the beginning of the book “Only one thing is universally true: Every corner of the South is famous for its fine cookery”. Being that it’s an old cookbook, they were able to gather most southern dishes onto one book and shove a bunch of recipes onto one page, but they made it possible by summing it down, not too much is written for one dish. They list out the ingredients you need and write additional instructions towards the end after the list of ingredients is done. When I think of Southern food I think of Gumbo which is a really popular food item in the south, so a dish I chose to examine was chicken oyster gumbo which was made with different ingredients compared to other Gumbo recipes you look up, the cookbook has its own twist to these dishes, another dish that sounds really good to me was the cream gravy for fried chicken, I know me saying what dish sounds good doesn’t really matter, but looking through all these dishes, how they are organized and how easy it is to understand, i feel as if they made it in a way that most southerners could easily learn how to cook these dishes. If you look at the index, they organize the dishes into sections for example pastry, poultry items, meat items, fruit items, and vegetable items. Now when it came to choosing all these recipes, if you look at the bottom of the cover it says in big letters “322 Old Dixie Recipes”, so from what I can think of it is that 322 Old Dixie is an area in the South where it was prominent for their individual southern cooking style, also with females being the ideal model throughout the book you can tell a lot of women did most of the cooking at that time period. The time it takes to cook most of the dishes varies because they all depend on different factors such as one dish can have a time limit where others you have to tell if it’s finished by observing the dish but for some dishes, it can range from 1 hour to 4 hours depending on the dish. Also in reading through some of the dishes a lot of key ingredients stand out such as onions, red and green peppers, chicken bones, butter, and other ingredients, but what I see common is that most of these ingredients are used over and over agina in other dishes in the book. To preserve the Dixie culture of their Southern dishes, they wrote it all on a book with each dish having its own story in a sense. In relation to Like Water for Chocolate, Titas cooking is important because some would say the magic in her food is caused by the emotion she had while cooking and what makes her dishes special also to say really cultural for her. In similarity to the Southern cookbook, its rich in history and culture, that maybe during those times women were dealing with a lot of hard situations which can lead someone to cook with a lot of emotion, and each dish can signify something important in their lives and environment theu were surrounded by.
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The cover is a racial stereotype of enslaved African American women, often called “mammy.” This is confirmed by the subtitle “Old Dixie.” As I’ve mentioned in response to a few students’ posts, “Dixie” refers not just to the South, but specifically to the Mason-Dixon line that separated Northern (free) states from Southern (slave) states. “Old Dixie” would obviously be pre-war South, or a time when most African Americans in the South were enslaved. The picture in the book are curiously all of black and brown people working (or doing other racially stereotypical activities like sleeping or dancing).
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The title of this book immediately caught my attention. Things Mother Used to Make. With a friendly and welcoming title like that, who wouldn’t want to read this book. The book was written in 1922 by Lydia Maria Gurney. Under the author’s name, there is a short description of the book that reads, “A collection of old-time recipes, some nearly one hundred years old and never published before”. This is an interesting way to introduce the book. It adds a sense of mystery and secrecy in case a person wanted more than just recipes out of a cook book. It creates a sense of curiosity. These are in a sense secret recipes that only the people of this family have had the pleasure of eating, and now it has been made available to the public.
We get a little more information about the book in the introduction, which was written 4 years before the book was published. We learn that this was written as a publication four years before it was published as a book, so there is even more history to the book. To this date it is over 100 years old! My favorite part of the introduction is that these recipes and meals were actually prepared by the author herself. It gives a sense of realness. The book is grounded in real history and that makes the book even more interesting than it previously seemed. The authors forward is my favorite part. The sentence, “They are very simple, not expensive, and if followed closely, will ensure success. The author tells us that this book is perfect for those who are inexperienced in cooking, which speaks volumes to me, a person who has never cooked in his life. I like that there’s no misogyny in this book. There is no mention of a specific gender that can make use of this book, like many of the other cookbooks. For example, The American Women’s Cook Book excludes me as being a male, but Things Mother Used to Make does not.
The book also brings me back to recipes my mother makes. Things that I would like to believe are only made in my house, and even if they are made in other houses, they definitely taste the best in mine. There are a number of recipes my mom has mentioned to me were taught to her by her mom, who I would assume were passed by her mom before her. Just like mine and Lydia’s, every family certainly has a historical cookbook to write, full of amazing recipes. Even the recipes in this cookbook seem bland and frankly some sound disgusting. But just like another person would not like the recipes made in my house, they are the most tasteful to me. And I am sure that to the family of the writer, and for generations before, the recipes passed down are the most tasteful meals ever made.
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