William L. Clements Library

Gender expectations and roles in culinary & domestic materials

Gender Expectations and Roles in Culinary & “Home Life” Materials

Amongst the information about social norms to be found in cookbooks are examples of gender roles and expectations, and relations between the sexes in matters culinary, gastronomic, and domestic. A genre of cookbooks by men, for men, gives testament to ideas of male behavior, attitudes, and concerns during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Gender programming is also found in culinary and domestic works particular to children and child-rearing, and quite specifically in family manuals and general household guides. Advice to housewives, found in cookbooks, domestic manuals, and other materials, is another fertile source for this topic.

An easy way to break down the wide array of culinary items that the University has to offer is to search Mirlyn using keywords in the “title” or “all fields” fields. We provide some suggested keywords for various kinds of materials below. Your findings will likely produce a long list of titles; a shorter list of sample titles is shown below, to help provide a quicker start to your research.

Men’s Cooking

Although the majority of cookbooks are addressed to women, there is a special subgenre of cookbooks written by male authors and addressed to other men. In these works, gender norms play a role as a commonality of values between author and reader. Works like Achmed Abdullah’s For Men Only: A Cook Book (1937) explicitly carve out an all-male space in the kitchen, and argue for the superiority in this sphere of what the author lauds as masculine values. Others, such as Lew Lehr’s Cookbook for Men (1949), contain cartoon drawings and anecdotes that strongly feature discourse on gender roles, their definitions and implications.

To search for similar works, try keywords in the title such as
Stag, Bachelor, Men, Male, Groom

Family

General “household” works implicitly or explicitly identify gender roles in the breakdown of their chapters. Men’s Work and Women’s Work are discussed as separate spheres of concern and endeavor, allowing the boundaries of each to be discerned. As men’s and women’s concerns are addressed, we see the norms being reinforced: the reader is reassured that this is what to care about, and this is how to behave. An example is George E. Blakelee’s Industrial Cyclopedia (1892). This how-to guide for projects and tasks around the home is divided into sections specifically for the farmer and mechanic, the housewife, boys, and girls.

To search for similar works, try keywords in the title such as
Family, Household, Guide, Domestic

Children and Child Rearing

Cookbooks written for children often display markedly different expectations for boys and girls. The Fun of Cooking: a Story for Boys and Girls, for example, weaves simple recipes through a simple narrative, a story about three siblings helping their mother in the kitchen. The boy, Jack, tells his mother that “boys don’t cook,” but reminds her of exceptions like making popcorn or cooking with a chafing dish. The Child Life Cook Book, by Clara Ingram Judson, explains that a boy needs to learn to cook in order to be prepared for his camping trips and other outdoor adventures. In a wide range of works, girls are guided to, admonished not to stray from, or exhorted to excel in the domestic sphere and traditional female accomplishments.

To search for similar works, try keywords in the title such as
Boy, Girl, Children, Child

Subject search
“Cookery – Juvenile”
“Home economics – Juvenile”

Advice to Housewives

In cookbooks and domestic manuals, musings on housekeeping are commonplace. Periodicals such as The Woman’s Home Companion contain talks from writers like Alice Bradley specific to women’s concerns like cooking and household technique, including a list of good manners and table etiquette, as well as a guide to being a good hostess. Periodicals and Charity cookbooks dating back to as early as 1800 contain advertisements directed at the female consumer for household furnishings and food, as well as homemaking tips like “how to re-dye black material” or “how to clean hair brushes.”

More comprehensive household manuals, such as The Woman’s Dictionary and Encyclopedia, cover everything from bee keeping to marinades— anything having to do with clothing, cleaning, illness, cooking and nature, and nothing related to building, business, or politics.

Numerous late 19th century cookbooks, such as The Annandale reliable receipt book (1899) and The Hyde Park cuisine (1897) contain a “recipe” called “How to preserve a husband” or “How to cook a husband,” with directions such as “First, use care and get one not too young, but tender and a healthy growth. Make your selection carefully and let it be final, otherwise they will not keep. Do not pickle or put in hot water, this makes them sour” and “Even poor varieties may be made sweet, tender and good by garnishing with patience, smiles and love, flavoring with kisses to taste, baking with the steady fire of devotion and serving with honey. Thus prepared they will keep for years.”

To search for similar works, try keywords in the title such as
Housewife, Housekeeper, Young Housewife, Young Housekeeper, Advice, Guide, Homemaker