Let's Get Cooking: On Julia, Pollan, Feminism and Food

Over the years, the amount of time I've spent cooking has waxed and waned, depending mostly on my living situation, my diet and my work situation. In my early 20s, during my first stint as a vegetarian, I cooked often, mostly out of necessity -- the small town where I lived was sorely lacking in meat-free cuisine. Years later, alone in Washington, DC for grad school and without a busy social life, I cooked a lot again, because I had a lot of time. But when I moved from there to New York City with a roommate who loved to cook, I happily demoted myself to dishwasher and when she wasn't around or didn't feel like feeding me, I'd head to the pizza joint at the end of the block.

It was through my friendship with Kim O'Donnel, who I met through my freelance work with the Eat Well Guide, that I began to really think hard about the virtues of cooking, and its very necessary role in what my colleagues and I have been working toward -- major change in the way we eat. Some who focus on food politics (and many who don't) have pooh-poohed others' focus on culinary niceties, often slamming such groups as Slow Food as elitist, over-indulgent gastronomists. But, if we are to celebrate "real food" and lack the funds to dine out nightly at the restaurants that serve it, and we are to encourage people to eat more fresh vegetables, well, they're not going to cook themselves.

So, last weekend, when the NY Times magazine published a new Michael Pollan manifesto, this one bemoaning the fact that most Americans now spend more time watching cooking shows than they do in the kitchen (all while waxing nostalgic about his mother's love for Julia Child, playing on the upcoming release of Julie and Julia), I ate it up. But I was quickly given pause to think by a couple of aspects of the piece, and I was not alone, because Pollan, in navigating the seemingly innocent but all too treacherous waters of American home cooking, had drawn the wrath of the feminist blogosphere.

Pollan credits Child with helping 60's era would-be cooks to overcome the fear factor, but only the fear of hoity-toity French cuisine, and fails to acknowledge that for some, there are very real fears of even basic culinary exploration (more on this in a minute). And while he acknowledges that at the same time Julia Child rose to fame, food marketers were taking advantage of the rise of the feminist movement, he might have done well to riff on the marketing front and leave out, or at least edit more carefully, such nuggets as this one:

Curiously, the year Julia Child went on the air -- 1963 -- was the same year Betty Friedan published "The Feminine Mystique," the book that taught millions of American women to regard housework, cooking included, as drudgery, indeed as a form of oppression.

Did Friedan and her peers really "teach" American women to see being saddled with the responsibility for the majority of their family's housework as oppressive? Or were they merely, as Salon's Kate Harding suggests, lending a voice to American women who already felt slighted by society's branding of them as familial head chefs? One can easily see how any woman, but especially one who was newly entering the workforce, would want some help around the house.

Through my work advocating for local and sustainable food systems, I've heard the argument that "we" need to cook more hashed out more times than I can count, and while I certainly agree, I'm always surprised and disheartened by the fact that, like Pollan does, even the most progressive crowds quickly revert, however subconsciously, to the assumption that the "we" who no longer cook are women. It's not a mistaken assumption per se -- according to Pollan, men, now cooking more than ever, still only prepare 13 percent of meals -- but to fail to question the legitimacy of that is to let American men off the hook.

But if Pollan stumbled at the intersection of feminism and food, he also fails to mention the people -- and there are more of them everyday in this economy -- who lack not only the skills but also the basic cooking implements necessary for a Rachel Ray-style feast, let alone a Julia Child-caliber meal, or who, for that matter, can't afford to risk burning their dinner, and he barely touches on the obstacles some of us face in getting a wholesome meal on the table, most notably time. I've been guilty, too, of insisting that locally grown and sustainably produced food can be had as cheap as most "ordinary" food, if only folks were willing to cook for themselves, without recognizing how many people lack these two most imperative ingredients.

On the time front, perhaps a more community-minded approach would help. With the rise of kitchen gardening this year, we are seeing more and more community gardens, as well as creative solutions like organized gleaning and yard-sharing. Why does this ideal not extend to the kitchen? Potlucks, eat-ins, taking turns hosting meals with your neighbor or extended family, all of these could help lighten the load for home chefs, with the added benefit of enhancing those relationships. After all, good food is best enjoyed with company.

Over the years, food processors and fast food companies have exploited the time crunch by marketing to us ever more complexly processed but easy to imbibe foods, in the supposed effort to simplify our lives, but for many of us, it probably takes as long to run for take out as it would to have whipped something up. So too, have they capitalized on the decidedly archaic ideas so many of us (however subconsciously) hold about women's roles and food, often by marginalizing food issues as something only women care about.

Pollan does make some interesting points about the rise of the Food Network and why it has had such success in capturing male viewers -- largely due to the mindlessly competitive nature of shows like Iron Chef. He points out that such programming is designed, not to impart any knowledge of how to cook, but to teach viewers how to order high end foods, and this observation is important because it's hard these days to overestimate the role that money plays in the design of not only such programming, but say, government subsidies, or the layout of our supermarkets.

I don't think Michael Pollan is sexist -- the article was about a film about two women chefs, and the reality is still that women perform the overwhelming majority of cooking that still gets done in this country. Could he have done better? Sure. And he could certainly stand to dig a little deeper into the reasoning behind America's lack of culinary proclivity, but of course, that would have made for a deeper, less nostalgic, almost certainly much longer article.

As for my friend Kim, whose blog is a great resource for those who would seek to re-learn the culinary arts, she was just excited to hear Pollan issue a call to cook. Says Kim of the article:

One of the lines that resonated for me was:
"It has been easier for us to give up cooking than it has been to give up talking about it -- and watching it."

I think this is really true, no matter how much money you earn or how much you know about where you food comes from. We love to talk about food, we love to watch it on TV, but by and large, we need a swift kick in the pants when it comes to actually preparing it.

True enough. Below, for those of you who heed the call and are looking for inspiration, a few of my favorite pants-kicking cooking blogs. There are so many more -- please see the Green Fork blogroll for links.

Licking Your Chops

Brooklyn Farmhouse

101 Cookbooks

Garden of Eating

Not Eating Out in New York

Alison's Lunch

Originally published on The Green Fork.

Follow Leslie Hatfield on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lesliehatfield

Comments

[LMPE]

The fact that cooking requires physical activity - as opposed to sitting around on one's lazy butt and getting obese - should justify it.

[rodaniel]

Maybe there's more of us guys out there serving as the primary household chefs that you know...

If Food Network was truly listening, they'd turn their focus back to more cooking shows where people actually cook. There should be shows that deal with more basic staple meals to give the uninitiated a starting point from which to build.

Like Camel54, our Mom taught us to cook at an early age so we'd be self-sufficient. And Mom was a whole-grains, slow-food advocate decades before it would become fashionable - before there were even labels for the types of foods she believed to be best.

I miss Jeff Smith, a.k.a. the Frugal Gourmet. I liked his adventuresome attitude and focus on fresh, usually fairly common ingredients.

By the way, it's worth mentioning that, in addition to the expense, it's not easy being a "foodie" in less urban parts of the country. I recently tried - and failed - just to find some fresh dill at a couple of local grocery stores. There are few produce stands (and all they offer are melons), only one pitiful little farmers' market, and no Whole Foods out here in dusty West Texas.

[cucumber]

I'm a female, but I'm not fighting for the rights of women to prepare veal, foie gras, boil lobsters alive, or hurt any other living being in the name of a taste sensation. Julia was deeply insensitive to the other earthlings with whom we share the planet, as are most humans.

[Camel54]

Enjoyed the article. I am a huge fan of Pollan's books as well. I'm also a man who does almost all of the cooking at home partially because my scheduling is more open than my wife's and partially because I enjoy cooking immensely. I hate the fact that the Food Network has turned to more competitive, reality type shows. I used to love the array of actual cooking shows they played.

I also don't think it's sexist to say that feminism killed home cooking. It sounds negative, but it's just one of those things that is the nature of a movement. People will lash out against anything they come to feel represents the opposite of their movement, and it seems logical that cooking was one of those things for women back then. And rightly so. Anyway, I'm glad Ms. Hatfield took the time point out that Pollan could have done a better job framing that point.

It's a shame cooking is considered a chore. It's such a joy to conceive it, prepare it and then present it. Even if it's just a small meal with no flare. My mom taught me to cook so I would be self-sufficient--me and all my brothers. I plan to teach my daughter to cook for the same reason as well because I believe she will enjoy it and be healthier for it. I don't want her cooking because she's expected to, though.

[bklynmegan]

Leslie - once again, you've beautifully and eloquently discussed an issue near and dear to my heart - what a brilliant article. I think that one of the most important things about cooking (that has been lost through various "better living through chemistry" marketing campaigns) is that it's actually fun -especially when cooking with friends or for friends. Cooking is such a vital component of promoting sustainable food - a missing piece of the puzzle - because the more you cook, the more you become invested in the ingredients that go into the dishes you are putting on the table for your family or friends. I've noticed through teaching cooking classes and talking with friends and family that many people are actually afraid of cooking - it's not just the drudgery of cooking or time management issues that keep people out of the kitchen, it's true fear. We've got to work harder to teach people how to cook (to demystify the process), that you don't have to put duck a l'orange on the table every night, that real food doesn't look like the food on the Food Network, and that ingredients matter. The question is: how do we do it? (Especially the teaching part?) Perhaps instead of potlucks we do something like cooking teach-ins?
Thank you again for such an inspirational and thought-provoking article.(A­nd thanks for the shout-out, too.)

[Hungry Garden]

Leslie this is a great article! I really enjoyed, as a male that cooks 99% of the meals for family of four and therefore can readily identify with the time constraints of producing wholesome, home cooked meals, your point that this shouldn't be just about wives and mothers spending time cooking. How to cook, and cook well, is really something that everyone should know how to do regardless of sex.

These sentences really jumped out at me as so close to what could be a solution.

"Potlucks, eat-ins, taking turns hosting meals with your neighbor or extended family, all of these could help lighten the load for home chefs, with the added benefit of enhancing those relationships. After all, good food is best enjoyed with company."

I believe we need to really turn on its head how food is prepared and served in our communities. There are fabulous home cooks throughout this country that love and enjoy preparing home cooked meals. Why is it that they can not do what they love, and do it well without fear.

To read the rest of my rather long comment please see http://tr.im/vOzM