Feminism killed American food.
I love to cook from scratch. Bread, from flour and yeast to loaf: wine, from sugar and fruit to alcohol: yogurt, from milk and culture to tasty sour-ness. And I love to cook for other people. Perhaps it is some maternal urge inside me, but when I hear someone say that they didn’t eat breakfast or that all they’ve eaten in the past three days was tomato soup made from the leftover ketchup packets in the back of their fridge, all I want to do is make them a good hearty dinner. Most of the people I cook for are men, which has always raised interesting gender questions in my head and, because of my feminist background, made me want to reel in my cooking fanaticism.
At the same time, I realize that cooking from scratch is an important skill when it comes to eating well. No matter how you count calories or look for an organic label, processed food embodies more fossil energy, contains more chemicals that are bad for you and is invariably produced on farms that operate on an industrial scale.
This summer I worked on a farm where my food passion didn’t seem so weird. All the dairy on the farm was provided by a lady cow by the name of Loveday who provided us with yogurt, milk, cheese and butter day in and day out. All the vegetables grown on the farm were expected to last the entire year, so once the tomatoes started turning ripe, the canning kitchen was always busy with food dehydrator and hot water canner going strong. Every loaf of bread was baked from scratch and even the sourdough yeast ran wild and free.
The major director of this entire show was Elizabeth Simpson, an accomplished retired professor and English teacher with several books to her name, who is most proud of her homemaking abilities.
Over many tomatoes, strawberries and blackberries, Elizabeth and I spent time talking about our identities as women and lovers of food. Both of us consider ourselves feminists, but through conversations came up with one major theme: In a world of ketchup soup, someone needs to get back in the kitchen.
Modern Western feminism is fantastic. We figured out about half a century ago that women are good at many things other than cooking and cleaning and raising kids. Women do all sorts of things nowadays: fight fires, make amazing scientific discoveries, hold down high power corporate jobs, run for public office and much more. Men often will get time off to help raise the kids, and it is often expected (though not always fulfilled) that men will help with cleaning house and doing laundry. And in the kitchen? Swanson, Kraft, Amy’s and many other folks are there to cook the food.
That’s right, nobody is minding the kitchen in today’s culture. Most people I know, regardless of gender, can whip out a beautiful meal from scratch given the time and occasion. Therein lies the problem: Good food is considered to be something which is reserved only for special occasions. Real food, made from fresh, real ingredients needs to be a part of American food culture again.
In recent years there has been a growing recognition of the death of American food. Many solutions have been proposed, from controlling marketing of junk food to children to Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) projects. All of these are good and important solutions, but if there is no one in the kitchen to cook the vegetables in the CSA box or to create tasty snack that will taste better to children than a McFlurry, then they will all eventually fail. The only way to bring good food back to America will be to GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN AND MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN SANDWICH.
