Cookbooks have been one of the dominant literary forms available written by and for women for years. The social and cultural expectations of the times in which these books were written influenced the tone of the writing and the recipes included within them. While history has changed the circumstances and influenced the lives of the cooks who referred to these manuals, ultimately, the gender of the family “cook” has remained the same. I have a photograph of my hands placed in a work smoothed, limestone bowl in front of a Pueblo Indian cliff dwelling. I remember crouching there, wondering what her hands looked like – the ones that worked the corn each day to meal in that bowl for the tortillas for her family. I have a cookbook from1882 entitled “Our Home Favorite” from the Young Women’s Home Mission Circle of the first Baptist Church in Saratoga Springs, New York. I have held its covers, thick with kitchen dirt, and wondered if Miss Edith Mills of 148 Church Street ever tried the Lemon Pie recipe. Her book’s version calls for lemon, sugar, water, flour, eggs, and cornstarch. Sixty three years later, Sarah Marshall of 807 Druid Avenue’s equally worn The Joy of Cooking has a recipe for lemon pie that calls for… lemon, sugar, water, flour, eggs, and cornstarch. Cooking was certainly expected of these three women, but was cooking a joy to them?
These images and objects utilize text and illustrations drawn from actual cookbooks. I have chosen roughly the decade of the 40’s, including late Depression era books through post WW2 books. These books were everyday objects found in women’s kitchens. Many of them were used into disrepair, with notations fading in the margins. Some looked as if an insurance agent had left them on the porch never to be read again. Either way, they were not “precious” antiques. They were held by actual people with actual lives living through life changing events. Many of them belonged to our parents or grandparents.
These images/assemblages are each my response to a particular book. Some of the images employ text and photographs buried within layers of wax and paint. They require the viewer to engage in a search. Visual openings provide spaces through which the viewer might look as if through time. The way in which we remember our history as humans changes and shifts through time as our lives change and as our need to place our past in a more comfortable light dictate. How we all remember a time past is truly a matter of personal interpretation.
These images and objects utilize text and illustrations drawn from actual cookbooks. I have chosen roughly the decade of the 40’s, including late Depression era books through post WW2 books. These books were everyday objects found in women’s kitchens. Many of them were used into disrepair, with notations fading in the margins. Some looked as if an insurance agent had left them on the porch never to be read again. Either way, they were not “precious” antiques. They were held by actual people with actual lives living through life changing events. Many of them belonged to our parents or grandparents.
These images/assemblages are each my response to a particular book. Some of the images employ text and photographs buried within layers of wax and paint. They require the viewer to engage in a search. Visual openings provide spaces through which the viewer might look as if through time. The way in which we remember our history as humans changes and shifts through time as our lives change and as our need to place our past in a more comfortable light dictate. How we all remember a time past is truly a matter of personal interpretation.
No comments:
Post a Comment