"The Gastronomy of Marriage"

[zoramargolis]

A wise couples therapist, who was one of my teachers, said that in every relationship, there's a struggle to determine whose family of origin is going to be replicated. This book seems to be an examination of this phenomenon, through the lens of food and eating. Some interesting thoughts about being a post-feminist who is conflicted over her love of being in the kitchen.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louise-mccready/emthe-gastronomy-of-marri_b_286674.html

Your thoughts?

[leleboo]

A wise couples therapist, who was one of my teachers, said that in every relationship, there's a struggle to determine whose family of origin is going to be replicated. This book seems to be an examination of this phenomenon, through the lens of food and eating. Some interesting thoughts about being a post-feminist who is conflicted over her love of being in the kitchen.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louise-mccready/emthe-gastronomy-of-marri_b_286674.html

Your thoughts?

My mother-in-law adopted her mother-in-law's cooking -- i.e., she transformed from Missouri German Lutheran to direct-from-Sicily Italian/Italian-American cooking.

My mother is convinced she can't cook at all.

I'm an amalgam of my grandmother, a brilliant cook, and anything I want, with a heavy bent towards French, seconded by Italian (him) and Eastern European Jewish (me). If I lean towards one cuisine it's his, but not because of any pressure; just because I have taught myself to cook via Med influences and that's sort of how I default, regardless.

So I can't say where I end up in particular in terms of cuisine but...

I joke that Harvard will take back my degree on the basis of the fact that what really makes me happy is cooking for people. Sure, I'm an editor for a big medical organization, and what I do is important and meaningful for the doctors who need me for the fact that I acn type 100+ wpm and can make medical language readable for the masses. But what I love, even having grown up with a mother who didn't believe she could cook for anything and a Jewish grandmother who set every dish on the table with the words, "Here, eat this -- it's terrible" -- I love love love to cook. So that's who I am.

Post-feminism be damned. We like what we like. I'm ok with that.

[Waitman]

I don't know how she can cook when she can't take her eye off her own navel. Tales of self-obsessed neurotics and the and their anal-retentive mates should be suppressed by a government agency.

"Our comfort foods are different... My family always had a salad, and his family thinks it's a horrible idea to have a salad every night." Nice that they can build a fight around macaroni and cheese and arugula. I suppose if one stayed out too late and came home a little tipsy, there would be gun violence.

Read more at: http://www.huffingto...i_b_286674.html

[Mrs. B]

There are a couple of things that my MIL bakes that I have desired to recreate, have attempted and have failed. Most memorable is English muffin bread. For the most part however the food she cooks does nothing for me and I would in no way wish to recreate it for my husband. I will give her kudos for being able to bring a meat + 2 and a starch to the table in a capabable way and on a consistent basis for many years. These are skills both Waitman and I lack.

My mother was an early Julia accolyte and I owe much of my food love to watching my mother watch the French Chef carefully writing down the recipes as the show progressed. Unfortunately my beloved father was/is an incorrigible reprobate and after a while my mother decided it was too much trouble to reproduce JC's recipes only to have them cool on the lovingly set table while he visited his salesmen's accounts.

So... by the time I was 11 or so I was fortunate to enjoy 2-3 meals out every week with my parents while my dad was able to visit his accounts (and maintain his marriage ).

The upshot is that I have no pre-conceived notions about my role in the kitchen and absolutely adore prepping and eating out even more. Perhaps I need a husband in the business?

Are those women in the article really serious? They have serious issues that my go deeper than food.

[Xochitl10]

At risk of sounding completely naive, if the authors are talking about relationships viewed through a post-feminist lens, shouldn't it not matter that they want to do the cooking? I'm the breadwinner in the A/X house now, and I certainly don't feel less "modern" because I wish I made dinner more often or more "powerful" because I don't do the cooking.

I'm not sure where the "women are make-do eaters who go with the flow" part of the equation comes from, either. Among my peers and family, the women tend to be way more opinionated and insistent about what they're eating than the men are. Neither of my parents is particularly interested in great food, but my dad is explicitly a "put it in front of me and I'll eat it" kind of guy.

[zoramargolis]

At risk of sounding completely naive, if the authors are talking about relationships viewed through a post-feminist lens, shouldn't it not matter that they want to do the cooking? I'm the breadwinner in the A/X house now, and I certainly don't feel less "modern" because I wish I made dinner more often or more "powerful" because I don't do the cooking.

I'm not sure where the "women are make-do eaters who go with the flow" part of the equation comes from, either. Among my peers and family, the women tend to be way more opinionated and insistent about what they're eating than the men are. Neither of my parents is particularly interested in great food, but my dad is explicitly a "put it in front of me and I'll eat it" kind of guy.

Since there are now two post-feminist generations, I think it matters which one you are talking about. I think women in the second post-feminist generation don't have any ambivalence about enjoying cooking. The first post-feminist generation, which I believe this writer is part of, was still in the thrall of the feminists--their mothers, who in principle, rejected their housework hegemony and everything related to the housewife role, including the expectation that they would do all of the cooking--at least as far as Betty Friedan was concerned.

And I am of the original feminist generation--but have always been rebellious, as far as any sort of orthodoxy or authority goes. In 1970, I was in a feminist play in New York, at the NY Shakespeare Festival. There were some hard-core radical feminists and feminist separatists involved in and around the production. A lot of the women I knew were involved in consciousness-raising groups, women's collectives, feminist art and lesbian relationships. When I fell in love with one of "the enemy" and announced that I was going to get married, it was more of a shock to my friends than if I had joined the John Birch Society. I was considered a heretic. So it isn't really anachronistic that I always loved cooking, then and now, and never had any ambivalence about it.

I've been an omnivore all of my life, but my husband was raised in a very conservative family, as far as their food preferences went--I'd go so far as to call it fussbudgety. If he hadn't loosened up a lot, in terms of what he was willing to eat, our relationship would never have worked. But he still has strong likes and dislikes that completely mystify me and that I on occasion find frustrating.