Sue L

        When I interviewed my mom about food and her life, she spoke at great length about growing up in the depression and living on a farm. She also related a great deal about her mother’s life and how poverty caused her mother‘s family to starve. Furthermore my mother’s socialized belief was that men control the financial assets , the social obligations, and held  the ability to tell my mother no or yes, father even controlled how often she could  purchase food. This  left the only location she could control she was ever given and that was how the food was prepared, It forced her to focus her image of herself on her ability to cook the kitchen.  When she spoke she spoke about the foods she prepared for others, about the children she cared for and how they still call her for her recipes. What made my mother a good mother in her eyes, in my father’s eyes, was that she knew how to cook and clean.  Food defined her , it gave her strength, pride and success in a world where she was offered little otherwise.  

       Feminist speak of the Women’s Kitchen and the safety and comfort in it. They also tell of how foods are central to women;  first in the fact that the ideological connection to food, defines women’s self image. We use food to control our weight, we use food to comfort us and we also use ...