Firstly though I thought that it would be prudent to post up a summary of the thesis that I wrote for all those who very kindly took the time to participate in my thesis for my masters. It was such a journey to complete my thesis and I haven't really let too many people read it as it just felt so personal. Almost as if it was a creation of mine which I wasn't sure of how it would be taken. Not unlike the associations that I have with cooking and the importance that I place in having my food (and in a way myself) authenticated. I know that I almost hold my breath when I serve up my food, peer intently at their faces and wait for a positive affirmation of their satisfaction with my cooking. I think that my reluctance to post up anything on my thesis is because I am not sure what people are going to think about it. But if I am going to get anywhere with this I need to be a bit braver about things and let people into how I feel about people's relationships with food and cooking. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a new venture for me, and maybe you can come along for the ride as well!
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Love from the kitchen: A theory on cooking
Katarina A. Ekberg
Masters of Applied Anthropology, Macquarie University
Everyday cooking expresses identities; the food that we produce is emotionally invested and shapes, transforms and differentiates our relationships. My thesis explores especially how the contemporary desire to express individual creativity through the use of food leads us to personalise mass commodities. Not simply heating up a pre-packaged meal or cheese melted into fondue, cooked food becomes a symbol of a relationship as well as a means of shaping our relationships. This thesis focused on day-to-day cooking for family and friends, with particular emphasis on the significance cooking and specific dishes or types of cuisine hold for individuals.
Everyday cooking is an especially significant event to investigate because of its regularity and seemingly mundane nature. Because everyday cooking is so pervasive and unremarkable, the practice has been overshadowed by more elaborate holiday and occasional cooking. However, I argue that because of its regularity, everyday cooking and the social exchanges involved in preparing food have the ability to cultivate spaces which facilitate the maintenance and allow people to negotiate relationships as well as express their individualism and creativity.
The importance of cooking for individuals is particularly apparent when we look at the activity as a form of personal expression in the context of a gift exchange. By viewing cooking as a gift, I argue that cooking transforms raw materials that are anonymous, commercialized and commodified into a refined, personalised, communicative object which is a specific momentary expression of a relationship. Food, unlike most commodities purchased for a gift exchange is not the finished product. Food ingredients usually need to be prepared; this demands the investment of more time, energy, emotion, and creativity before the gift is ready to be given to the recipient. The incompleteness of the raw ingredients provides the cook the opportunity to increase the emotional importance of the meal.
In contemporary society when time is precious, giving up the time and resources to cook is a powerful way to express that loved ones are important, particularly when so many fast foods and convenience foods are at hand. The association of the production of food to nurturing makes cooking for family is especially important because of the strong association between food preparation and sharing with kinship. People cook and make decisions as to what to cook to encourage both the physical and emotional development of their loved ones. Through cooking, people meet the physical need for nutritious food and the emotional need to comfort with food, but also give emotional support through the production of food for consumption and the accompanying creation of spaces that offer emotional support.
According to my participants, cooking for friends is different to cooking for family, particularly as both parties view the event as an elective opportunity to socialise and at the same time strengthen bonds of friendship rather than a necessary part of relationships, as often is the case with family. Cooking for friends can cause apprehension, particularly as the cook wants to prepare a meal that reflects the identity and food preferences of the cook and the guests. The significance of the meal is not just the bringing together of guests, but also the acknowledgement of the importance of the people sharing the meal. A meal is significant because as a ritual it demonstrates love, alliance, appreciation and social relationships; in addition, cooking offers the opportunity for creative expression of individualism and identity that can be a strong ulterior motive for a cook. In other words, in their interviews, research subjects revealed that deciding what to cook and how to stage the event of a meal often allowed them to negotiate relations and, at the same time, assert their own sense of self, which they stamped on the food.
Like most gift giving exchanges, cooking can be unbalanced, particularly when we look at the contributions of a primary provider of food. Being the primary provider of food in a household can create an unbalanced exchange relationship as only one party contributes this important ‘material’ substance to the relationship. The regularity of daily cooking gives it the ability to influence the nature of more long-term relationships. I found it especially interesting in my interviews that these unbalanced exchange relationships continued and continued without animosity. What became evident is that the exchange of food in cooking relationships facilitated the cook’s need for self-expression and creativity as well as acting a means through which they were able to socialise and interact on a very personal level.
The preparation of necessary food in day-to-day cooking is consistently significant, in part, because of the contrast with simply purchasing pre-prepared foods or restaurant and take-away food. With the ready availability of convenience food in all affluent Western communities, cooking for a recipient demonstrates that the preparation and serving of cooked food is not just about fulfilling a basic physical need. Preparing, cooking and serving food, then, demonstrate a greater-than-necessary concern for the maintenance and negotiation of a relationship, above and beyond simply meeting physiological needs. If the recipient doesn’t acknowledge cooking as a gift which obligates a response or reciprocity, then the cook may feel as if the emotion invested in the food is not reciprocated by the recipient. When a gesture is refused, recognised insufficiently or ignored, the participants felt as if their understanding of their relationship was also rejected. This emotionality attached to food is what makes cooking so meaningful.
Culturally significant or ethically marked food becomes entangled with people’s identities as cooks. In each family or social group, the providers of food play a key role in the transference of cultural knowledge. Serving traditional food creates the opportunity to reinforce cultural values and strengthen familial bonds, but it also marks the resulting community by the type of food served; to be Italian-Australian, for example, is enacted in the serving of Italian food in Australia. Identity development through cooking is not just a reiteration or possible rejection of family foodways; cooking also incorporates the selection of new techniques and cultural cuisines. As people become more exposed to other cuisines through restaurants and their travels they want to bring some of that home. According to my subjects, restaurant fare, not just family recipes, is increasingly becoming the standard of comparison for home cooks. This comparison increases the pressure on home cooks to prepare food to restaurant standards and to push past the boundaries of the food traditions with which they were brought up.
Through the selection of traditional foods and the addition of personal choices to a cooking repertoire, people create an identity which can encompass ethnic, family and personal characteristics. Varied types of cooking demonstrate that people have multiple identities — be they ethnic, regional, gender or class — which are dynamic and subject to influence and amendments. A cooking identity, therefore, is a conglomeration of attribution, food which you were brought up with; affiliative, food that as influenced you; and aspirational, the kind of cook you would like to become. Instead of passively repeating their cultural background, people have become active consumers of the world around them, using ideas from all cultures to drive changes in the way that they self-identify.
With the increase in convenience food and the ever growing distance of most consumers from food production in the latter half of the 20th Century, a counterculture of home-cooking, typified in the popularity of cooking shows and cook books, coaxes people who want authentic food back into the kitchen. Home cooking assures authenticity of food, but also means that households better control quality, nutrition, and even the social implications of the ingredients because the cook has authority over what is put into each dish. These cooks are searching for a more authentic eating experience, and put emphasis on fresh produce, nutrition, wholesomeness.
Through cooking, people are able to retell the story of their family origins, express their own personal tastes and identity and demonstrate their care for their loved ones. Being expressive is very important for contemporary home cooks who strain against the view that cooking is just traditional women’s domestic labour. For men and women to focus on cooking as creative act gives them greater permission to both enjoy the expression of cooking as love and identity and to use cooking as a technique to bring their loved ones together. Recognizing that cooking is creative and expressive gives cooking its true weight in contemporary society.
