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Mary Drake McFeely

Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?: American Women and the Kitchen in the Twentieth Century Hardcover – August 1, 2000

by Mary Drake McFeely (Author)

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In the rural America of the past, a woman's reputation was sometimes made by her cherry pie-or her chocolate layer cake, or her biscuits. As America modernized and as women left the home, entered the paid labor force, and battled their way to success in the professions, mastery of cooking remained an accepted sign that a woman took her gendered responsibilities seriously. Ironically, over the course of the twentieth century, as ready-made foods and kitchen appliances made home cooking less essential and labor-intensive, skill in the kitchen continued to be perceived not only by society but often by women themselves as a measure of a woman's true value.

This book shows how cooking developed and evolved during the twentieth century. From Fannie Farmer to Julia Child, new challenges arose to replace the old. Women found themselves still tied to the kitchen, but for different reasons and with the need to acquire new skills. Instead of simply providing sustenance for the family, they now had to master more complex cooking techniques, the knowledge of "ethnic" cuisines, the science of nutrition, the business of consumerism, and, perhaps most important of all, the art of keeping their husbands and children happy and healthy.

Print length

194 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Univ of Massachusetts Pr
Publication date

August 1, 2000
Dimensions

6.5 x 1 x 9.75 inches
ISBN-10

155849250X
ISBN-13

978-1558492509
See all details

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Advancement of women's rights and equality of women in the contemporary workplace could not have happened without consistent progress in the practice, science, and technology of domestic management in the U.S. McFeely traces the evolution of domestic management from the first nineteenth-century cooperative societies, led by such luminaries as Zina Peirce and Charlotte Gilman. These schemes failed, but they set the stage for technological advances that finally loosed the chains of drudgery. McFeely makes a compelling account of the evolution of American attitudes toward food and its preparation from the privations of the Depression through World War II and into the explosive growth of processed foods during the last half of the century. She notes the irony of how each "liberating" technology added further expectations from the household manager. For example, the food processor may have produced labor savings, but it also created a demand that every kitchen produce foods just like Julia Child's Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Kirkus Reviews

A cursory swipe at the herstory of the kitchen--from the days when women put summer fruit on the tin roof of a building for two days in order to make preserves to the advent of the TV chef. McFeely's thesis is that The woman who has to provide a hot dinner for her husband and family every night is effectively tethered to the stove and limited in how much she can accomplish in the outside world. Whether or not that is true is moot. But she takes us on a whirlwind tour--from the homesteader housewife in the mid-19th century (who kneaded her dough by the sweat of her brow) to the modern homemaker of 1955 (for whom Wonder Bread was a miracle) to the contemporary working woman (whose bread machine will be used, if at all, after a long day at the office). Fanny Farmer, we learn, was the mother of level measurements, before whose advent a pinch or a dash would have to do. Julia Child brought sophistication to the peons, who had been stirring up tuna noodle casserole in a postwar world where the mixing of packaged food had become an art form. In between came the granola people (and now the bean-sprout contingent). A whole chapter is devoted to the privations of rationing in America, which is somewhat obtuse insofar as there is no corresponding consideration of the far greater hardships endured in wartime Europe. In spite of her classically feminist thesis, McFeely does not discount the social importance of cuisine altogether, and she eventually concludes on a happier note that the one she began with: Creative cooking can be compatible with creative work. . . .We do not need to lose our kitchens to keep our freedom. Tasty, but somehow unsatisfying. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Univ of Massachusetts Pr; 0 edition (August 1, 2000)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 194 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 155849250X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1558492509
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #7,419,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #786 in Women's Studies History (Books)
- #18,373 in U.S. Regional Cooking, Food & Wine
- #829,451 in History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
6 ratings

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Absolutely Fascinating

Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2010

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In our family we have a funny story about one of my aunts who used undrained cans of cherries in her cherry pie. While we laugh at this story it does show that some recipes don't give enough detailed instructions (like draining the cherries first) because the writer assumed certain things to be known.

"Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?" begins with a similar story about how cookbooks in the 20s gave less directions because women learned most of their cooking techniques from their mothers. This was true for me as a child (my mother taught me to make strawberry jam) and later as an adult my grandmother taught me the basics of making apple pie. For my entire life I collected recipes from friends and family but never realized the origin of these cooking ideas.

Mary Drake Mcfeely has done a great service by creating this book that explains how foods came to be and also highlights important voices of each decade. This is really a short history of cooking from the 1800s to 2000.

It seems impossible that at one time there were not enough turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner. Now that we can get turkey year round we cannot imagine such a time. Ingredients we also take for granted today like sugar were of course at one point rationed so cake was often out of the question. This book also discusses The Depression and how people survived the war years.

Throughout the book there are fascinating little facts like the origin of Graham crackers or how specific cookbooks changed eating habits over the years. The author expresses with some distain how the Joy of Cooking from 1943 has had some major revisions. You may want the original as well as the modern version.

This book brought so many memories to mind. Like the first time I held a boy's hand at a fondue party in Africa. I also fondly remembered my first taste of Boeuf Bourguignon in Africa of all places. Somehow the recipes made it overseas. My mother also brought recipes and cookbooks with her when we moved to Africa in the 70s so I didn't miss out on foods like beef stroganoff. I have however never had a Coca Cola cake but did recently learn to make tuna casserole, something we didn't eat overseas.

"Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?" is probably not the best book to read while on a diet, as I am currently. If you love reading recipes this book will delight you with its decadent descriptions. For me this book was such a pleasure to read because it was like a trip down memory lane. I've rarely enjoyed a book so much.

~The Rebecca Review

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

LovetoCookTop Contributor: Cooking

Often very opinionated without clear sources; a bit boring

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2016

I love to cook and I love psychology and history, so I was very excited to read this book, but it was rather boring (I wish I could say why!), and I found myself looking forward to being finished with it. My biggest criticism (which I am stealing from another Amazon review, which no doubt influenced my opinion as I was reading the book) is that there are thousands of assertions made about what women were not only doing but thinking, without any references for those assertions. Second, there was a political/opinionated feel to what the author wrote at many times. I don't need my material regurgitated for me; I'd like the information so that I can analyze it myself, which is hard to do when there aren't many sources actually linked or discussed in the text itself! So I guess source plus opinion would be fine in my book, or just source, but not mostly just opinion. As the author is a librarian and includes a bibliography, I'm sure that she did have sources for much of what she wrote; she just didn't share them with the reader throughout the book so that we could evaluate their significance and prevalence for ourselves. Again, let us think for ourselves! I'm still giving this book three stars because I learned some new things and there were some times that I enjoyed reading it. I'm looking forward to exploring more in this genre and specific subject.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

LovetoCookTop Contributor: Cooking

Often very opinionated without clear sources

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2016

I love to cook and I love psychology and history, so I was very excited to read this book, but it was rather boring, and I found myself looking forward to being finished with it. My biggest criticism (which I am stealing from another Amazon review, which no doubt influence my opinion as I was reading the book) is that there are thousands of assertions made about what women were not only doing but thinking, without any references for those assertions. Second, there was a political/opinionated feel to what the author wrote at many times. I don't need my material regurgitated for me; I'd like the information so that I can analyze it myself, which is hard to do when there aren't many sources actually linked or discussed in the text itself! So I guess source plus opinion would be fine in my book, or just source, but not mostly just opinion. As a librarian and based on the bibliography, I'm sure that the author did have sources for much of what she wrote; she just didn't share them with the reader throughout the book so that we could evaluate their significance and prevalence for ourselves. I'm still giving this book three stars because I learned some new things and there were some times that I enjoyed reading it. I'm looking forward to exploring more in this genre and specific subject.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

LovetoCookTop Contributor: Cooking

More opinion that source material; a bit boring

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2016

I love to cook and I love psychology and history, so I was very excited to read this book, but it was rather boring (I wish I could say why!), and I found myself looking forward to being finished with it. My biggest criticism (which I am stealing from another Amazon review, which no doubt influenced my opinion as I was reading the book) is that there are thousands of assertions made about what women were not only doing but thinking, without any references for those assertions. Second, there was a political/opinionated feel to what the author wrote at many times. I don't need my material regurgitated for me; I'd like the information so that I can analyze it myself, which is hard to do when there aren't many sources actually linked or discussed in the text itself! So I guess source plus opinion would be fine in my book, or just source, but not mostly just opinion. As the author is a librarian and includes a bibliography, I'm sure that she did have sources for much of what she wrote; she just didn't share them with the reader throughout the book so that we could evaluate their significance and prevalence for ourselves. Again, let us think for ourselves! I'm still giving this book three stars because I learned some new things and there were some times that I enjoyed reading it. I'm looking forward to exploring more in this genre and specific subject.

Helpful

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Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?: American Women and the Kitchen in the Twentieth Century Hardcover – August 1, 2000

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