"I work in the ordinary and the banal," Kaufmann says. "It interests me and it interests more and more readers." He had thought that mealtimes would provide a droll light subject but found it complex and grave instead.What is more risky: cooking for others or allowing someone to cook for you? No wonder we prefer to nourish ourselves with casual snacks and fast food.
The complexity lies in the fact that French housewives dream that cooking will bring them happiness and love.... There may be a bit of narcissism there, notes Kaufmann, who adds that cooking is not all virtue and grace....
There has ... been a revolution in French eating habits.... A recipe is no longer a guide for beginners, Kaufmann says, "but an instrument to perform an existential rupture." Nothing in family cooking is anodyne, he writes at least twice, and the seemingly modest phrase "Oh, it's just something simple" merits detailed deconstruction.
September 25, 2005
"Cuisine is sacrifice. There may be joy but there is also pain."
Writes the sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann, (via A&L Daily):
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13 comments:
Ann, I'm sorry, I find nothing sociologically significant about the act of preparing food. I enjoy cooking, even for myself. The food tastes better.
His book sounds like just another excuse to bash families and their Empty, Western Existence!
PatC: Even though some of his language is pretentious, I think food preparation is highly signifcant from a sociological standpoint! It has a lot to do with the structure of the family, sex roles, child rearing, the carrying on of tradition, bonding rituals, etc., etc.
Mmm... this one is complex. I am right now on the downhill side of simmering up a pot of family-recipe Sicilian-style spaghetti and homemade meatballs. A loaf of Mark Bittman's 60-minute bread is rising in my oven on "proof" cycle. And yet, I am not sure any of my kids will eat a plate tonight. So, am I trying to buy my family's love with my food? I think so, somewhere down deep. Am I trying to buy my own happiness? Yes. Yes, I think I am. I'm with you on this one, Ann.. it's sociologically significant and speaks deeply to how important my family is to me, and how much I want to nurture them, physically and psychologically.
My cooking obsession has grown over the years (I never cooked as a child or adolescent), and now, for Xmas and birthdays, I get kitchen gadgets and cookbooks!
TCD.. You are so right! Today, it's become "acceptable" (not to me) to open a bag of something frozen, put it in a skillet and you "made" dinner. ARRRGH! Sippi... I am sorry your life sucks. It must, or you would appreciate food and the work that goes into preparing it.
I don't know what is more risky. I do know I really like to cook. The old tried and true, and the adventuresome.
As the only male in my household for many years, serving anywhere from 3 to 7 female people, I have generally prepared on a weekly basis more than 1/2 of the dinners. For company, typically, I do the entree and the wife and daughters do most of the sides. Everyone seems to still enjoy this division of labor. And more importantly, they enjoy the food.
All five of my daughters (no sons in my brood) like to cook and are pretty good at it.
Cuisine is no sacrifice for us. But sacre bleu, we're not french.
Mon sante is just fine. I've read you before, Sipp, and you just seem so.. I don't know... Ready to doo-doo on everyone's parade. So yeah, I am sorry for you. You always come back with some comment about how you are way better off than whatever your last comment seemed to indicate. I just don't get your type. I read your blog, and you don't seem like someone who will eat just anything... but yet...
Maybe that's just the way you post. To try to belittle what we're trying to say... I mean, Dood, it's just Food??? OK. So it's just food to you, so you will eat anything? That's certainly the way that sounds to me.
Sippi... You're being taken all wrong, I guess. Post differently and I think you will be taken differently.
Dinner was great, btw. The broiled white peaches with mascarpone cream were exceptional. But I'm getting another glass of Muscat. Now.
I agree that there could be a sociological case to be made here, but the author, based on the article, didn't do it. The article quotes a few of his interviewees who assume a nostaligized past and relate an emotionally impoverished present. Didn't mothers, before McDonald's, get ticked off that the kids didn't like the meal or that the husband tuned out?
It's interesting but not I think a significant comment on a sociological group.
Oh dear.
A continuation of the theme we had all this summer, when several French-lifestyle/dieting books came out -- the better to show how superior the French appreciation of food is, than Americans.
It may be true, but gosh darn it, these people never had a mess of greens like I have.
Anyway, this book by Kaufmann sounds dull and pretentious.
At least this one, by Mireille Guiliano, French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating For Pleasure, was at least an one-hour easy read, whose basic premise is:
Americans are obese because of their helping size, and lack of exercise (deuh).
French women know you can stuff your piehole but with several courses, not one huge-ass Denny's Grand Slam breakfast.
There I just saved people who hadn't read it $24.95.
Please donate to The Chirac-Finnish-British Food Foundation on PayPal instead.
Cheers,
Victoria
Great shot, Victoria. Bullseye.
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