Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2002 | Page 12
Popular Culture Review
eye. ‘T he art of embroidery has been the means of educating women into the
feminine ideal, and of proving that they have attained it,” Parker writes. “But it has
also provided a weapon of resistance to the constraints of femininity.”'*According
to Parker, “women have nevertheless sewn a subversive stitch — managed to make
meanings of their own in the very medium intended to inculcate self-effacement.”^
In this paper, I will argue in a similar way that we need to look more carefully at
the history of women and food to discover the ways in which women have used
food to accomplish ends which are quite different from what we have originally
assumed. How did wome n use food in order to resist the constraints of femininity
or to subversively map out new meanings of their own when casual observers
might have only assumed, as the Sudbury editorialist did, that women were “forever
lunching”?
Studying rural women’s organisations through an examination of the
records left by each local group, one is struck by the fact that virtually every monthly
minute book entry ends by stating that “a lovely lunch was enjoyed by all,” or that
“the hostess served a dainty cup of tea.” What is a researcher to make of this
shared experience that was repeated every time the women met? Because it fell
outside the parameters of the business portion of the meeting, no transcript of the
ensuing discussions was recorded. One can only extrapolate about the conversations
that were exchanged over the teacups. Was the lunch served here simply a social
nicety that built pretension into the meetings and led to exclusive practices? The
minute books do sometimes record that limits had to be placed on the menu that
was offered, so that members would offer only sandwiches and one type of cake,
but not pie. Evidently, some members had begun using the occasion of the monthly
luncheon to demonstrate their families’ economic status. It seems that some
competition was brewing over who could serve the most extensive treats, and the
members had to continually call themselves back to simplicity. Moreover, part of
the female culture of the day was the demonstration of one’s culinary skill and the
monthly meeting became a site for exhibiting that talent. On more formal occasions,
the minute book might record the names of those who had the honour of “pouring”
at an afternoon tea. This duty often fell to young unmarried women for whom it
was an occasion of both privilege and pressure.
The purpose of the lunch, members reminded one another, was not to
make a burden of the task of hosting, but rather to provide a forum to encourage
friendships among the members. For many of the rural women who joined the
Women’s Institute, that monthly meeting followed, by a cup of tea, was an important
antidote to the isolation they experienced in their work routines at home on the
farm. Indeed, the opportunity to gather in an all-female setting was something
they looked forward to and valued very much. The WI was particularly appreciated
in the northern reaches of the province where sparse settlement dictated that one