The Dinner Party, Judy Chicago, 1974-1979
http://deepartnature.blogspot.com/2010/09/judy-chicago.html
I seriously love food. I'm the girl who gushes about Yottam Ottolenghi's latest Soho restaurant and ventures, by herself, food guide in hand, down to Brixton to try a pizza place she's been reading about for weeks. This year, my Studio Art concentration was all about food: its presentation, history, diversity and overall monumentality in our daily lives. To me, it's not just sustenance or an aspect of domesticity, but a multi-sensory art - an avenue through which we exert creativity, cultivate values and instill tradition. I wonder if this characteristic - an obsession with food - is truly a "feminine" phenomenon.
The preparation of food has conventionally been considered as part of the feminine "sphere." While men have hunted or worked to provide the raw materials, it is women who, historically, with a nuanced knowledge of preparation, transform material into sustenance for others. Perhaps we generally possess superior fine motor skills, or perhaps it's because women are generally characterized with generosity, selflessness and servility. Whatever the cause, culinary skills are deeply associated with female domesticity and have become crucial aspect of the complete "homemaking" process. While I believe that this expectation has imprisoned unwilling women to the responsibilities of kitchen, it has also allowed an invaluable creative, artistic outlet for females. I've seen this in the texts we've read thus far.
A painting from my Studio Art Portfolio
The preparation of food has conventionally been considered as part of the feminine "sphere." While men have hunted or worked to provide the raw materials, it is women who, historically, with a nuanced knowledge of preparation, transform material into sustenance for others. Perhaps we generally possess superior fine motor skills, or perhaps it's because women are generally characterized with generosity, selflessness and servility. Whatever the cause, culinary skills are deeply associated with female domesticity and have become crucial aspect of the complete "homemaking" process. While I believe that this expectation has imprisoned unwilling women to the responsibilities of kitchen, it has also allowed an invaluable creative, artistic outlet for females. I've seen this in the texts we've read thus far.
In Jasmine, Bharati Mukerjee seamlessly integrates casual references to the protagonist's cooking alongside the development of the plot. The author tells us that, in Jasmine's context, food is more than sustenance. She reflects: "A good Hasnapur wife doesn't eat just because she is hungry. Food is a way of granting or with holding love"(216). What Jasmine makes seems intimately wrapped up with what she does and does not give, choses to conceal or reveal. When she lives with Lillian Gordon and her Kanjobal guests, the sharing of culinary practices is a critical form of communication, of cultural exchange. Jasmine recounts, "They showed me how to pat grainy tortilla dough into shape, and I showed them how to roll the thinnest, roundest chipatis. And Lillian taught us all how to cook hamburgers and roasts" (134). The women in the house adopt a collective, culinary vocabulary, and gain a greater understanding of each other.
Frequently, Jasmine's fusion cooking is reflective of her divided cultural identity. While at first her Indian dishes seem discordant amongst the traditional American fare, her meals do find a place within her environment. She says, "People are getting used to some of my concoctions, even if they make a show of fanning their mouths. They get disappointed if there's not something Indian on the table"(9). While her culinary style may have been "alien," it has become a critical part of her American meal-time experiences. She makes peace with what she has retained as well as adopted in the culinary world. Jasmine explains, "I took gobi aloo to the Lutheran Relief Fund craft fair last week. I am subverting the taste buds of Elsa County. I put some of last night's matar panir in the microwave. It goes well with pork, believe me"(19).
Frequently, Jasmine's fusion cooking is reflective of her divided cultural identity. While at first her Indian dishes seem discordant amongst the traditional American fare, her meals do find a place within her environment. She says, "People are getting used to some of my concoctions, even if they make a show of fanning their mouths. They get disappointed if there's not something Indian on the table"(9). While her culinary style may have been "alien," it has become a critical part of her American meal-time experiences. She makes peace with what she has retained as well as adopted in the culinary world. Jasmine explains, "I took gobi aloo to the Lutheran Relief Fund craft fair last week. I am subverting the taste buds of Elsa County. I put some of last night's matar panir in the microwave. It goes well with pork, believe me"(19).
While culinary responsibility is frequently conceived as a chore for women, I believe it can be such a valuable outlet (as it is in Jasmine's case) in crafting one's own identity. In a very fundamental, primal setting, women can pay tribute to where they come from as well as acknowledge new influences with what they put on the table.
I can't help but think of Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party"(pictured above), a feminist art piece centered around the ritual of mealtime. Chicago created a triangular table, with place settings for monumental mythical and historical women in history. The Egyptian queen Hatshepsut is seated at the table along the likes of Sacajawea, Mary Wollestonecraft, Georgia O'Keefe, Elizabeth Blackwell and Virginia Woolf. Chicago includes and elevates other stereotypically "feminine" crafts, like embroidery, in the piece. The women are all represented collectively at the symbolic "meal," but each is seated at a place entirely her own, adorned with a uniquely designed "plate" and a series of objects relating to her life.
Rather fittingly, in The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf quotes Virginia Wolf, who is known to have said :
"One cannot think well, sleep well, love well if one has not dined well"(197).
I can't help but think of Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party"(pictured above), a feminist art piece centered around the ritual of mealtime. Chicago created a triangular table, with place settings for monumental mythical and historical women in history. The Egyptian queen Hatshepsut is seated at the table along the likes of Sacajawea, Mary Wollestonecraft, Georgia O'Keefe, Elizabeth Blackwell and Virginia Woolf. Chicago includes and elevates other stereotypically "feminine" crafts, like embroidery, in the piece. The women are all represented collectively at the symbolic "meal," but each is seated at a place entirely her own, adorned with a uniquely designed "plate" and a series of objects relating to her life.
Rather fittingly, in The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf quotes Virginia Wolf, who is known to have said :
"One cannot think well, sleep well, love well if one has not dined well"(197).
http://sharonbarfoot.tumblr.com/post/3811932766/virginia-woolf-place-setting-from-the-dinner-party
Mary Wollestonecraft's place setting
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/mary_wollstonecraft.php
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