By Caitlin Cregan

The Feminism of Early Modern Recipe Books

The early modern era in Europe provided some women with opportunities for advancement within society while simultaneously limiting others to the confines of a patriarchal society. Studying history through the lens of gender provides historians with more nuanced explanations for the organization of European society while highlighting the complexities and diversity of womens’ experiences during this time period. As literacy rates rose among women due to an expansion of both formal and informal educational opportunities, women demonstrated their knowledge of household and nutritional information by the creation of recipe books. The creation of recipe books became popularized within the early modern era and they provide an important glimpse into the daily life of women at the time. Further studying the household as a site of knowledge production offers suggestions into how relationships in the private sphere were formed between women and men, and how this dynamic shifted due to the creation of recipe books.

One of the main questions this essay seeks to answer is whether the construction and distribution of recipe books can be viewed as a type of feminism. Furthermore, how did the construction of recipe books restructure gender hierarchies and power dynamics within the household? This paper will analyze how recipe books influenced society and if they sought to challenge or reinforce patriarchal ideals. Ultimately, the creation and distribution of recipe books should be viewed as a type of feminism. For the purposes of this paper, feminism can be viewed as new opportunities for women to exert their agency while offering new economic, political and social opportunities in the increasingly globalized world. This is an appropriate descriptor for understanding and analyzing recipe books because women publicly displayed their medicinal and nutritional knowledge, which also highlighted the depth and breadth of the knowledge women possessed. In this way, the construction of recipe books can be viewed as a type of feminist activity because the women who created recipe books challenged existing gendered and patriarchal notions. Furthermore, recipe books provided economic, political, and social opportunities for upward mobility that challenged the patriarchal structure. While recipe books were produced collaboratively by men and women, this engagement can be viewed as a type of feminist activity because it allowed women to promote their knowledge even thought it was within the confines of a patriarchal household. Women obtained and exerted a great deal of agency with the creation of recipe books, and this act can be viewed within the larger framework of society as a type of feminism.

The creation of recipe books can be viewed as a type of feminism because the act itself often involved the help of family members. This is important because the act of cooking and talking about recipes was one that was both social and intellectual. For instance, historian Elaine Leong asserts that the early modern household was one which particularly fostered collaboration between different households and family members where both men and women occupied various positions within the household structure working alongside one another.^[1] This is an important point because the creation of recipe books enabled women to work alongside men, while re-altering the structure of the household to one that was more egalitarian. Although some male authority figures believed part of their responsibility included overseeing the production of household recipes, women subtly challenged this notion by producing recipe books. This demonstrates that the construction of recipe books then was nuanced, complex, and cannot be generalized. Many historians argue that the household was a site of knowledge production because not only did the act itself involve multiple people, but it also provided opportunities for intellectually stimulating conversations between both men and women. For instance, a recipe book written by Lady Ranelagh alongside the help of her family provides an interesting case study to further examine the topic of conversation while cooking. Lady Ranelagh was an Anglo-Irish scientist, political and religious philosopher in seventeenth century Britain. Her brother, Robert Boyle, is regarded as one of the founders of modern day chemistry and contributed to several scientific findings. This manuscript also known as “The Boyle Family Recipe” was produced in the seventeenth century and demonstrates the complexities of recording and documenting recipes. In this particular recipe book, Lady Ranelagh experimented with chemistry alongside her brother and learned a great deal about her family history. Furthermore, the manuscript offers evidence that there was significant correspondence between the siblings that detailed collaboration on medical, religious, and natural philosophical projects. Lady Ranelagh and Boyle had a long-acknowledged, but under-documented domestic collaboration.^[2] This is important because Lady Ranelagh became educated and well versed in academic fields that were typically male dominated at the time. Women experienced limitations to accessing intellectual and scientific communities during this time period, so it is even more valuable that certain women could break gender barriers. It is most probable that her brother contributed to the attainment of her knowledge in this academic field, because the act of recipe books was collaborative. In this way, the creation of recipe books can be viewed as a type of feminism because women were participating in intellectual conversations and becoming educated in new areas of study. The household served as a site of experimental and empirical knowledge creation and sharing because by engaging with siblings, husbands and men, women were able to construct a household that reordered gender hierarchies. As more and more women began working alongside their male counterparts, this act decreased the gap of patriarchal control.

Furthermore, the creation of recipe books can be viewed as a type of feminism because it afforded new opportunities for women within the economic marketplace. What started as a task within the household soon transformed into one that granted some women opportunities for advancement within society by participating in the economy and labor force. Viewing these opportunities should be understood within the context of class, because not all women were afforded these avenues of advancement. Typically, women of the upper class who were wealthy or widowed with lots of money could participate because they had the financial resources and flexibility to take risks in new enterprises. Earlier in the semester me and another classmate had the opportunity to re-create an eighteenth century biscuit cake recipe from England. This recipe highlights the ways that class contributed to the construction of recipes because it called for rosewater, an ingredient that is indicative of a wealthier family.^[3] In this way, the feminism created by recipe books was somewhat limiting because it did not include women of all races or classes. However, women that had male support and the financial resources were able to expand their knowledge into the economy and labor market through the process of distillation, the act of purifying a liquid. Distillation was important to women because it became a means for them to expand their domestic knowledge into the marketplace in hopes of making a profit. For instance, historian Katherine Allen argues how the transformation of domestic knowledge became commercial when she asserts, “An affinity for distillation signifies that the women who compiled recipes had experimental aptitude and an interest in both the written tradition of distillation recipes and the technical process itself”.^[4] This is important because the creation of recipe books acted as a type of agency that allowed women to expand their network and labor opportunities. The expansion of women’s presence into the marketplace can be viewed as a type of feminism because it granted women a certain type of social and economic independence. Yet it is important to acknowledge that this type of feminism was not accessible to all women because entrance to the commercial workplace was dependent upon patriarchal support, and most women tried to defend their access to the marketplace so they would not regress into private spheres of production. Consequently, the type of feminism garnered in this light was constructed at the extent of patriarchal control. Ultimately, the knowledge that certain women possessed because of recipe books enabled them to expand their network and work within the marketplace.

Recipe books permitted women in the Early Modern Era to demonstrate their knowledge to society, which allowed them to create avenues to break down gender norms. The ways that certain recipe books were published and distributed within societies reveal the impact and legacy these manuscripts created. For instance as historian Elaine Leong asserts, “Historians of medicine see the early modern home as one of the main sites for medical intervention and health promotion”. In this way, these early modern recipe books provide insight to the ways women could exert their agency in both the household and in society. The circulation of these recipes helped spread knowledge and information. Additionally, women were able to display their intelligence for a public audience by creating recipe books, highlighting their knowledge on a multitude of medicinal and nutritional ingredients. A manuscript produced by Katharine Palmer from England during the eighteenth century displays a diversified list of recipes ranging from a cooked calf’s head to cheesecakes to elder wine.^[5] In this way, women publicly displayed their knowledge creating ways for them to garner agency. For instance, Historian Katherine Allen argues that recipe books testified to the existence of complex knowledge systems, such as natural philosophy, alchemy, and crafts while reflecting a deep engagement with scientific thought and practice.^[6] Academic disciplines such as the sciences were often associated with masculinity and were dominated by males only. The fact that women engaged with and produced work within a typically male dominated field prove how this act can be perceived as breaking down cultural norms and gender barriers. Furthermore, women broke academic barriers and exerted themselves in the scientific field through the creation of medicinal recipes to cure diseases and other ailments. Lady Ranelagh, member of the Boyle Family and sister to scientist Robert Boyle, indulged in this academic discipline by writing medicinal recipes. In a recipe for how to cure a toothache, Lady Ranelagh includes masculine ingredients such as gunpowder, while also advising on how to ease the pain through anatomical knowledge.^[7] This recipe displays Lady Ranelagh’s scientific knowledge and is suggestive of how she broke gender barriers through her medicinal writing of recipe books. Just as Lady Ranelagh’s understanding of medicinal cures and scientific knowledge was rare for women, it is important because of the meaning these ingredients held. Food and medicine were symbolic of ideas as those who consumed and read these recipe books attributed meaning to these recipes.

*SEE ATTACHED IMAGE*

Suggestions for how to cure a toothache from the “Boyle Family Recipe”, a family recipe book that was written between 1675 and 1710.

Food itself holds symbolic meanings and as Arlene Avakian asserts, “Yet neither the food we eat and the meaning it conveys nor the identities food practices help to construct are fixed; like cultures, they change over time and space”.^[8] Certain ingredients were connected with the patriarchy, but they were used by women in their recipe books to demonstrate knowledge by challenging patriarchal norms. Women were able to display the extent of their knowledge through recipe books while also breaking down gender norms.

Ultimately, the creation and distribution of recipe books can be viewed as a type of feminism, because it afforded certain women a new type of agency and means of upward political, social, and economic mobility. Through the creation and circulation of recipe books women demonstrated their knowledge of various disciplines and displayed their knowledge in a public way. By creating recipes within the house, the household became a site of knowledge production, which enabled women to challenge the gender hierarchy and become more of an equal to that of their husband. The agency that women created for themselves through the construction of recipe books was defined within the boundaries of patriarchal control. The legacy that these recipe books left display the influence and impact these manuscripts had. The creation of recipe books can be viewed as a type of feminism because it enabled women to display their knowledge and restructure gender hierarchies while also obtaining new opportunities for themselves.

Bibliography

Allen, Katherine. “Hobby and Craft: Distilling Household Medicine in Eighteenth-Century England.” Early Modern Women 11, no. 1 (2016): 90–114.

Avakian, Arlene. “Cooking Up Lives: Feminist Food Memoirs.” Feminist Studies 40, no. 2 (2014): 277–303.

Boyle Family Recipe, 1675-1710. Wellcome Library.

DiMeo, Michelle. “Lady Ranelagh’s Book of Kitchen-Physick?: Reattributing Authorship for Wellcome Library MS 1340.” Huntington Library Quarterly 77, no. 3 (2014): 331–46. https://doi.org/10.1525/hlq.2014.77.3.331.

Leong, Elaine. “Collecting Knowledge for the Family: Recipes, Gender and Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern English Household.” Centaurus; International Magazine of the History of Science and Medicine 55, no. 2 (May 2013): 81–103. https://doi.org/10.1111/1600-0498.12019.

Palmer, Katharine. A Collection of Ye Best Receipts. England, Eighteenth Century.

Wellcome Library. “Cookery-Books: 18th Cent.” Accessed November 2, 2020. http://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b19366863.

^[1]Elaine Leong, “Collecting Knowledge for the Family: Recipes, Gender and Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern English Household,” Centaurus; International Magazine of the History of Science and Medicine 55, no. 2 (May 2013), 96.

^[2] Michelle DiMeo, “Lady Ranelagh’s Book of Kitchen-Physick?: Reattributing Authorship for Wellcome Library MS 1340,” Huntington Library Quarterly 77, no. 3 (2014), 332.

^[3] Wellcome Library. “Cookery-Books: 18th Cent.” Accessed November 2, 2020.

^[4] Katherine Allen, “Hobby and Craft: Distilling Household Medicine in Eighteenth-Century England,” Early Modern Women 11, no. 1 (2016), 93.

^[5] Katharine Palmer, A Collection of Ye Best Receipts (England, Eighteenth Century).

^[6] Katherine Allen, “Hobby and Craft: Distilling Household Medicine in Eighteenth-Century England,” 93.

^[7] “Boyle Family Recipe”, 1675-1710. Wellcome Library.

^[8] Arlene Avakian, “Cooking Up Lives: Feminist Food Memoirs,” Feminist Studies 40, no. 2 (2014), 280.