CAN SHE BAKE A CHERRY PIE?

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.