HIST/WGST 296: EAT, DRINK, MAN, WOMAN: A GENDERED HISTORY OF
FOOD
M/Th 9:20-10:50am
M/Th 2-3:20 pm
Adam Knobler
Office: Forcina 244
Office Hours: M 11-12:20/Th 12:30-1:50pm
Phone: x2204
E-Mail: knobler@tcnj.edu
This course is designed to introduce students to the role of food consumption and
preparation in defining gender roles throughout the history of western societies, from the
Classical to the modern periods. As this is a very broad topic, we will examine the
intersection of food and gender through specific case studies taken from different periods
of time.
Readings will consist of both primary and secondary sources: readings from the past, and
present-day commentaries.
Students will be evaluated on the basis of three elements:
1) A paper, worth 45% of the final grade, which discusses/argues the statement, “The
History of Food is the History of Sexuality.”
Students may approach this question in one of two ways:
a) Through writing an essay, approaching the question through a comprehensive
discussion of the assigned readings for the course.
b) Through writing a case study, approaching the question through an original piece of
research on a topic of their own choosing.
The paper is due before you leave for Thanksgiving vacation.
2) A 20 minute oral examination, to be taken at any mutually convenient time during the
semester or during the final examination week, in which the student will be asked to
consider the question:
“What is the relationship between food, consumption and my chosen major, discipline or
avocation?”
One week prior to the examination, students should submit to the instructor a list of five
questions, related to the above theme. The instructor will ask one of the five questions at
the exam. The list of questions will be graded for originality, comprehensiveness and
thoughtfulness and will be worth 10% of the total grade. The exam itself will be worth
20% of the total grade.
3) Classcontribution, worth 25% of the total grade. This entails active participation in
class discussions, asking questions of the instructor and of other students, and doing all
the assigned reading.
There are eight required texts for purchase, which will be available in the College
Bookstore:
Reay Tannahill, Food in history
Tivka Frymer-Kensky, In the wake of the goddesses
Margaret Visser, The rituals of dinner
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Tastes of paradise
Katherine Jellison, Entitled to power
Laura Esquivel, Like water for chocolate
Consuming geographies
Peter Stearns, Fat history
In addition, there will be some required readings that will be part of a course packet,
available for purchase from the Instructor at the beginning of the Second Class. Packet
readings are marked below with an asterisk (*).
7 September Introduction
11 September
Lecture: Food in prehistory: hunting, collecting and gathering
A discussion of the basic gendered divisions that develop in prehistory between those
who collected food such as honey (done by both sexes), those who gathered pulses and
fungi close to home (women) and those who followed and hunted game (men).
Readings: Tannahill, chap. 2
*Jared Diamond , “What are men good for?” Natural history 102 (May 1993)
14 September
Lecture: Cereals and goddesses
As women were distanced from animal domestication and husbandry, they were
increasingly associated with the roles in the growing and preparation of cereals. The
close association of earth-as-woman/goddess comes to be an element of many classical
belief systems. Women’s roles as domestic brewers of potent, alcoholic drinks, also
contributes to their “magical” and “divine” attributes.
Readings: Tannahill, chap. 3
*E.O. James, "Vegetation cultus," from Seasonal feasts and festivals
18 September
DISCUSSION:
Readings: Tivka Fremer-Kensky, In the wake of the goddess
21 September
Lecture: Milk and meat: Food, Gender and Judaism
Those aspects of agriculture which had become associated with men (husbandry) were
established as standards for domestic order and diet. Dietary laws focus on meat/milk
dichotomy, and not focused on plants.
Readings: Tannahill, chap. 4
*Selections from Leviticus
25 September
Lecture: Wine, oil and bread: Greece & Rome
How the three domestic food staples of the Mediterranean region became instrumental in
the establishment of formalized religious rituals and how women’s roles in these sacral
rituals became increasingly lessened with establishment of Christianity.
Readings: Tannahill, chaps. 5-6
*Walter F. Otto, Dionysus, chap. 15
*Arthur Evans, God of ecstasy, chaps. 2-3
*Gisella Sissa and Marcelle Detienne, Daily lives of the Greek gods
28 September
Lecture: Establishing the Table community: Food in Early Christianity
How Christianity defined itself expressly as a table community: who may take part in the
sacramental meal. How women were gradually excluded from this central food
consumption ritual.
Readings: Tannahill, chap. 7
2 October
DISCUSSION
Readings: sel from Marcel Detienne, The Gardens of Adonis
5 October
Lecture: Famine , farming, fasting & brewing: Gender & food in the Middle Ages
The role of gender and its application to the new farming technologies of the Middle
Ages. Self-denial as a core value in mystical medieval Christianity. The desire to fast or
purge as penance or as a devotional act for women. Consumption of eucharist as
religious/sexual act.
Readings: Tannahill, chap. 12
*Barbara Hanawalt, Ties that bound, chaps. 8-9
*Judith M. Bennett, "The Village Ale-Wife: Women and Brewing in 14th century
England" from Women and work in pre-Industrial Europe
*Carolyn Walker Bynum, "Fast, Feast and Flesh: the religious significance of food to
medieval women"
9 October: YOM KIPPUR: NO CLASS (FASTING DAY)
12 October
Lecture: Manners
The development of strict, class-oriented codes of behavior associated with the
consumption of food. Women as mistresses of their tables, responsible for the new
domestic order of the early modern period
Readings: Tannahill, chap. 13
16 October
DISCUSSION
Readings: Margaret Visser, The rituals of dinner
19 October
Lecture: The New Worlds
The first and most important imported food stuffs. How sugar, spice and the profits from
their trade worked to emphasize class distinctions. The gendered associations of the new
drinking crazes (tea, coffee and chocolate).
Readings: Tannahill, chap. 15
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Tastes of paradise, chaps. 2-3
*Steve Pincus, “’Coffee politicians does make,’” Journal of Modern history 67
(December 1995)
*Selections from 17th century coffee/anti-coffee tracts
23 October
Lectur/Discussion: Pubs, Taverns & Alehouses: Public Drinking
While the salons and coffeehouses came to be the refuges for men of the bourgeois and
upper orders of European societies, men (and some women) of the lower orders retreated
to ale houses, taverns and, eventually, public houses and bars. Drinking as a "masculine"
vice.
Readings: Tannahill, chap. 17
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Tastes of paradise, chaps. 5-7
*Madelon Powers, "Women and public drinking," History Today 45(Feb. 1995), 46-52
26 October
Lecture/Discussion: Mother's Milk: Enlightenment & Breast Feeding
Breast Feeding, that most basic of human feeding practices, becomes emblematic for
many men and women of the late Enlightenment and Revolutionary periods as a sign of
the liberation of women, the definition of "good motherhood" and the nurturing capacity
of the state.
Readings: *Londa Schiebinger, "Why mammals are called mammals," American
historical review 98 (April 1993)
*Valerie Lastinger , Re-defining motherhood: Breast-Feeding the French
Enlightenment," Women's studies 25/6 (1996), 603-17
*Mary Jacobus, "Breast feeding the nation,"
30 October
Lecture/Discussion: Killing floors and whaling decks
The development of industrialized food production through whaling and the
slaughterhouse as men’s tasks in the food industry. Animal slaughter as masculine labor.
Homophilia and same-sex relations as an aspect of the seafaring/fishing life.
Readings: Tannahill, chap. 19
*Lisa Norling, “Ahab’s wife: women and the American whaling industry”; Margaret
Creighton, “Davy Jones’ Locker Room: Gender and the American whaleman”; from Iron
men, wooden women
*“Women and knives” from Noelie Vialles, Animal to edible
*Carol Adams, "Sexual politics of meat", Heresies
2 November
Lecture: Farm & Garden
The home garden (feminine) and the farmer in his field (masculine) as gendered
archetypes in 19th century literature, bears out with the development of fruit and
vegetables and commercially viable foodstuffs.
Readings:
*Sel. From The Virago book of women gardeners
*Susan Groag Bell, “Women create gardens in male landscapes,” Feminist studies 16
(1990)
*L.J. Borish "Another domestic beast of burden", Journal of American culture 18(1995),
83-100
*L.J. Borish, "Farm females, fitness and the ideology of physical health in antebellum
New England," Agricultural history 64/3 (1990)
*Shaunna Scott, "Drudges, helpers and team players", Rural sociology 61 (1996), 209-26
*Bengt Ankarloo, "Agriculture and women's work," Journal of family history 4/2 (1979),
111-36
6 November
DISCUSSION
Readings: Katherine Jellison, Entitled to power
9 November
Lecture/Discussion: The New Domesticity
The development of the new domestic order as a “woman’s” equivalent to men’s military
duty and discipline.
Readings: *Sel. From Isabella Mary Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household
management
*Sel. from Laura Shapiro, Perfection salad
13 November
Lecture/Discussion: Dining Out: the Restaurant
The restaurant as sexual space and the changing role of waitress as server and controller
of defined space.
Readings: *Meika Loe, “Working for men…,” Sociological inquiry 66 (Fall 1996)
*Gloria Steinem, “I was a Playboy bunny,” from Outrageous acts and everyday rebellions
*Jeannie S. Rhee, "Redressing for success," Harvard Women's Law Journal 20 (Spring
1997), 163-204
Consuming geographies, chap. 5.
*Sel. from Greta Foff Paules, Dishing it out
16 November
Lecture/Discussion: Dining In: the Kitchen
With the development of ever-increasing methods of “time-saving” in the kitchen, we
shall look at the development of the modern kitchen in the 20th century as both liberator
and oppressor of the “housewife.” How the development of fast foods and TV dinners
were related to the reshaping and reunification of an idealized family structure following
WW2.
Readings: *Karal Ann Marling, “Betty Crocker’s Picture book,” from As seen on TV
*Sel. From Voices of American homemakers, ed. Eleanor Arnold
Consuming geographies, chap. 3.
20 November
DISCUSSION: Food and Sex: Personal Tastes
What is the relationship between sexual contact and food?
Readings: *sel. from Women's conflicts about eating and sexuality
23 November: THANKSGIVING BREAK (FEAST DAYS)
27 November
DISCUSSION
Readings: Laura Esquivel, Like water for chocolate
30 November
Lecture: Food and the Modern Body: General themes
Food has become increasingly identified with sexual appeal, particularly for younger
women. A discussion of the diet, diets, eating disorders and their relation to expectations
and standards for female beauty in contemporary culture.
Readings: Consuming geographies, ch. 2.
4 December
Lecture/Discussion: Eating as enemy
The history of eating disorders and their relationship to contemporary American attitudes
toward beauty, sexuality and gender.
Readings: *Joan Brumberg, "Appetite as voice"
*Sel. from Kim Chernin, Obsession
*Sel. from Kim Chernin, Hungry self
7 December
Lecture/Discussion: Fatness as Cultural construct
How Euro-American culture has tended to define notions of American beauty and
attitudes towards food consumption, and how such notions are challenged and redefined
in African-American, Latino/a and Asian-American communities.
Readings: *Marvalene Hughes "Soul, Black Women and food"
*Sel. from Emily Massara, Que Gordita
*"Hunger" from Naomi Wolf, The Beauty myth
*Sel. from Susan Bordo, Unbearable weight
11December
DISCUSSION
Readings: Peter Stearns, Fat history
14 December
FINAL CONCLUSIONS