Forkways #15:

"I am obsessed with M F K Fisher.

The Gastronomical Me is such a foundational book as far as seeming to be about being food but actually about becoming a woman.

I think that I am reading about pea soup on an ocean liner but I am in tears.

Food is a metaphor for transportation."

- Stephanie Danler, interview

Fisher and Danler both write about food in different ways. Although Fisher is possibly one of the most influential writers about food, yet I find something about the way she write inaccessible. I think time has changed the role of women in food over the past twenty year, and especially in my own household.

At our house, my husband does most of the cooking. First of all he does it because he likes it. Second of all, especially a few years ago, he was the one who had time to put into shopping and meal planning. Third, I make huge messes when I cook. We constantly find the social expectations of cooking pressed upon us by friends and family. I am often ask if I cook as well, and finally I found the right answer. "He is the cook, and I am the critique." Without me he never would have transformed himself from a person who prepares food into a home chef.

I think because of this interesting experience, I don't have these deep connection with my womanhood and food. At a most basic level food is about providing. Sometimes we add in the love and sometimes it gets tossed in the trash bin with the broken egg shells.