Copyright by Melanie Kathryn Haupt 2012
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Copyright by Melanie Kathryn Haupt 2012 The Dissertation Committee for Melanie Kathryn Haupt Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Starting from Scratch: Community, Connection, and Women’s Culinary Culture Committee: Domino Renee Pérez, Supervisor Patricia Roberts-Miller Elizabeth Engelhardt Lisa L. Moore Neville Hoad Starting from Scratch: Community, Connection, and Women’s Culinary Culture by Melanie Kathryn Haupt, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2012 Dedication For Big Mama, whose banana pudding delighted me; Granny, whose fried chicken haunts me; and Mom, who was a terrible cook. Acknowledgements In many ways, the dissertation is a group project. I have workshopped chapters with, bounced ideas off of, talked through tricky passages with, and cried to so many people over the course this project that I feel I should have a list of co-authors rather than an acknowledgements page. First and foremost, I have to thank my supervisor, Domino Renee Pérez, for her tough love, extensive feedback, and unwavering support over the course of this project’s peaks and valleys. I am so deeply grateful for your mentorship and your faith in me and in this project. I will also never forget the fateful day you suggested I might like a little book called Twilight. Trish Roberts-Miller, thank you for helping me pick up the pieces … twice. Elizabeth Engelhardt, I’m so glad to know you. Your friendship and guidance over the years has been indispensible. Lisa Moore, you midwifed a very different project into existence back in 2007, but your voice is in my head every day, the voice that reminds me of every single hungry person in Austin. Neville Hoad, we had a conversation in the spring of 2006 about formula companies’ questionable marketing practices in Africa within the context of your postcolonial theory seminar. It’s funny how things come back around and make perfect sense. All in all, I am iv deeply humbled to have such a brilliant dissertation committee, and I thank you all so much for all of the diverse contributions you have made to this project and to my growth as a scholar. I would also like to thank my graduate-school peers for their insight, advice, and support over the years. My writing group, which included Erin Hurt, Lydia French, and Olga Herrera, offered insightful feedback into my project as it developed (and sometimes wandered off on insane tangents). My cubemate, Jessica Goudeau, makes me feel like a superhero; what she doesn’t know is that the feeling is mutual. Stephanie Odom has demonstrated time and again the true definition of strength (but not bravery!). Carly Kocurek, I can’t think of a more perfect companion for the Alamo Drafthouse’s Twilight marathons. I love you, girl. I mean, woman. Layne Craig, Crystal Kurzen, and Molly Hardy: You three were the first friends I made in the department back when I was auditing in the fall of 2004. We have celebrated marriages, births, and graduations together, and have swapped soup, stories, and even tears. I love all three of you like sisters. I’m so, so, so lucky to have you in my life. Outside the hallowed halls of academia, I am surrounded and supported by an amazing cohort of women whose influence cannot go unacknowledged. Megan Myers, Kathryn Hutchison, Kate Payne, MM Pack, and Addie Broyles are the exemplars of top- tier food writing and thoughtful living. I look forward to many, many, MANY more conversations about food, feminism, and juicy blogosphere gossip. Fermeen Fazal, thank you for being such a generous and enthusiastic reader. I hope we can make it to Bombay Pizza together sooner rather than later. Kelli Soika, you amaze me. If it weren’t for our long runs around Town Lake, I don’t think this project would have ever reached completion. Your insight and perspective and support have been instrumental to this project’s development, and also to my sanity. v Finally, I must acknowledge my family for a lifetime of faith in me. Ruth Allard, you send me the most hilarious and adorable and thought-provoking links to cool blogs, crafty inspiration, and important articles. Thank you for continuing to think of me, even though I am terrible about writing back. Forrest and Janis Wiggins, you are the best grandparents a girl could ask for and I love you. My father and second mom, Jack and Julie Haupt, you spoil us terribly and we all love it. Matt, thank you for not letting me quit. Harrison and Laurel, everything I do is for you. So please, please, please, pick up your shoes and put them in your room. vi Starting from Scratch: Community, Connection, and Women’s Culinary Culture Melanie Kathryn Haupt, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Supervisor: Domino Renee Pérez This dissertation examines how women’s food writing, from blogs to cookbooks to novels, demonstrate a desire to articulate themselves as people within communities rather than accept a dehumanized identity as a consumer or set of credit-card numbers. I argue that through an emphasis on connection with one another via a discourse of scratch cooking and locally sourced foods, women are able to push back against the hegemony of corporate food and industrial agriculture. Working from a case study model, each of my chapters examines the distinct ways in which women assert their personhood apart from the homogenizing influences of mainstream food culture. As a means of articulating this woman’s culinary culture, predicated on a foundation of scratch cooking and local ingredients and relationships, I examine the food blog Fed Up With Lunch and the author’s use of an anonymous persona to interrogate the federal school lunch program; feminist vegetarian and vegan cookbooks authored by collectives of women who rely on oppositional identities in order to push back against what they view as hegemony; how diasporic Indian women use scratch cooking as a means of self-expression within the vii context of migration; and the novel cookbook as an example of injecting a feminist discourse of food into a traditional fictional narrative. Read together, these discrete case studies make an argument for women’s power to effect meaningful change from within the circumscribed space of the kitchen. viii Table of Contents List of Figures ....................................................................................................... xi Introduction: Corporate Food, Countercuisines, and “Gracious Womanhood”.....2 The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved .....................................................7 The Story of the Stories.......................................................................32 Chapter 1: Betty Crocker 3.0: Blogging Big Food, Cultivating Trust .................36 Keepin’ It Real: A Case Study in Marketing Authenticity to Women.........39 “It’s possible that I have never really met myself”: Living and Blogging Gluten- Free ......................................................................................................65 “The meals send the message to the kids that they are not cared about”: Conviction, Anonymity, and School Lunch ........................................84 Chapter 2: “We wanted a new recipe altogether”: Feminist Vegetarian Ideologies ......................................................................................................................99 Ethical Vegetarianism and a Feminist Utopia ............................................105 “All We Believe In is Punk Rock and Tofu”: The Post Punk Kitchen and Representing Veganism.....................................................................120 The Limitations of Countercuisine Communities ......................................140 Chapter 3: My Own Private India: Recipes for Diasporic Identities..................147 Pantry Staples: Jhumpa Lahiri’s Recipes for Negotiating Diasporic Class and Gender ...............................................................................................155 Silence and Sanity: Cooking and Writing the Self in Serving Crazy with Curry ...........................................................................................................174 Someone’s in the Kitchen with Ma: Curry and Conversion in The Hindi-Bindi Club ...................................................................................................189 Beyond Mother India..................................................................................203 Chapter 4: The Novel Cookbook: Communities, Narratives, Recipes, and Women’s Literature ....................................................................................................206 Family Connections: Cooking as Salvation, Healing, and Creating Community ...........................................................................................................222 The Cupcake: Adorably Ironic Feminist Icon or Portable Hegemony? .....252 ix Conclusion...........................................................................................................260 Bibliography ........................................................................................................267 Vita ....................................................................................................................281 x List of Figures Figure 1: ..........................................................................................................53