View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository Transforming Tastes: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, Alice Waters and the Revision of American Food Rhetorics Erin L. Branch A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature Chapel Hill 2011 Approved By: Dr. Jane Danielewicz Dr. Jordynn Jack Dr. Marcie Ferris Dr. Minrose Gwin Dr. Jennifer Ho © 2011 Erin L. Branch ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii Abstract ERIN L. BRANCH: Transforming Tastes: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, Alice Waters, and the Revision of American Food Rhetorics (Under the direction of Jane Danielewicz and Jordynn Jack) Transforming Tastes: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, Alice Waters, and the Revision of American Food Rhetorics examines rhetorical alternatives to the rhetorics of quantification and science that have long dominated American food discourse. In the late nineteenth century, reformers’ efforts to professionalize homemaking led to the development of home economics as an academic and professional field. This new field sought legitimacy by conferring scientific status on domestic work and by persuading the public that the nation’s moral health depended on women keeping house according to modern methods. Almost simultaneously, the nascent field of nutrition science began disseminating research via government-sponsored publications that offered dietary advice in the form of numbers (e.g., of servings, calories, etc.). As American food discourse became a scientific, data-driven enterprise, this field meant to empower women instead marginalized everyday women’s practices by validating only knowledge acquired through legitimate institutional channels. Three public figures-- essayist M.F.K. Fisher, cookbook author Julia Child, and activist Alice Waters--provide rhetorical alternatives to these powerful discourses of home economics and nutrition science. Fisher’s writings recount her personal experiences iii with food to celebrate the sensory pleasures of preparing, eating, and sharing food with loved ones. By organizing her texts around pleasure, Fisher’s texts challenge received notions about the gendered nature of food-writing genres. Although Child’s now- renowned books barely escaped publishing oblivion, they persuaded audiences that delicious homemade meals were within reach. Child’s rhetoric thus successfully reached an American middle class that had, by midcentury, largely abandoned from-scratch cooking in favor of quick, easy, processed foods. Waters is founder of Chez Panisse Restaurant and the Edible Schoolyard and a leader of Slow Food International. Her texts draw on the manifesto genre, and mix sensory descriptions of food with calls for wholesale reform of the food system. This dissertation demonstrates that in countering dominant discourses, Fisher, Child, and Waters created rhetorical space for today’s flourishing and diverse food discourses. iv Acknowledgements Anyone who has written a dissertation will tell you that as the months drag on, it can become increasingly difficult to maintain focus, and to resist the pull of hobbies, the Internet, pets, or any number of other distractions. This problem, for me, was compounded by the fact that a large portion of my dissertation research involved reading cookbooks. You might think that spending so many months reading recipes and stories about food would cause me to lose interest in cooking, but on the contrary: the hardest thing about this project was resisting the urge to walk away from the computer, pick up the book, and head to the kitchen. Sometimes, the temptation was too great. As the chapters wore on and my cookbook collection expanded, my husband, friends, and even my students were often the recipients of the literal fruits of my procrastination. I suppose there are worse reasons to delay finishing a chapter. Like any project of this size, this one was not produced in isolation. I am grateful, first of all, to my co-directors, Dr. Jane Danielewicz and Dr. Jordynn Jack. I thank Jane for her unwavering confidence in me and in this project, and for helping me to think about genres of personal writing in increasingly rigorous ways. As a teaching mentor, her support and advice in every semester has been vital, especially in one when I was teaching a particularly challenging group of students. I am grateful to Jordynn for the boundless energy she brings to her teaching and mentoring, not to mention her own v scholarship. At every stage of this project and in my search for a position after graduate school, her feedback and advice have been invaluable. Dr. Marcie Ferris helped me to broaden the horizons of my project, and to think about the women whose texts I wanted to study in a longer historical lineage. I thank her, too, for introducing me to the field of food studies, which continues to be a source of inspiration for me. I am grateful to Dr. Jennifer Ho for her many suggestions in terms of resources and for her knowledge about food studies, and also for helping me to navigate the murky waters of the job market. As co-teacher with Jane of a course on memoirs, Dr. Minrose Gwin modeled the kind of analytical and critical rigor that I hope to bring to my work. Finally, although he was not a member of my committee, I wish also to thank Dr. Dan Anderson. Dan first encouraged me to major in Rhetoric & Composition, and his efforts on my behalf are behind a number of the lines on my CV. Together, these faculty members have challenged and inspired me, and I look forward to modeling my academic career on the fine examples they have set. As I finished this dissertation, I have been fortunate to begin a new position at Wake Forest University. I thank my new colleagues for supporting and encouraging me, and for the release from service responsibilities as I completed this project. In addition to my Teaching Fellowship from the English Department, this project was supported by a Ferdinand Summer Research Fellowship. I thank the Ferdinand family and the Graduate School Fellowship Committee for the time and resources this fellowship afforded me at a critical stage in the process. My research was significantly enhanced by several days spent with the Julia Child Archives and the MFK Fisher Archives at the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe vi Institute, Harvard University. I am indebted to the staff there, particularly to reference librarian Lynda Leahy, for making my time there so pleasant and productive. I also thank Robert Lescher, Fisher’s former agent and executor of her literary estate, for allowing me access to her papers. Keith Luf, the Archives Manager at WGBH Boston, supplied me with a comprehensive listing of the airdates for Child’s television shows, for which I am grateful. Since the day I declared my intention to major in Rhetoric & Composition, the Rhetoric & Composition Writing Group at UNC has welcomed me--and my project--with open arms. I am so very grateful to Rise Applegarth, Heather Branstetter, Sarah Hallenbeck, and Chelsea Redeker for being such generous but critical readers. Their insights and feedback have shaped this project, as well as my thinking and writing, in crucial ways. I also thank them for being such good and encouraging colleagues, and for becoming such treasured friends. I also am grateful to Sarah Marsh, Kate Attkisson, and Meredith Malburne-Wade, my dearest friends and closest confidantes, whose support and general good humor have brought so much laughter and joy to the last seven years. I thank Sarah, especially, for the three things that made our exam years possible: mushroom salad, P&P, and the green couch. I owe no one greater thanks than my family, especially my parents, Bill and Leslie Branch, who have made the life I now enjoy possible in all ways. I thank both of them for encouraging me from my earliest days, for never getting too upset when I stayed up late to finish a book, and for all manner of support as I completed graduate school. For all the delicious meals I have enjoyed at their house and in their company, I am grateful, for both the food and for their inspiration. I thank my brother, Jim, for keeping me grounded vii and making me laugh, and I thank his daughter Sadie for reminding me that sometimes the simplest pleasures are the best. Since I was very small, my grandmother Alice has fostered my love of reading, and she has long been convinced that I would one day earn a PhD in English. I did not believe her until very recently, but my degree will belong to her as much as it does to me. I am so grateful to her and my grandfather for their love and belief in me. Finally, I thank my husband Lukas for everything. His steadfast faith and confidence in this project, along with just about everything else I want to undertake, sustains me, and I can’t wait to see what we tackle next. viii Preface In the early stages of my dissertation process, several trusted friends and colleagues told me that I would end up writing about myself. This seemed unlikely to me; I couldn’t imagine how my life would fit into what (at that point) was shaping up to be a highly theoretical project. But some months later, when I had finally arrived at a topic and had started to develop research questions, I realized that they had all been right. While I did not literally write about myself, I have noticed remarkable affinities between my own life and those of the three writers whose works I study in the following chapters.