war of sexes

 A couple weeks ago I did some cleaning in my dining room, once again freeing up full access to my cookbook shelves, so as I eat now, I glance through one of them

I have a LOT of cookbooks. In truth, I probably only really use four or five of them extensively, but I like having the other ones to look at. 

And something struck me looking through some of the older ones I have.

I have a number of cooking-for-one and cooking-for-two books.

The cooking-for-two books go back farther - the cooking for one ones seemed to mostly start being offered in the 1980s, when it seemed like it finally became plausible that a fully grown adult (a) might want to keep living alone and (b) wants to cook for themselves even though they are alone.

(Wait, no, I take it back: I have a copy of "Gourmet Cooking for One (or More)" by Robert Graham Paris that dates to the late 1960s. I bought it at the redoubtable Ann Arbor Public Library used book sale back when I was in college....)

Cooking for two books, though, go back at least to the 30s. And it makes sense: new brides would not have "little ones" (presumably) until at least a few months after the wedding, and even then - children don't eat the same food as their parents, or as much, for at least a few years. And of course even back then there were childless couples. And couples whose children had grown and left the nest. 

Sociologically the books are interesting. Some of the cooking-for-one books were written by either divorced or widowed women (the author of my much-used copy of "Going Solo in the Kitchen" was divorced) or in some cases by what used to be called "confirmed bachelors" (I *think* Paris was gay based on something I've read; one more recent cooking-for-one book I have, the author described some of his attractions to men in his circle. And yes, it seems the "for one" and "for two" books are a bit more personal, and the author may talk about their life)

But the books for married couples, where it's just the two of them, it's kind of interesting (and perhaps a bit sad, in one case).

One set of books I was looking at recently were these:

 

Same authors, note. The first one was based on the "I Hate to Cook" book by Peg Bracken, but with a "meals for two roommates' with also some party recipes. It's sort of a breezy early-to-mid 60s book, kind of a Mad Men type style (they talk about wooing ad executives!) 

A lot of the book is devoted to "the chase" with the note in several places that the "Old Charlie" who lives in the apartment downstairs will more likely become your mate than the investigative reporter, or the jet-setter, or the rich man. 

I've made a few of the recipes; they're decent, plain food. Easy to make, and small enough to be manageable for one person without having to do a lot of dividing of quantities. 

This one was one that came from the same Ann Arbor Public Library sale, back in the late 80s. I didn't even know of the existence of the sequel until a couple years ago and I started hunting for it when I learned about it.

I think I finally found it through Etsy? There are a couple folks on there who sell vintage cookbooks. Anyway, I was interested to see what they did with the trope.

One of the things I admit I sometimes think about is the alternate universe where I married and had kids. Or where I lived maybe five or seven decades earlier, and had HAD to marry as a way of having financial security (apparently in many states, women could not have their own bank accounts before the 70s). And I do kind of vaguely understand that 50s/60s housewife thing, in its most stereotypical form - not working, going out to play bridge one afternoon a week. If you didn't have kids - or had enough money for a maid or cleaner - you probably wouldn't have as much housework (my house gets pretty messy,, because I essentially fill both roles, of breadwinner and homemaker and it frankly is kind of a lot for one person) and you might be a bit freer to play bridge, and maybe be in clubs, or do volunteer work.

(I have read as the older generation of women die off, and more of my generation remain working/unretired, a lot of the work at churches and non profit groups is going to go undone, and some may fold. Well, I guess that's life? Depending on the goodwill voluntary labor of people in an economy where there is increasing pressure to do more and more paid work, is a bad gamble)

And that her main "circle" was serving.....both the volunteer work, but also caring for children (if she had them) AND FOR HER HUSBAND. 

In the Kragen/Perry married-couple book, there's a lot of that uncomfortable 1960s married humor, where it feels like it borders on "I low-level dislike my spouse some times and they are a burden to me" and yeah, I get it - if you're in a society where your choice as a woman is probably marriage or penury and living in a boarding house, you'll put up with a lot for financial security. But it makes me sad. 

There's also talk of having to "coddle the creature" - I guess the "man cold" has always been a joke women make. 

And this raises for me an uncomfortable fact that I see in my own life, even though I am not cooking or cleaning for anyone but me: women seem to be expected an awful lot to take care of other people's feelings, and maybe have theirs unmet.

Because that's not just when you're a 50s housewife.

I often see this in my own life. I have a couple *very* anxious students this semester, and I wind up doing a LOT of reassuring of them.. And I find myself asking myself again: "quis consolator consolator?" (from Google Translate, so that may be incorrect). 

But yes, a lot of the time I spend so much time and effort soothing other people's feelings that I come home and I have nothing left for myself. And even talking to my mom on the phone....I find with my dad gone, I often fall into that verbal-consolation role for her. (I think I see now where my anxiety came from). And while on some level I'm glad I can be of service like that.....on another, there are times I really want, as I've said, for someone to sigh and calmly say "Babe, we're not going to run out of gas" (from a snipped on the weather channel, back when there was a bad winter storm near Atlanta, and they talked to a couple stuck in a traffic jam, and the woman was worrying they'd run out of gas before they could get home, and the man - her husband, I presume - sighed, and said, "Babe, we're not going to run out of gas")

And I do suspect perhaps back then, unless she had a really good female friend and confidante, or the sort of relationship with her mother where she could tell her everything, a lot of women lacked that and....just kind of soldiered on with their emotional needs a bit unmet.

But also, being expected to put up with your husband's lunkhead friends periodically showing up and needing to be fed, or him deciding he's going to jet off to go play golf somewhere and leave you at home to hold down the fort, or arrive home grumpy and expect to both be soothed and to be fed dinner RIGHT AWAY....that would make it harder and perhaps even lonelier than my coming home to an empty house at the end of the day, where at least the only person I have to feed is myself, and if I am displeased in my cooking effort I can sigh and either throw away the ruined food and eat a bowl of cereal instead, or I can shrug and to "it's not what I wanted but it's still food"

But yeah, I don't find the battle-of-the-sexes humor very funny.

Much nicer are some of the stories my parents used to tell about their early married days: dealing with the challenges together (when the movers dropped their nearly-new refrigerator on the outside stairs leading up to their new apartment, and they watched it literally roll down the stairs and come to rest at  the bottom) or doing fun things (apparently cooking together, and small grad-student dinner parties, were a thing - and they knew a few International students (a Japanese woman, and a couple from India), and as much as was possible with the limited availability of ingredients, learning to cook dishes from their cultures. More of an evenly-matched situation.

And that surely existed! And hopefully was more the rule than the exception. And one of the books I own touches on that:

Quick and Easy Meals for Two, by Louella Shouer

There are a LOT of recipes, ranging from the economical to the more luxurious, in this book. They're thematically arranged - a section for each season (And I think Shouer must have been an East Coaster; she refers to shad roe, something I have never even seen), a section of "party recipes," a section of international meals, a section of "Penny Pinching" meals (with the pleasant idea that maybe the cooks are saving money to buy their first house), a section of meals you can make with a very limited kitchen (a two burner hotplate and tiny fridge)....it's very useful. I've made a few things out of it and the recipes are solid if not fancy.

But one of the conceits of the book, that she mentions several places, is the idea of shared labor - that "whoever gets home first should start this dessert" or similar things.. The idea that the couple both cook, both take an active role, and share the labor. And to me, that's a lot cozier and happier than the woman doing the cooking and the man stomping home at 6 pm expecting to be handed a martini and not talked to until after dinner was over. That's more the sort of marriage I'd want if I had one - someone willing to share the load or at the very least, hang out in the kitchen with me and talk while I chopped vegetables or something. 

And yeah, yeah, I get it: if she's not working outside the home and he works long hours, maybe you make allowances for him. But the "Honeymooners" style marriage does seem very outmoded to me now; it was probably outmoded in 1959 when my parents got married. 

But one thing books like that "how to keep him" one remind me: being single isn't the worst thing.

I mean, probably the BEST (and maybe some of my married readers would agree) is having a compatible spouse you do things with, and where you can, like, kind of banter and joke back and forth while cooking or doing the dishes or whatever. Like I said, that seems cozy and happy. 

The next best is maybe a partner who isn't totally communicative, and maybe sometimes forgets it should be a partnership, but is basically decent and who does sometimes remember to bear their share of the work. 

And then, maybe, singledom? It's lonely some times and difficult some times, but like I said: on the rare evening when I get home and feel like "ugh, I do NOT want to make any food" I can either zap something from the freezer or even just fix a bowl of Cheerios and no one is going to look sad-faced at me (either because "I have to eat this slop, too?" or the more empathetic "you had a hard day so this is all you have the energy left to manage, poor thing")

But the worst would be a partner who was demanding - the "comes home at 5 pm, wants a cocktail and the newspaper/tv news, doesn't want to be talked to until well after dinner, expects dinner, what he wants, when he wants it" or even someone who was verbally (or worse) abusive.

I don't know. Being a human is hard. Some days I like to imagine it would be easier with someone else there but I also realize I have to recognize that often it *isn't* - several of the ladies from church I eat lunch with after church, they are all either widows or a couple are divorced - almost to a woman they say they wouldn't remarry* given the chance

(* or cohabitate without marriage. In some cases older couples are doing that now because apparently sometimes there are pension penalties if you remarry, which seems unfair to me)

But it is also kind of sad and lonely being alone a lot a lot of the time, and I feel like I'm maybe a bit more anxious and worried than I would be if I had someone there to talk to, and ideally, someone who COULD sigh kindly and tell me the equivalent of "babe, we're not gonna run out of gas" when I was worrying about something.