About the Book
These days any woman knows that the sensual pleasures of food and cooking are all too often obscured by the increasing demands of careers, families, battles over body image, and the desire for a life outside the 'traditional' domain of the kitchen. With contributions by Dorothy Allison, Maya Angelou, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Marge Piercy among others, Through the Kitchen Window offers a fresh look at food and cooking as more than the makings of a meal. For the writers in this provocative collection, food is a cultural declaration, an expression of hidden hungers, a symbol of our intimate connections to one another.Including memories of Latina, Geechee, Chinese and Indian kitchens, Through the Kitchen Window reveals everything from the painful struggles to overcome an eating disorder to the tantalizing delights of cornbread and barbecue eaten from a lover's hands, and challenges assumptions about women, food, and the true satisfaction of cooking.
Table of Contents:
Introduction, with letters form Ruth Hubbard Part One: Inheritance My Mother/Her Kitchen (Chicken Jambalaya, Pecan Pralines) Clare Coss Sand Plum Jelly Karen Coody Cooper Rice Culture (Aunt Gertie's Red Rice) Julie Dash A Beet Recipe (Borscht) Joan Ormondroyd Zarouhe's Easter Gift (Media, Enginar, Persian Pilaf) Arlene Voski Avakian Gravy Sally Bellerose Song of My Mother (Tahira Naqvi) Vermont Kitchen (Sweet Pickles) Janet Dike Rood The Sweet and Vinegary Taste Chery Savageau 'Family Liked 1956': My Mother's Recipes (Ginger Crinkles) Sharon L. Jansen Follow the Food (Soup of Soups) Barbara Haber Grandmother's Pickles: Creating a Space (Kheema, Baingan Masala) Beheroze F. Shroff Mother, I Hardly Knew You (Potato Latkes, Matzoh Meal Latkes) Letty Cottin Pogrebin Hedge Nutrition, Hunger, and Irish Identity Marie Smyth 'Laying on Hands' through Cooking: Black Women's Majesty and Mystery in Their Own Kitchens Gloria Wade-Gayles My Grandmother's Hands (Ma's Buttermilk Griddle Biscuits) E. Barrie Kavasch Part Two: Transformations What's that smell in the kitchen? Marge Piercy The Cook, the Maid and the Lady Caroline Babayan What My Tongue Knows (Black Beans, Lemon Garlic Shrimp, Spanish Paella, Buttermilk, Raisin Light Whole Wheat Bread) Margaret Randall But Really, There Are No Recipes ... Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich Layers of Pleasure: Capirotada (Aunt Carmen's Capirotada) Pat Mora The Parable of the Lamb (Shish Kebab) Martha A. Ayres Fast, Free Delivery (Simple Chicken Marinade for Saturday Night) Paula Martinac On Becoming a Cuban Jewish Cook: A Memoir with Recipes (Mojo Criollo, Basic Cuban Tomato Suace, Picadillo, Zarzuela de Mariscos, Arroz Con Pollo, Stove Top Paella) Ester Rebeca Shapiro The Staff of Life Margaret Randall Home Cookin' (Home Cookin' (Spanish) Omelette) EL Corts Greene Leah Ryan New Directions Maya Angelou Making Do with Food Stamp Dinners Trudy Condio Thoughts for Food Caroline Urvater Boiled Chicken Feet and Hundred-Year-Old-Eggs: Poor Chinese Feasting (Soy-Boiled Chicken Feet) Shirley Geok-lin Lim Convalescence Leah Ryan Appetite Lost, Appetite Found (Horace's Torte, Vegetables Gardiniera) Helen Barolini A Kitchen of One's Own Doris Friedensohn Getting Hungry (Spicy Greens with Hot Vinegar, Pasta Salad, Garlic and Olive Spaghetti) Leah Ryan The Power of the Pepper: From Slave Food to Spirit Food (Jennifer's Trinidadian Chicken Curry, Jennifer's Trinidadian Pepper Sauce) Jennifer Ir Hunger Jyl Lynn Felman Food and Belonging: At 'Home' in 'Alien-Kitchens' (Ketu's Rice, Yellow Potatoes) Ketu H. Katrak A Lesbian Appetite Dorothy Allison Kitchens Aurora Levins Morales Sacred Food (Anoushabour) Anais Salibian Corn-Grinding Song Wendy Rose
About the Author :
Arlene Voski Avakian is Professor of Women's Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Review :
'A fascinating anthology of ground-roots cuisine from unknown kitchen heroines!' John Whiting, News Editor of Fine Food Digest 2005 'Through the Kitchen Window is a pathbreaking book. What Avakian's collection does so well is to integrate many kinds of experiences and social locations - class, race, immigration, nationalism, age, sexuality - in a variety of formats.' Alice Julier, Professor of Sociology, Smith College, USA; President of the Association for the Study of Food and Society 'Such a re-visioning of domestic labour is most useful to feminine readers in the complexity of its nostalgia'. The Women's Review of Books, October 1997 'A yummy anthology of female culinary writing, which has the good taste to order up a whole range of experiences.' Entertainment Weekly, May 1997. 'Avakian lays out a feast of musings.' The Orlando Sentinel, May 1997. 'The personal essays are especially compelling. The collection as a whole provides both an engrossing read and a wealth of shared knowledge.' Publishers Weekly, April 1997 'A buoyant anthology of food writing by women from around the world.' Booklist Chicago, July 1999 'Refreshingly unpretentious.' Forks, Fingers and Chopsticks, Autumn 1998 'The joy in this book is in the number of voices and stories.' Charlotte Observer, July 1998 'I triply recommend this anthology as an academic text, a good read and a tempting cookbook.' Anthropological Notebooks XII/I 2006
