Wow! Startling clarity of succession. Gender, urbanization and the coming of the supermarket in France. Eloquently embodying the concepts of Pierre Bourdieu, Warren Belasco and Claude Fischler = cultural capital, counter cultural aspiration, gastroanomie!
Loved your essay and the evolution of cooking in with successive generations. Must (embarrasedly) admit to being shocked at the introduction of industrial food in French homes which i had naively thought hadnt happened!
Esther was quite a lady and changed her family for generations - that’s an impressive achievement on its own.
Thank you for the candid sharing and insight.
What a lovely unfussy recipe, I’m tempted...
Getting someone else to cut the duck interests me: not sure if that’s just to involve them and make it communal? There’s an interesting ‘ownership’ thing sometimes in cooking - I’d struggle to let somebody else take the glory bit, but that’s probably just insecurity 🤔
Really, really interesting point, thank you so much!
I don't have the copy of Norbert Elias's "Civilisation des moeurs" with me now, but it contains an extremely interesting historical analysis of the carving of meat. One of Elias's theories is that people's sensitivity is a product of culture. He thought you could retrace the origins of European sensitivity to the evolution of good manners (as they have been codified in manuals through the centuries), and he used the carving of meat as one of the main illustrations of his theory.
The cutting of meat used to be done in front of guests by the head of the hosting household, before the animal was even skinned and prepared to be cooked. But as with many things related to flesh (including bodily fluids, nudity and sexuality...), the carving of meat was gradually done with more discretion, further away from the eyes of other people, and certainly not by the master of the house, who now showed his refinement by not touching the animal's flesh. All of those good manners were institutionalised by aristocrats who felt threatened by the social ascension of high-bourgeoisie, as a tool of distinction from lower social classes. But as we know, each class adopted those rules gradually. Because social ascension comes with adopting the manners of the social class we aspire to, through time - and from higher to lower social layers - disgust at the old ways of doing things gradually became a norm.
In the end, the carving of meat symbolises the opposite of sophistication, sensitivity, refinement. I guess this is why it always applied to gender roles, and is still avoided by women in traditional heterosexual couples : in a lot of households, it is then very common for the patriarcal figure of the household to cut the meat (even though it was prepared by his wife, or sister-in-law, etc.).
It is certainly comparable to the way women tend to let men deal with barbecues, as if only men detained the secret of lighting coal and grilling meat on top of it... It gives the impression that some skills only belong to one gender, and therefore it implies there is a sense of balance, complementarity, etc., in heterosexual couples.
I hope I didn't bore you with this horribly long answer to your comment. But I agree with you : no way someone else gets to cut the meat I took hours to prepare.
Wow! Startling clarity of succession. Gender, urbanization and the coming of the supermarket in France. Eloquently embodying the concepts of Pierre Bourdieu, Warren Belasco and Claude Fischler = cultural capital, counter cultural aspiration, gastroanomie!
Beautiful!
I was a happy eater of the duck pictured. It was really, really good. And the leftovers, turned into a stew, were even better.
Lucky you
Don't I know it!
Absolutely lovely!
Absolutely loved this orphée, thanks 🙏
I love this!
Loved your essay and the evolution of cooking in with successive generations. Must (embarrasedly) admit to being shocked at the introduction of industrial food in French homes which i had naively thought hadnt happened!
Esther was quite a lady and changed her family for generations - that’s an impressive achievement on its own.
Thank you for the candid sharing and insight.
What a lovely unfussy recipe, I’m tempted...
Getting someone else to cut the duck interests me: not sure if that’s just to involve them and make it communal? There’s an interesting ‘ownership’ thing sometimes in cooking - I’d struggle to let somebody else take the glory bit, but that’s probably just insecurity 🤔
Really, really interesting point, thank you so much!
I don't have the copy of Norbert Elias's "Civilisation des moeurs" with me now, but it contains an extremely interesting historical analysis of the carving of meat. One of Elias's theories is that people's sensitivity is a product of culture. He thought you could retrace the origins of European sensitivity to the evolution of good manners (as they have been codified in manuals through the centuries), and he used the carving of meat as one of the main illustrations of his theory.
The cutting of meat used to be done in front of guests by the head of the hosting household, before the animal was even skinned and prepared to be cooked. But as with many things related to flesh (including bodily fluids, nudity and sexuality...), the carving of meat was gradually done with more discretion, further away from the eyes of other people, and certainly not by the master of the house, who now showed his refinement by not touching the animal's flesh. All of those good manners were institutionalised by aristocrats who felt threatened by the social ascension of high-bourgeoisie, as a tool of distinction from lower social classes. But as we know, each class adopted those rules gradually. Because social ascension comes with adopting the manners of the social class we aspire to, through time - and from higher to lower social layers - disgust at the old ways of doing things gradually became a norm.
In the end, the carving of meat symbolises the opposite of sophistication, sensitivity, refinement. I guess this is why it always applied to gender roles, and is still avoided by women in traditional heterosexual couples : in a lot of households, it is then very common for the patriarcal figure of the household to cut the meat (even though it was prepared by his wife, or sister-in-law, etc.).
It is certainly comparable to the way women tend to let men deal with barbecues, as if only men detained the secret of lighting coal and grilling meat on top of it... It gives the impression that some skills only belong to one gender, and therefore it implies there is a sense of balance, complementarity, etc., in heterosexual couples.
I hope I didn't bore you with this horribly long answer to your comment. But I agree with you : no way someone else gets to cut the meat I took hours to prepare.
Wishing you a lovely day!
I hadn’t thought about it that way. Not boring at all. Thank you