CONTENTS
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The Solitary Cook |
Everyone cooks alone occasionally—even the mothers of small children, once their offspring have graduated to brown bags at school—and many of us, by choice or by chance, cook alone a great deal at certain times in our lives. Solitary cooks know that the practice of solo cuisine is a very different proposition practically and emotionally from cooking for a family or a partner.
SolitaryCook is an e-mail list established to explore these differences. I'd like to investigate the practical and the emotional aspects of solitary cooking, as these have largely been neglected in the last twenty years' deluge of cooking-related literature. But I hope also that the effort of defining what makes cooking alone different will clarify by contrast some of the complexities of the social meanings of food.
All cooks develop procedures to make the never-ending task of food preparation manageable, and old-favorite recipes to make it at least in part predictable and familiar. A lot of attention has been paid to the social and interpersonal aspects of food, cooking, and eating, but not nearly as much to the private ones. I hope that a group of thoughtful and psychologically minded cooks will come together on this list to discuss ideas about how these procedures, and the feelings and ideas that go with them, develop in solitude. Recipes are welcome—it's nearly impossible to get people to talk about how they cook without a recipe or two sliding into the conversation—but so are ideas, questions, insights, resentments, or any other facets people might like to share about their experiences of cooking and eating alone. (I do ask, however, that people credit the authors of any published recipes they wish to post, and the books in which the recipes appear.)
Because there seem to be some subtle taboos attached to this topic, let me make it explicit that by "solitary cooks" I don't mean only single people, although of course they are included. A wife who sighs with relief as she contemplates a lonely grilled-cheese sandwich at noon ("I married him for better or for worse, but not for lunch") is a solitary cook. So are people who don't live with their partners; business-trip and sports widows; the separated, divorced, and widowed; roommates who cook independently; people with medical problems that affect the sharing of food; children and adolescents doing their first private experiments with cooking; and many, many others.
Anyone with an interest in people's interior negotiations with food is welcome—click here to subscribe.
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Many thanks to James Matterer of Gode Cookery for his wonderful woodcuts and beautiful site. |
