Baking as biography
Subtitle: a life story in recipes
By: Diane Tye
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Montreal
Language: eng
Number of pages: 268
ISBN-13: 9780773537248; 9780773537255
Subjects: Spouses of clergy; Social life and customs; Cooks; Clergé; Moeurs et coutumes; Food; Conjoints; Aspect social; Social aspects; Folklore; Aliments; Biographies; Biography
Description: "Hidden among the simple lists of ingredients and directions for everyday foods are surprising stories. In Baking as Biography, Diane Tye considers her mother's recipe collection, reading between the lines of the aging index cards to provide a candid and nuanced portrait of one woman's life as mother, minister's wife, and participant in local Maritime women's networks. Tye shows that baking was a complex activity for her mother, Laurene, a reluctant but prolific cook. She reads her mother's recipes as one would a diary, reconstructing the multiple meanings of baking to show how it was at once an obligation and a way of resisting the demands of family and community. Uncovering the complex intertwining of identities involved in the production and consumption of food, Tye reveals how ordinary acts and everyday objects are imbued with meaning and memory.--

A unique work that is both profoundly personal and intellectually informed, Baking as Biography reminds us of the unwritten social and material ingredients behind even the most straightforward recipes for cookies and squares."--pub. desc.

" ....This fascinating book is about more than baking. It's about women's work and women's worth, friendship and duty, and memory and family. There's some great food history here -- even quotes from Lucy Maud Montgomery, also a minister's wife, and there's discussion of the shared experiences of women. It's a personal, thoughtful and revealing story."--review pub. website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: 1 A life in recipes; title: Feeding our family well; title: Church lunches and ladies' teas; title: Baking for a third place; title: Tasting the past