Why Have We Forgotten the Servants? Some Morals of the Story
Published June 26, 2008 by Rachel Laudan
So there’s every reason to believe that when English speakers began to try “authentic” Indian recipes in their own houses in the 1970s and 80s, the recipes they tried came from wealthy households with servants.
The same is true of other foreign cuisines. Just crack open any of the fine cookbooks that have introduced English-speakers to “ethnic” cuisines and read them carefully. “Awad, the cook, who came from Lower Egypt, lived on the roof terrace, where servants had rooms” says Claudia Roden, famous for her books on Mediterranean and Jewish cookery. The servant Liu-ma, a devout Buddhist, “used to intone to me that I would starve in the next life whenever a grain accidentally dropped from my rice bowl” reminisces Irene Kuo, author of the classic Key to Chinese Cooking.
This is not really surprising. The kinds of people who had the money to travel to England or the United States and the education to write cookbooks were likely to come from this kind of background.
It has, though, I think, had some odd consequences. Just think of two.
1. The recipes thus come from the high cuisine. Indeed because the authors want to showcase the best of their cuisine, they often include the most complex dishes of the high cuisine. This means the American or British cook (me included) trying to reproduce them is not only struggling with a strange cuisine but trying to do alone in his or her kitchen what it perhaps took a bevy of servants to pull off in the country in question. I often hear people wail, “Oh Diana Kennedy’s recipes are so complex, so time-consuming.” Well, yes, (with some exceptions) they are and for just this reason. They are to Mexico as Julia Child’s recipes are to France: the recipes of the top drawer.
2. At the same time, and this does not apply to you, dear readers, I strongly suspect that many English speakers, as they come to terms with these “ethnic” cuisines, assume them to be everyday or even peasant cuisines. What do you think?
If there’s anything to this, then we have massive culinary confusion. Americans and British depreciate their cooking for not having a peasant cuisine base. And when they think of a peasant cuisine base they actually are confusing this with the high cuisines of sophisticated empires like the Ottoman, the Mughal and the Ming. And this, I think, has huge consequences for food politics.
Or am I totally up a gum tree in suspecting this confusion?
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The “servant problem” came up during a dinner party a couple of years ago. You’re not alone in noticing the gap. Russ Parsons (LA Times), Clifford Wright (A Mediterranean Feast) and Martha Rose-Schulman (cookbook author) and I briefly discussed it. “food magically appearing from the back of the house”. I don’t recall if we came to any conclusions about the omissions.
I tend to think it has something to do with who the cookbooks are being marketed to. Talking about servants brings up all kinds of class issues. We Americans don’t talk about class, most probably can’t even identify them. It’s a strength in some ways, causes all kinds of confusion in other ways.
Another thing is that from my experience editors and publishers want to create the appearance of doability for an average home cook. Otherwise, the potential market can seem too small.
“Or am I totally up a gum tree in suspecting this confusion?”
The confusion certainly exists, but I’m not sure to what extent. It exists with a particular kind of “foodie” who reads a particular family of “food literature” and participates in gastro-tours and international “cook at the pace of watching mud dry” organizations.
I talk about food as it relates to many different fields of activity all the time. The part of my job that requires meeting and talking to people almost always has an element of food. In terms of broader audiences, outside of this niche foodie audience (you will many of them posting on food forums or blogging), in my experience this confusion does not exist.
This confusion doesn’t even exist in the realm of professional chefs (omit what is said to the press) and culinary students. They know that cooking is hard, the kitchen line is basically an assembly line.
Another element of confusing “ethnic” cuisines with peasant cuisines possibly includes the status of certain “ethnicities” in different countries. My thoughts on this are not entirely clear, but I think it’s related in some way.
Finally, I think that “peasant” is another word that should have an adjective attached. “Peasant” can mean picturesque French farmer in the Beaujolais or subsistence farmer in a desertified region of Tamil Nadu.
Yes, peasant is one of the most misleading words imaginable.
I can quite believe that the confusion between ethnic and peasant cuisines is particularly prevalent among foodies, less so among food professionals.
That said, I still have the impression that the flood of “ethnic” cookbooks in the 70s, 80s and 90s gave an overblown impression of the richness and sophistication of most non-Americans’ eating habits. I’m not sure if this is what you are also getting at at the end of your post.
I agree with you about the overblown impression.
Another factor that adds to the overblown impression is that restaurant food is often confused with what’s made at home.