{"id":18499,"date":"2019-11-06T15:18:12","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T15:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=18499"},"modified":"2019-11-06T15:26:21","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T15:26:21","slug":"how-steak-became-manly-and-salads-became-feminine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-steak-became-manly-and-salads-became-feminine\/","title":{"rendered":"How steak became manly and salads became feminine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Freedman<\/a>, Yale University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

When was it decided that women prefer some types of food<\/a> \u2013 yogurt with fruit, salads and white wine \u2013 while men are supposed to gravitate to chili, steak and bacon?<\/p>\n

In my new book, \u201cAmerican Cuisine: And How It Got This Way<\/a>,\u201d I show how the idea that women don\u2019t want red meat and prefer salads and sweets didn\u2019t just spring up spontaneously.<\/p>\n

Beginning in the late 19th century, a steady stream of dietary advice, corporate advertising and magazine articles created a division between male and female tastes that, for more than a century, has shaped everything from dinner plans to menu designs.<\/p>\n

A separate market for women surfaces<\/h2>\n

Before the Civil War, the whole family ate the same things together. The era\u2019s best-selling household manuals and cookbooks never indicated that husbands had special tastes that women should indulge.<\/p>\n

Even though \u201cwomen\u2019s restaurants<\/a>\u201d \u2013 spaces set apart for ladies to dine unaccompanied by men \u2013 were commonplace, they nonetheless served the same dishes as the men\u2019s dining room: offal, calf\u2019s heads, turtles and roast meat.<\/p>\n

Beginning in the 1870s, shifting social norms \u2013 like the entry of women into the workplace \u2013 gave women more opportunities to dine without men<\/a> and in the company of female friends or co-workers.<\/p>\n

As more women spent time outside of the home, however, they were still expected to congregate in gender-specific places.<\/p>\n

Chain restaurants geared toward women, such as Schrafft\u2019s<\/a>, proliferated. They created alcohol-free safe spaces for women to lunch without experiencing the rowdiness of workingmen\u2019s caf\u00e9s or free-lunch bars<\/a>, where patrons could get a free midday meal as long as they bought a beer (or two or three).<\/p>\n

It was during this period that the notion that some foods were more appropriate for women started to emerge. Magazines and newspaper advice columns identified fish and white meat with minimal sauce, as well as new products like packaged cottage cheese, as \u201cfemale foods.\u201d And of course, there were desserts and sweets, which women, supposedly, couldn\u2019t resist.<\/p>\n

You could see this shift reflected in old Schrafft\u2019s menus: a list of light main courses, accompanied by elaborate desserts with ice cream, cake or whipped cream. Many menus featured more desserts than entrees<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By the early 20th century, women\u2019s food was commonly described as \u201cdainty<\/a>,\u201d meaning fanciful but not filling. Women\u2019s magazines included advertisements<\/a> for typical female foodstuffs: salads, colorful and shimmering Jell-O mold creations, or fruit salads decorated with marshmallows, shredded coconut and maraschino cherries.<\/p>\n

At the same time, self-appointed men\u2019s advocates complained that women were inordinately fond of the very types of decorative foods being marketed to them. In 1934, for example, a male writer named Leone B. Moates wrote an article in House and Garden scolding wives<\/a> for serving their husbands \u201ca bit of fluff like marshmallow-date whip.\u201d<\/p>\n

Save these \u201cdainties\u201d for ladies\u2019 lunches, he implored, and serve your husbands the hearty food they crave: goulash, chili or corned beef hash with poached eggs.<\/p>\n

Pleasing the tastes of men<\/h2>\n

Writers like Moates weren\u2019t the only ones exhorting women to prioritize their husbands.<\/p>\n

The 20th century saw a proliferation of cookbooks telling women to give up their favorite foods and instead focus on pleasing their boyfriends or husbands. The central thread running through these titles was that if women failed to satisfy their husbands\u2019 appetites, their men would stray.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The pressure to please was increased through advertising.<\/span>
\nMad Men Art<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You could see this in midcentury ads, like the one showing an irritated husband saying \u201cMother never ran out of Kellogg\u2019s Corn Flakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

But this fear was exploited as far back as 1872, which saw the publication of a cookbook titled \u201cHow to Keep a Husband, or Culinary Tactics<\/a>.\u201d One of the most successful cookbooks, \u201c\u2018The Settlement\u2019 Cook Book,\u201d first published in 1903, was subtitled \u201cThe Way to a Man\u2019s Heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was joined by recipe collections like 1917\u2019s \u201cA Thousand Ways to Please a Husband<\/a>\u201d and 1925\u2019s \u201cFeed the Brute!<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

This sort of marketing clearly had an effect. In the 1920s, one woman wrote to General Mills\u2019 fictional spokeswoman, \u201cBetty Crocker,\u201d expressing fear<\/a> that her neighbor was going to \u201ccapture\u201d her husband with her fudge cake.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\u2018The Way to a Man\u2019s Heart\u2019 meant sacrificing your tastes for his own.<\/span>
\nAbe Books<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just as women were being told they needed to focus on their husbands\u2019 taste buds over their own \u2013 and be excellent cooks, to boot \u2013 men were also saying that they didn\u2019t want their wives to be single-mindedly devoted to the kitchen.<\/p>\n

As Frank Shattuck, the founder of Schrafft\u2019s, observed in the 1920s<\/a>, a young man contemplating marriage is looking for a girl who is a \u201cgood sport.\u201d A husband doesn\u2019t want to come home to a bedraggled wife who has spent all day at the stove, he noted. Yes, he wants a good cook; but he also wants an attractive, \u201cfun\u201d companion.<\/p>\n

It was an almost impossible ideal \u2013 and advertisers quickly capitalized on the insecurities created by the dual pressure wives felt to please their husbands without looking like they\u2019d worked too hard doing so.<\/p>\n

A 1950 brochure<\/a> for a cooking appliance company depicts a woman wearing a low-cut dress and pearls showing her appreciative husband what\u2019s in the oven for dinner.<\/p>\n

The woman in the ad \u2013 thanks to her new, modern oven \u2013 was able to please her husband\u2019s palate without breaking a sweat.<\/p>\n

The 1970s and beyond<\/h2>\n

Beginning in the 1970s, dining changed dramatically. Families started spending more money eating out<\/a>. More women working outside the home meant meals were less elaborate, especially since men remained loathe to share the responsibility of cooking.<\/p>\n

The microwave<\/a> encouraged alternatives to the traditional, sit-down dinner. The women\u2019s movement destroyed lady-centered luncheonettes like Schrafft\u2019s and upended the image of the happy housewife preparing her condensed soup casseroles or Chicken Yum Yum.<\/p>\n

Yet as food historians Laura Shapiro<\/a> and Harvey Levenstein<\/a> have noted, despite these social changes, the depiction of male and female tastes in advertising has remained surprisingly consistent, even as some new ingredients and foods have entered the mix.<\/p>\n

Kale, quinoa and other healthy food fads are gendered as \u201cfemale.\u201d Barbecue, bourbon<\/a> and \u201cadventurous foods<\/a>,\u201d on the other hand, are the domain of men.<\/p>\n