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Modernity on the Menu: Women’s Cooking and Consumption Practices in 1940s and 1950s Mexico
| For breakfast, women in 1940s Mexico served their family food made from wheat or maize, accompanied by coffee, but what was the difference between having bread from the bag or a fresh crusty roll, corn flakes or tortillas, instant or fresh ground coffee? Even though basic ingredients remained the same, the way in which they were consumed marked a difference in material possibilities and sociocultural perceptions. This paper discusses the transformation of consumption patterns and the commodification of some basic foodstuffs in 1940s and 1950s Mexico. Furthermore, it explores how modernity influenced women’s ideals and aspirations materialised through daily cooking and consumption practices.
Scholars have dismissed women’s agency in the domestic space as worthless compared to their role in the public arena. The analysis of women’s experiences in the kitchen, however, shed light on how modernity was lived in daily life. Women, I argue, played a key role in the acceptance or rejection of what Arnold Bauer called “civilising goods”, foodstuffs, eating and cooking practices. Therefore, the study of women’s perceptions help us to understand how meanings were constructed and transformed through practice and negotiation, and the importance of gender in the interpretation of modernity.
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