After being introduced to the figure of Poppy Cannon and her poetry by Haley several weeks ago during our discussion section, I found myself intrigued by an ambivalence I felt when reading her poems. On the one hand they were very sweet (to the point of saccharine), and displayed an endearing sense of pride in domestic work, specifically cooking; on the other they felt somehow too close for comfort, the narrator too vulnerable, too dutiful. The line in “Domestic Villanella,” “just by the way, at dusk, I look for you…” gets to me in particular (See Haley’s post from 11/24). The image of the housewife narrator, finished with the pies and loaves of bread awaits her husband’s return at the end of the day, some company at last. This, of course, is my own interpretation, but nevertheless, the images that were called to mind were strong and led me to inquire further into Poppy Cannon’s writing. I took out of the library a cookbook, not of Cannon’s own recipes, but one rather that she collaborated on with another woman famously associated with cooking, Alice B. Toklas.
The book
Aromas and Flavors of Past and Present, published in 1958 by Harper & Brothers was a follow-up to Toklas’ first cookbook (containing instructions for the infamous “marijuana fudge”). The recipes within are mostly Toklas’ interpretations of traditional French cooking, and involve a lot of heavy cream, as well as chapters on “Cooking with Champagne” and “Cooking with Cognac.” Each recipe is prefaced with suggestions from Cannon on how to “Americanize” these recipes, how to make them “doable” for the American woman. For example, before the recipe “White Soup of Artichokes,” Cannon says, “A package of frozen artichoke hearts and a can of Swanson’s chicken broth make an admirable version of this soup” (1).
What interested me most about the book was Cannon’s 17-page introduction, which again left me feeling ambivalent. Much of it is devoted to anecdotes surrounding her relationship with Toklas. The ways that she was able to introduce modern American short-cuts into Toklas’ kitchen, specifically cake mixes and a blender, which Toklas quickly converted to using after initial skepticism, vindicating Cannon’s whole philosophy on cooking.
The audience for the book seems to be women of the middle to upper classes who are desirous of a more sophisticated menu for their families and social gatherings. Cannon, however, at least attempts to reach more broadly in the introduction. She discusses the state of American domesticity: “[M]illions of well-educated persons, men and women, are faced . . . with the need to do chores that could be dull and depressing or tremendously stimulating – depending on the point of view” (ix). Alice Toklas’ “intellectual” approach to cooking is presented as the solution for "those women in America who are being forced willy-nilly into what might be the arid isolation of housework and child-raising,” a situation she compares to a desert. She goes on:
For it is not true that our modern mechanical appliances free women from domestic responsibilities. They help to make her more efficient but at the same time they load upon her more responsibilities, rather than fewer. They make it possible for her to do more and more. But more and more is being required of her (ix).
This might seem pseudo-feminist avant la lettre, but the tone quickly cuts off and the reader is reminded of the actual context of the book. Cannon laments the days when a “lively-minded young woman of the upper middle classes” had servants, and “friendly grocers” to help her cook, clean, and take care of her children. In the 1950s, this was no longer the case, and women were suffering not only from a lack of “helping hands,” but also “personalized advice.” The only help they received was from television, magazines, and the directions on the sides of packages. The solution, again, was the exercise of the intellect: “[B]y paying more rather than less attention to domesticity we can make it more interesting and rewarding” (x).
I was reminded in reading this advice of Adlai Stevenson’s 1955 commencement address at Smith College that we read earlier this semester. Advice that was easier said than done. To be fair to Cannon, her voice was one of encouragement from a fellow woman and wife, whereas Stevenson’s was the patronizing (not to mention bizarrely propagandistic) recommendations of a man and a Governor who admits that he has “little experience” in this department. Nonetheless, there was something similar in tone. After describing the dreariness of modern domestic roles, “many women feel frustrated and far apart from the great issues and stirring debates for which their education has given them understanding and relish. Once they read Baudelaire. Now it is the Consumer’s Guide. Once they wrote poetry. Now it’s the laundry list,” he goes on to say that it is really all an issue of attitude. “[T]he fact is that Western marriage and motherhood are yet another instance of the emergence of individual freedom in our Western society.” “Women ‘never had it so good’ as you do.” He councils the young college graduates to make themselves and their husbands happy and productive, to fight totalitarianism, through their roles as housewives. “Surely, what you have learned and can learn will, fit you for the primary task of making homes and whole human beings in whom the rational values of freedom, tolerance, charity and free inquiry can take root.”
What’s wrong with this advice? “Pay more rather than less attention to domesticity.” Be an “intellectual” cook like my friend Alice B. Toklas. Just as with Stevenson’s prescriptions, the issue is that it is all written for the purpose of making a job that is admitted within the same source to be frustrating, “arid isolation,” more tolerable. It offers no alternative to this job for women who are educated and interested in the world outside their homes. I personally love to cook, and I prepare meals for others on a frequent basis. However, I know that part of the pleasure is that it is essentially a leisure activity for me. It is something I choose to do, rather than something that I have to do every day, multiple times a day. Moreover, the idea that Alice B. Toklas’ recipe for “Perfumed Goose” (pg. 60) or “Essence of Mushrooms” (pg. 100) could present a kind of remedy is profoundly absurd (though, perhaps, not really what Cannon is saying).
The potential good I see in it is related to what I mentioned earlier as being present in Cannon’s poetry: a sense of pride in what one does. This is, of course, tremendously important to happiness. I am certainly not trying to say that encouraging a positive and prideful attitude to one's work in one's home is a bad thing, however, blaming a woman's attitude on her potential unhappiness does not seem universally helpful or sustainable. It might be a source of pride to serve your family or other dinner guests a meal that you can boast is straight from Paris, from the kitchen of Alice B. Toklas, no less. At the end of the day, however, the proverbial “Jello casserole” might not have the cache of Toklas’ “Chocolate Mousse” (pg. 122), but what it lacks in cache it makes up for in convenience and thrift. When faced with these choices, it seems clear why Betty Crocker (fictional though she was), was more influential than Poppy Cannon or Alice B. Toklas in the history of 1950s cooking and images of domesticity.
