Culinary History vs. Food History: Women’s and Ethnic Studies

By the end of the 1990s books on food written by academics focusing on women’s history were contributing to the flow of scholarly work. Among these volumes were Amy Bentley’s Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity (1998), which examines the importance of women’s roles relative to food in supporting the nation during World War II and its aftermath. Sherrie Inness, an associate professor of English, has edited three collections of essays on women and food in addition to her own study, Dinner Roles: American Women and Culinary Culture (2001). In that book, Inness uses a wide range of sources to elaborate on the deep connections between women and food throughout the twentieth century.