Aunty Sylvie’s Sponge: Foodmaking, Cookbooks and Nostalgia

Sian Supski

doi:10.5130/csr.v19i1.3074

Abstract

Why does foodmaking matter? It does partly because it holds within it so much of everyday life, thought and activity across time, place and generation. This article explores women’s embodied foodmaking knowledge as ‘thoughtful practice’. It examines cookbooks as a form of nostalgia and explores aspects of gustatory nostalgia in the creation of ‘manuscript’ cookbooks and their variation in the twenty-first century. It also reconstructs, in part, the history of a family – of sisters, aunts, grandmothers, mothers, daughters – as told through cookbooks and, in particular, a recipe for sponge cake.

Highlights

Why does foodmaking matter? Largely because it holds within it so much of everyday life, thought and activity across time, place and generation
In using a particular recipe I seek to produce a nuanced argument that illustrates the complexity of intergenerational recipe sharing via the triangulation of aunt, mother, daughter
It shows the acquisition of a ‘thoughtful practice’ intertwined with ‘anxious practice’ across the generations

Summary

Introduction

Why does foodmaking matter? Largely because it holds within it so much of everyday life, thought and activity across time, place and generation. Many of the recipes in A Lifetime of Cooking have hints for ‘best cooking’: which shelf of the oven to place a cake, timing, mixing and ingredient substitution.

Results

Conclusion