Language and gender in female celebrity chef cookbooks: cooking to show care for the family and for the self

Abstract

ABSTRACTFramed within Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this study examines women’s relationship to their cooking practices in cookbooks by three female celebrity chefs: Giada De Laurentiis, Ree Drummond, and Ina Garten. Prevalent in all of the cookbooks is a discourse that continues traditional gender roles of women being predisposed to care, cook, and serve others. At the same time, alternative discourses of achievability, self-fulfillment, and femininity are offered with ‘easy’ and ‘delicious’ recipes, enabling women to be competent in the kitchen, and by extension, in life. Cooking is a way to care for the self and realize happiness. Examining the recipe narrative and supporting text, this article shows how these complex and competing discourses are part of the construction of hegemonic femininity.