December 21, 2013 Advent with SusieJ

Peg Bracken: I Hate to Cook

I first read my mother's copy of Peg Bracken's I Hate to Cook as a pre-teen. I was the kid who read everything, including the cereal box. A cookbook wasn't much different, not one that was half Erma Bombeck and half quick meals.

She writes for the housewife (and this being the mid-20th Century, we know that's who did the cooking) who doesn't like to cook but feels she should like to. Each chapter describes a slice of white, suburban life in the 1950s and 1960s with mild but erudite sarcasm: children's parties, cocktail parties, dieting, ladies' luncheons, family dinner. The message is, how did we get into this situation, and what's the easiest way out?

The recipes are typical short-cut cooking of the era: Turkey Tetrazzinni, anti-pasto (with curried deviled eggs), boiled beef Viennese, orange-raisin salad made with Jell-O, lots of casseroles, condensed soups and bouillon cubes. There are short-cuts for entertaining and cooking, some of which are hopelessly dated, others that are timelessly useful, like knowing how many pinches of salt go into a teaspoon to make measuring easier.

I've never cooked from it, but I love to read it every few years: for a window into the culture of my parents' youth, for the conviction that not every woman is cut out for the domestic diva life.

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