In the Gender, Sexuality, Feminist, and Social Justice Studies (GSFS) 401 Winter 2020 semester class on Food, Gender, and Environment taught by Dr. Alex Ketchum, students are analyzing the ways that food accessibility and environmental threats are gendered, sexualized, and racialized within the global context. As part of the course, students visited McGill’s archives and special collections to have a hands on experience with historical cookbooks (more on that here: http://www.historicalcookingproject.com/2020/02/field-trip-to-mcgill-rare-books-and.html). The Special Series of Student Posts is a collection of student reflections on what information we can glean from cookbooks.
For many, food is deeply related to a sense of familial pride. Many recipes are passed down from generation to generation, largely dependant maternal knowledge that is then shared with other women in the family. The cookbook I selected, Pig Tails ‘n Breadfruit: Rituals of Slave Food written by Barbadian-Canadian author Austin Clark offers a variation from the stereotypical cookbook but instead offers a story of food that is more rooted in tradition and offers an insight into Bajan culture. Published in 1999, instead of offering direct measurements, each recipe is told as if it is simply a transcription of a conversation, is interwoven with personal experiences of the author, and stands to show the ways in which food is deeply entrenched in tradition, values, and culture. This book serves as a cookbook, a memoir, and an immersion into the culture of Barbados.
![]()
The author introduces the book by first elaborating as to why the book follows this format. He states “[Barbadians] aren’t restricted by precise measurements...A pinch of this and a pinch of that added to a pot, at first by trial and error, and then perfected through history and constant usage…”, indicating an approach to cooking that is dependant entirely on generational knowledge and following one's personal taste rather than the level of specificity seen in other cookbooks (2). This generational knowledge is primarily the reason as to why the book follows this format instead of the more typical recipe structure, with Clark stating how cookbooks are seen as a source of shame in Bajan culture. He explains that “... in every self respecting Barbadian household the woman (who does most of the cooking, whether she is a wife, daughter or maid) would not be caught dead with a cookbook. To read a cookbook would suggest that she has not retained what her mother taught her; that she does not know how to cook; that she does not know how to take care of her man; that her mother had neglected to teach her how to ‘handle herself’ in the kitchen, how ‘to do things’ properly” (3). These two sentences paint a picture in which the ways that gender and food are intricately related in Bajan culture. From this passage, we can see that not only is cooking perceived as women’s work, yet it also is entirely dependent on the familial connections that forge this knowledge. If one woman were to not share the oral history to her children, these recipes would be lost entirely, as the only traces of them exist through memory. It also paints a picture of knowledge formed by repeated actions, indicating that each recipe that is retained is highly cherished and that the history of Bajan food lies in being able to create meals to be enjoyed by families. The author states that when growing up surrounded by women who each worked to prepare this food, from a wide array of family, friends, women from the neighbourhood, and more, that he “never once heard one of them use the word recipe” to describe their cooking, indicating that their creations were almost a habitual, natural pattern, not an activity requiring a complex set of instructions (5).
All of the recipes in the book are shown in this vein, and are outlined as if one was simply giving the story of the food itself. He states that Bajan food is “simple, basic food”, that “any part of the pig is a ‘piece o’ pork”, indicating a lack of specificity regarding cut of meat, and how the food is “pure and simple and good” rid from unnecessary complexities (2). He traces the history of Barbadian food to a variety of influences, yet the main origin was through the slaves that were brought to the Caribbean during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. Each chapter is centred around a dish in which the origin and the history are first discussed before the recipe that is then interjected throughout with personal anecdotes, telling a story of Bajan culture through food. For example, when discussing how to make the traditional Bajan dish cou-cou, he devotes an entire chapter to the recipe, first highlighting the history of how it became popularized due to the people at the time not having access to many resources, to then the cultural implications surrounding the necessity of a wife to be able to make cou-cou, the recipe itself, and then how it is to be served and shared with others. The cookbook itself highlights a culture in which food is to be the centre of storytelling, and of connection with one’s family. A wife who can cook holds the shared experiences of generations of women before her, all making the same recipes. However, there is in turn the negative implications of this. From these passages, we see the burden of cooking falls entirely on women, as they are primarily the ones with access to these shared recipes, and that if she doesn't know how to cook, there are assumptions that she would be a poor choice for a wife.
The connection between gender and food is explicitly demonstrated throughout the cookbook, however, less implicitly shown is the connection to the environment. He mentions that the meat he ate as a child was sourced from the farm animals he helped care for, and that the selection of what was for dinner was “displayed before us in the yard” (212). It becomes clear that his experience for food, and for many of the recipes during their origin, stem from using the environment to the best advantage. As Barbados is a tropical island, for many self sufficiency for food, or at least as much as possible, is required due to the high price of imported food. Throughout the cookbook, he weaves the recipes with the realities of island life. One of the most tragic is the depletion of flying fish, a small fish that is traditionally fried and is one of the most popular dishes in Barbados. Due to the overfishing, the fish largely migrated to Trinidad instead of their original waters and are now imported in from Trinidad. The author jokes that flying fish are easier to get in Toronto than Barbados now, implying the nature of globalized markets in which some countries prioritize the exporting to developed nations at a higher price rather than developing nations (93). Combined with the overfishing and the introduction of foreign markets, it becomes clear that traditional Bajan food has become more complicated than his childhood.
Through recipes told as stories interwoven with cultural context and anecdotes, Pig Tails ‘n Breadfruit by Austin Clarke highlights a history of food as a facilitator of community. From the cover image depicting a painting of numerous people sharing a meal over an elongated table, to each recipe including detailed notes on how it should be served and shared with others, food is seen as an integral part of community. From these stories, he highlights how these communal offerings have been largely placed on the women to deliver, and if they are not provided, then it is referred to as a failure of the older women who did not teach her. This indicates a complicated balance of trying to maintain traditions from familial recipes, while also gendering the responsibility of who is to pass these traditions on. The environment is heavily mentioned as an influencing factor in traditional Bajan cuisine, both due to the limitations and intense climate of tropical islands, yet also by the ways in which the environment has changed over time. Regardless of how it has changed, food is something to be shared, celebrated, experimented with, and passed down from generation to generation. Pig Tails ‘n Breadfruit beautifully details this celebratory nature of sharing food and the creativity of storytelling that can occur when we treat sharing recipes as sharing stories of our origins.
Works Cited
Clarke, Austin. Pig Tails 'n Breadfruit : Rituals of Slave Food : A Barbadian Memoir. Vintage Canada ed., Vintage Canada, 2000.
Pig Tails ‘n Breadfruit: Rituals of Slave Food
By Catherine Steblaj
For many, food is deeply related to a sense of familial pride. Many recipes are passed down from generation to generation, largely dependant maternal knowledge that is then shared with other women in the family. The cookbook I selected, Pig Tails ‘n Breadfruit: Rituals of Slave Food written by Barbadian-Canadian author Austin Clark offers a variation from the stereotypical cookbook but instead offers a story of food that is more rooted in tradition and offers an insight into Bajan culture. Published in 1999, instead of offering direct measurements, each recipe is told as if it is simply a transcription of a conversation, is interwoven with personal experiences of the author, and stands to show the ways in which food is deeply entrenched in tradition, values, and culture. This book serves as a cookbook, a memoir, and an immersion into the culture of Barbados.
The author introduces the book by first elaborating as to why the book follows this format. He states “[Barbadians] aren’t restricted by precise measurements...A pinch of this and a pinch of that added to a pot, at first by trial and error, and then perfected through history and constant usage…”, indicating an approach to cooking that is dependant entirely on generational knowledge and following one's personal taste rather than the level of specificity seen in other cookbooks (2). This generational knowledge is primarily the reason as to why the book follows this format instead of the more typical recipe structure, with Clark stating how cookbooks are seen as a source of shame in Bajan culture. He explains that “... in every self respecting Barbadian household the woman (who does most of the cooking, whether she is a wife, daughter or maid) would not be caught dead with a cookbook. To read a cookbook would suggest that she has not retained what her mother taught her; that she does not know how to cook; that she does not know how to take care of her man; that her mother had neglected to teach her how to ‘handle herself’ in the kitchen, how ‘to do things’ properly” (3). These two sentences paint a picture in which the ways that gender and food are intricately related in Bajan culture. From this passage, we can see that not only is cooking perceived as women’s work, yet it also is entirely dependent on the familial connections that forge this knowledge. If one woman were to not share the oral history to her children, these recipes would be lost entirely, as the only traces of them exist through memory. It also paints a picture of knowledge formed by repeated actions, indicating that each recipe that is retained is highly cherished and that the history of Bajan food lies in being able to create meals to be enjoyed by families. The author states that when growing up surrounded by women who each worked to prepare this food, from a wide array of family, friends, women from the neighbourhood, and more, that he “never once heard one of them use the word recipe” to describe their cooking, indicating that their creations were almost a habitual, natural pattern, not an activity requiring a complex set of instructions (5).
All of the recipes in the book are shown in this vein, and are outlined as if one was simply giving the story of the food itself. He states that Bajan food is “simple, basic food”, that “any part of the pig is a ‘piece o’ pork”, indicating a lack of specificity regarding cut of meat, and how the food is “pure and simple and good” rid from unnecessary complexities (2). He traces the history of Barbadian food to a variety of influences, yet the main origin was through the slaves that were brought to the Caribbean during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. Each chapter is centred around a dish in which the origin and the history are first discussed before the recipe that is then interjected throughout with personal anecdotes, telling a story of Bajan culture through food. For example, when discussing how to make the traditional Bajan dish cou-cou, he devotes an entire chapter to the recipe, first highlighting the history of how it became popularized due to the people at the time not having access to many resources, to then the cultural implications surrounding the necessity of a wife to be able to make cou-cou, the recipe itself, and then how it is to be served and shared with others. The cookbook itself highlights a culture in which food is to be the centre of storytelling, and of connection with one’s family. A wife who can cook holds the shared experiences of generations of women before her, all making the same recipes. However, there is in turn the negative implications of this. From these passages, we see the burden of cooking falls entirely on women, as they are primarily the ones with access to these shared recipes, and that if she doesn't know how to cook, there are assumptions that she would be a poor choice for a wife.
The connection between gender and food is explicitly demonstrated throughout the cookbook, however, less implicitly shown is the connection to the environment. He mentions that the meat he ate as a child was sourced from the farm animals he helped care for, and that the selection of what was for dinner was “displayed before us in the yard” (212). It becomes clear that his experience for food, and for many of the recipes during their origin, stem from using the environment to the best advantage. As Barbados is a tropical island, for many self sufficiency for food, or at least as much as possible, is required due to the high price of imported food. Throughout the cookbook, he weaves the recipes with the realities of island life. One of the most tragic is the depletion of flying fish, a small fish that is traditionally fried and is one of the most popular dishes in Barbados. Due to the overfishing, the fish largely migrated to Trinidad instead of their original waters and are now imported in from Trinidad. The author jokes that flying fish are easier to get in Toronto than Barbados now, implying the nature of globalized markets in which some countries prioritize the exporting to developed nations at a higher price rather than developing nations (93). Combined with the overfishing and the introduction of foreign markets, it becomes clear that traditional Bajan food has become more complicated than his childhood.
Through recipes told as stories interwoven with cultural context and anecdotes, Pig Tails ‘n Breadfruit by Austin Clarke highlights a history of food as a facilitator of community. From the cover image depicting a painting of numerous people sharing a meal over an elongated table, to each recipe including detailed notes on how it should be served and shared with others, food is seen as an integral part of community. From these stories, he highlights how these communal offerings have been largely placed on the women to deliver, and if they are not provided, then it is referred to as a failure of the older women who did not teach her. This indicates a complicated balance of trying to maintain traditions from familial recipes, while also gendering the responsibility of who is to pass these traditions on. The environment is heavily mentioned as an influencing factor in traditional Bajan cuisine, both due to the limitations and intense climate of tropical islands, yet also by the ways in which the environment has changed over time. Regardless of how it has changed, food is something to be shared, celebrated, experimented with, and passed down from generation to generation. Pig Tails ‘n Breadfruit beautifully details this celebratory nature of sharing food and the creativity of storytelling that can occur when we treat sharing recipes as sharing stories of our origins.
Works Cited
Clarke, Austin. Pig Tails 'n Breadfruit : Rituals of Slave Food : A Barbadian Memoir. Vintage Canada ed., Vintage Canada, 2000.