Guest Post: Resistance Print Sandwiches

Resistance Print Shop Sandwiches

by Ellen Barth 

The recently re-discovered The People’s Philadelphia Cookbook from 1976 is one of a number of grassroots community cookbooks that came out of the counterculture movement. Although community cookbooks are perhaps most strongly associated with women’s church and temple auxiliaries, which sell the compiled and often self-published books in order to raise funds for charitable causes, community cookbooks in 1970s began to take on a distinctly political flavor. In addition to numerous cookbooks produced by members of both the Democratic and Republican parties, grassroots and social justice organizations such as The People’s Fund also increasingly created cookbooks during these years to support their own—often more radical—political goals.

Founded in 1970 in Philadelphia, The People’s Fund (now Bread & Roses Community Fund) used their cookbook to fund groups that would otherwise struggle to find financial support. In their assertion that radical and fundamental changes were needed in society, The People’s Fund was part of an upheaval within American philanthropy that worked towards “change, not charity.” One aspect of the social justice philanthropy of The People’s Fund was that donors to the Fund democratically selected the groups that would receive monetary support. Some of the groups that benefited from the cookbook fundraising effort included the local lesbian and feminist bookstore Alexandria Books, the Black Panther Party, anti-ageist group the Gray Panthers, and Community Assistance for Prisoners. 

In addition to supporting political activism through the raising of democratically-distributed funds, the book also includes elements of politics with in its pages. While food was an essential staple of the cookbook, the compilers of The People’s Philadelphia Cookbook were, it seems, fairly uninterested in turning readers into better cooks. Instead, food and recipes included in the book served in some instances to open up conversations about community, politics, and grassroots action. The introductory sections of the cookbook, for example, directly address readers who “hate to cook” and draw attention to the numerous interviews with local activists included throughout the book.

That the cookbook was not only (or primarily) intended to be an instruction manual used to assist in the preparation of meals is evidenced by two recipes for “Resistance Print Shop Sandwiches.” 

With somewhat unhelpful cooking instructions that include “Put goodies between bread and close lids.” 

and,  “Heat a frying pan (preferably dirty) […]” the two recipes, which take up only a little more than half a page, can hardly be called elaborate. Indeed, as the recipe states, the resulting sandwiches “aren’t extravagant,” but being able or inspired to duplicate them is not really the point of their inclusion. 

Instead of being a “tried and tested” favorite of a single member, the recipes come from the cookbook compilers themselves and provide a food-based glimpse into the behind-the-scenes work of The People’s Fund. They document the grassroots actions of The People’s Fund, who introduce the sandwiches by stating that: “During the crucial years of 1973-74, these sandwiches kept us going at the shop[.]” The “shop” mentioned here was the Philadelphia Resistance Print Shop, a popular destination for Philadelphia-based activists. In addition to printing politically-themed posters, pamphlets, and little magazines, the Philadelphia Resistance Print Shop also helped print The People’s Philadelphia Cookbook, with their logo appearing on the last page of the book. The print shop was one of many oppositional or underground presses to spring up across the country in the 1970s, the presence of which made it possible for groups like The People’s Fund to spread their messages and gain support outside of mainstream channels. More so than the miniscule logo on the back page, the sandwich recipes make visible the print culture practices of this grassroots political group, revealing how their social action and fundraising efforts were often reliant upon voluntary labor as well as supportive production networks. 

More than this, and like the many “parody recipes” found in community cookbooks, the sandwich recipes document this history in a humorous, enjoyable way. As described by Jennifer Rachel Dutch, parody recipes are those that give instructions for such things as happy husbands or healthy children and use ingredients like “a dash of love” or “a measure of patience.” These often-included ‘recipes’ found in community cookbooks don’t result in any food on the table but rather serve to amuse the reader and create a feeling of community. Similarly, “Resistance Print Shop Sandwiches” are primarily meant to archive and entertain rather than to be eaten, documenting the dirty, meager, and at times frigid conditions that had to be endured by grassroots political activist. The recipe text references but makes light of these issues, ending the recipe with: “The meal was traditionally served with lots of mayonnaise at an indoor temperature not above 32F. [sic] and eaten with mittens.” 

In this way, and with a dash of humor, The People’s Philadelphia Cookbook blended the topic of food with their own radical activism. And while this does not mean that readers should feel discouraged from making their own “Resistance Print Shop Sandwiches”—unlike the typical parody recipe these recipes do result in an actual meal—one does wonder whether food or resistance is what’s really on the menu. 

References and Further Reading:

Danky, James P. “The Oppositional Press.” In A History of the Book in America: Volume 5: The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America, edited by David Paul Nord, Joan Shelley Rubin, and Michael Schudson, 269–285. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

Dutch, Jennifer Rachel. “Not Just for Laughs: Parody Recipes in Four Community Cookbooks.” Western Folklore 77, nos. 3/4 (2018): 249–276. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26864126.

Gattuso, Reina. “Eat Like a 1970s Radical With ‘The People’s Philadelphia Cookbook’.” Atlas Obscura, January 24, 2020. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/philadelphia-food-history.

Lurie, Theodora. Change, Not Charity: The Story of the Funding Exchange. New York: The Funding Exchange, 2016.

Biographical Statement:

Ellen Barth is a research and teaching associate in book studies at the University of Münster, Germany. Her doctoral project, Contradictory Cookbooks, addressed women’s production of community cookbooks in American between 1950 and 1990, with a particular focus on grassroots, radical, and feminist cookbooks.