The Worth of a Plate: 18th Century Women and Environmental Pressures Placed on Them Through Food

Abstract

18th century women had busy lives, they were in charge of the household, children, clothing, business, and even at times were active politically. However, out of all of these the one thing that hasn’t been looked at in depth is the aspect of societal pressures put on these women through food. From every angle there was pressure put on the woman of the household, usually the wife, to put onto the table a meal, but what goes into a meal? There’s more than mixing ingredients and cooking it. There’s buying or growing of the food, preparing, cooking, serving and preserving of the foods. From every angle she had someone telling her how to do it, why she should be doing it, as well as the pressure of making sure she could do it to feed her family and provide for them through the good times and the bad. With this study of those pressures on 18th century women, there is also a project attached, where we look at exactly what it takes to make a meal. Not the usual multi course type of meal served at an important dinner, but the everyday foods, meals that she was required to put onto the table for her family. Those simple meals are examples of the amount of time and work it takes for her to create those dishes, and gives us a chance to see what the more opulent meals would take, and the amount of pressure and stress put on her to perform.