Domesticity and dirt Book

Whoops! Finished this several weeks ago and simply forgot to log it.

In all honesty, this started out well, got dry, and only became fascinating toward the end because of the Nanny-State tendencies of the women who near the end of the period covered gained control of the movement, and that just angered me, since these control-freak (at best) and tyrannical (at worst, and it's not so far from one to the other) types remain with us, always veiling their insistence that everyone eat the same, uniform diet, one often based upon mistaken data (Ancel Keys, anyone?) with various nice-sounding bromides. As a history buff, I read a lot of books that can be a bit on the dry side; a book about women and food was not one I expected to suffer this malady, and perhaps that made getting through it worse. Alas!

I did enjoy the sketches of women like Fanny Farmer, and some passages are downright amusing'things were so different during these years, and there's a lot of innocent charm involved in the way the ladies devised their perfect meals. I can't deny that some of the things brought about by the women of the home economics movement were very good indeed; frankly, I would mind a bit seeing homekeeping returned to its once-admired status, as an honourable and important occupation (who likes living in or even visiting a filthy house?). Reading about the cooking schools, their goals, and their students was interesting as well, particularly concerning their reception by the public'and the way their menus often failed to satisfy, much less fulfill people's needs.

Overall, it's...okay. It is not bad, but it is not great, unless this is perhaps your field of study or if you are interested in the way individuals, groups, and governments try to control others, down to the minutiae of daily life. I'll probably send my copy, upon which a few cups of tea were spilt, to one of my favourite Libertarians.