Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T17:51:32.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

GOOD TASTE AND SWEET ORDERING: DINING WITH MRS BEETON

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2008

Margaret Beetham
Margaret Beetham*
Affiliation:
Manchester Metropolitan University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In his bookDistinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu argues that in order to understand the workings of culture “in the restricted, normative sense” we must not only relate our discussion to the broad anthropological meanings of the concept, we must also relate it to “taste” in the physical sense. We must, he argues, bring “the elaborated taste for the most refined objects . . . back into relation with the elementary taste for the flavours of food” (Bourdieu 99). Bourdieu is writing of twentieth-century France and not nineteenth-century Britain. It may seem anachronistic to juxtapose a quotation from his work with one from an 1861 volume of domestic advice. However, his argument that social distinctions can be understood through a discussion of the material and cultural values attached to food resonates with Beeton's argument that “the rank which a people occupy . . . may be measured by their way of taking their meals.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , September 2008 , pp. 391 - 406
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

WORKS CITED

Acton, Eliza. Modern Cookery for Private Families. 1845. Lewes: Southover, 1993.Google Scholar
Anon. [Author of a “Manual of Gardening for Western India”]. Indian Domestic Economy and Receipt Book. Bombay: Printed at the Gentleman's Gazette, 1849.Google Scholar
Attar, Dena. A Bibliography of Household Books Published in Britain 1800–1914. London: Prospect, 1987.Google Scholar
Beetham, Margaret. A Magazine of Her Own? Domesticity and Desire in the Woman's Magazine 1800-1914. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Beetham, Margaret. “Of Recipe Books and Reading in the Nineteenth Century: Mrs. Beeton and her Cultural Consequences.” The Recipe Reader: Narratives-Contexts-Traditions. Ed. Floyd, Janet and Foster, Laurel. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. 15–30.Google Scholar
Beeton, Isabella, ed. Beeton's Book of Household Management. S. O. Beeton: London, 1861.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Trans. Nice, Richard. London: Routledge, 1984.Google Scholar
Buzard, James. “Home Ec. With Mrs. Beeton.” Raritan 17 (1997): 121–35.Google Scholar
Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery. London, Paris, New York and Melbourne: Cassell (later editions by Petter and Galpin), undated.Google Scholar
Chambers' Cookery and Domestic Economy. see [Mistress of a Family, The]Google Scholar
Collingham, E. M.Imperial Bodies: The Physical Experience of the Raj, c. 1800–1947. London: Polity, 2001.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. London: John Murray, 1859.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles. The Voyage of the Beagle. London: Henry Colburn, 1839.Google Scholar
Davidoff, Leonore. Worlds Between: Historical Perspectives on Gender and Class. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995.Google Scholar
Davies, Margaret Llewelyn, ed. Life as We have Known It by Co-operative Working Women. 1931. London: Virago, 1977.Google Scholar
De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Rendall, Steven. Berkeley: U of California P, 1984.Google Scholar
Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. 1853. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.Google Scholar
Driver, Elizabeth. A Bibliography of Cookery Books Published in Britain 1800-1914. London: Prospect, 1989.Google Scholar
Ellis, Sarah. “Dangers of Dining Out.” Family Secrets. London: Fisher and Son, ?1841. 1–96.Google Scholar
English Woman's Domestic Magazine 1 (1852).Google Scholar
Foley, Winifred. “Winifred Foley: General Maid.” Useful Toil: Autobiographies of Working People from the 1820s to the 1920s. Ed. Burnett, John. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974. 226–34.Google Scholar
Goodyear, Rachel. An Encyclopedia of Domestic Economy and Beeton's Book of Household Management. Unpublished MA thesis, University of Leeds, Department of English, 1995.Google Scholar
Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto.” Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association, 1991. 149–81.Google Scholar
Howsam, Leslie. “Food for Thought.” Rare Book Review 31.3 (2004): 32–36.Google Scholar
Howsam, Leslie. “Women's History/Women's Books: Rediscovering the Nineteenth Century Mrs Beeton.” Unpublished paper.Google Scholar
Hughes, Kathryn. The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton. London: Fourth Estate, 2005.Google Scholar
Humble, Nicola. Introduction. Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.Google Scholar
Hunter, Lynette. “Proliferating Publications: the Progress of Victorian Cookery Literature.” Luncheon, Nuncheon and Other Meals: Eating with the Victorians. Ed. Wilson, C. Anne. Stroud: Allen Sutton, 1994. 51–70.Google Scholar
Indian Domestic Economy and Receipt Book. see Anon [The Author of. . .]Google Scholar
[Lady, A, probably Miss Emma Roberts]. Modern Domestic Cookery; Based on the Well-Known Work of Mrs. Rundell. London: Murray, 1853.Google Scholar
[Lady, A]. The New London Cookery and Complete Domestic Guide. London, G. Virtue, 1836.Google Scholar
[The Mistress of a Family]. Chambers' Cookery and Domestic Economy for Young Housewives. London and Edinburgh: Chambers, 1854, 1884.Google Scholar
[Philp, R. K.]. Enquire Within About Everything. London, Houlston and Stoneman, 1856, 1866, 1883.Google Scholar
Reeve, Mrs. H. Cookery and Housekeeping. London: Longmans, 1883.Google Scholar
Rundell, Mrs. [see A Lady]Google Scholar
Ruskin, John. “Of Queens' Gardens.” Sesame and Lilies. London: Smith and Elder, 1865.Google Scholar
Warren, Mrs. How I managed my House on two hundred pounds a year. London: Houston and Wright, 1865.Google Scholar
Zlotnick, Susan. “Domesticating Imperialism: Curry and Cookbooks in Victorian England.” The Recipe Reader: Narratives-Contexts-Traditions. Ed. Floyd, Janet and Foster, Laurel. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. 72–87.Google Scholar