American as Apple Strudel?
The Settlement Cookbook as a Medium of Social Influence and Acculturation in Immigrant Kitchens
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Originally published in Milwaukee under the title, “The Way to a Man’s Heart,” The Settlement Cookbook debuted in 1901 (Fritz, 44) as a persuasive medium designed to shape the behaviors and attitudes of a targeted group of cooks – immigrant women. Its title indicates that this cookbook aimed for persuasion on an obvious surface level with the cook appealing to the eater, but it was also intended to persuade on deeper, socio-cultural levels. Examining the cookbook in its historical context can offer explanations of the medium and its potential to influence its audiences.
Addressing a gender-specific audience, the title suggests a female reader and cook would purchase and use the book with the goal of pleasing men. This implies that reaching a “man’s heart” (achieving marital status) is a worthy pursuit, and that culinary skill is necessary to attain the goal of a happy man. That readers should have these goals relies on their accepting and embracing a particular path of cultural expectations and social behaviors. Correspondingly, two transactions are implied in the book’s title. First, the cookbook promises the reader a means to develop culinary skills, and second, if the reader masters those skills and follows the recipes therein, her cooking will win her favor with men, and help her achieve the ultimate goal of marriage.
Despite the title, however, The Settlement Cookbook was more than a mere catch-a-husband culinary manual. Rather, it was part of a larger effort in social behavior modification. Further examination of the cookbook’s context, and development as well as how the book was employed in acculturating recent immigrants can offer deeper understanding of the authors’ purposes and motives.
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Creator of The Settlement Cookbook, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Black Kander, and her co-author Fannie Greenbaum Schoenfeld were members of a Jewish community of predominantly German ancestry. In 1870, Russian Jews comprised fewer than seven percent of Milwaukee’s Jewish population (Fritz, 38). Upon relocating from Green Bay in the 1840s, Kander’s parents John and Mary Perles Black became part of a middle-class community of merchants and craftsmen, and founding members of Reform Temple Emanu-El.
Within that context of Reform Judaism, one can better understand the culinary practices advanced by The Settlement Cookbook and Kander’s motives for instructing others in these practices. Temple Emanu-El’s stated mission, “reconciling religion with the progressive ideas of the age (Fritz, 38) is central to informing Kander’s perspective on food traditions and social reform work.
First, it is important to acknowledge the sacred place food occupied in the Jewish faith. Consuming food as part of ritual was (and remains) essential in Jewish tradition, and food is strongly associated with spiritual and cultural identity. Dietary laws, or kashruth, represent a pact the followers entered into with God, and these ways of eating reflected a particular understanding of the order of nature as God’s creation (Solar, 49). Further, the term “food-joy” is meant to underscore the sacredness of eating and its connection to religious practice. Obeying the laws transformed mealtime into a sacrament (97 Orchard, 119).
Traditionally, women were responsible for the culinary aspects of religious custom and faithful practice focused on maintaining a kosher home, whereas men engaged in prayer and religious scholarship. The contemporary observer may regard a division of labor along gender lines as challenging the notion of “progressive ideas” cited in the mission of Kander’s congregation. Such issues are outside the scope of this examination, but it should be noted that domestic labor was not women’s only path of religious practice, and that feeding the family was a particularly valued contribution because of the elevated role food played in religious practice and cultural identity.
For the traditional Jewish homemaker, food was an expression of faith and a means of connection. Knowledge of food preparation and expertise in Jewish food laws were passed from mother to daughter, an exchange transacted over the course of a girl’s childhood and transition into young adulthood. The young woman learned by helping, gradually absorbing quantities of food knowledge which she would employ when she married and began to manage her own household (97 Orchard, 95-7). The knowledge, passed orally from the older generation to the younger one, is an example of strengthening the social bond (CITATION HERE RE: VALUE OF CONTENT GREATER B/C DELIVERED ORALLY, CONCEPT OF EXCHANGE AS DESCRIBED IN CTMS) through language.
Several ways in which Reform Judaism departs from traditional practice inform one’s understanding of The Settlement Cookbook. The roots of Reform Judaism are linked to an eighteenth century German movement called the Haskala. Followers engaged with secular society to a greater extent than traditional Jewish communities, and gradually adopted secular social practices. In addition to seeking a secular German language education for Jewish school children, they kept their shops open for business on the Sabbath, men shaved their beards and women discarded traditional head coverings. Congregations also adapted some practices of Christian churches such as black robes for clergy and organs and choirs in the synagogue. Food practices also relaxed, and similarly, individual cooks chose among food traditions, retaining some and rejecting others (97 Orchard, 95-7).
Kander’s cookbook of contemporary American standards may have taken its cues from an earlier cookbook tied to the Reform movement in America. Created as a family recipe compilation from Mrs. Bertha Kramer to her daughter (Braunstein and Weissman, 78), a cookbook published as “Aunt Babette’s” is regarded as a groundbreaking document. Recipe collections were common gifts to new brides, and many of them were manuscripts spanning several generations. Aunt Babette’s collection was published in 1889 “for young Jewish homemakers of the most modern-thinking sort,” (97 Orchard, 97) and it is one of the first Jewish cookbooks to include foods that fall outside the traditional dietary guidelines. A variety of treyf, or impure foods such as wild game, pork, shellfish, blood, and recipes that mix meat and dairy are featured, along with traditional Jewish dishes, matzoh recipes, gefilte fish, and foods specific to Jewish holidays.
The cookbook spoke to the social aspirations of middle-class Reform Jewish women who associated with non-Jewish others. They defined their faith on ethical and religious concepts, rather than ceremonial practices that might distance them from wider society (Braunstein and Weissman, 80). Scholarship on the topic suggests that women such as Kander and Schoenfeld identified as members of an elite society. Their choice of cuisine reflected their refinement and status; by recommending others adopt their habits, they invite the reader to become a member of their ranks (Bower, 144). Therefore, The Settlement Cookbook combines both traditional and treyf recipes, along with German favorites which would have appealed to the Milwaukee community at large.
This perspective on culinary practices can be placed in context of time and place. Aunt Babette’s cookbook was produced in Cincinnati, home to the largest community of Reformed Jews in 19th century America by a publishing company with ties to Reform movement leadership. The author explains her perspective on kosher and treyf this way; “nothing is trefa that is healthy and clean,” (97 Orchard, 95-7). (Defining and interpreting kosher cuisine is a nuanced and complex, but this example of a definition in contrast with the traditional helps to situate the cookbook in the historical and cultural context.) Through Aunt Babette, an authority with decades of culinary experience, the cookbook offers “modern-thinking” cooks permission to dispense with traditional practices.
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To the modern observer, it appears that Kander’s life and mission occupy a middle ground between progressive and traditional values. As the 1878 valedictorian of Milwaukee East Side High School, Lizzie (then) Black delivered an address entitled “When I Become President,” The Milwaukee Sentinel newspaper covered her speech, which called for political reform, ending corruption and encouraged women to address societal ills by taking personal responsibility. She faulted the suffrage movement for distracting women from their social responsibilities (perhaps a surprising position for a woman who aspired to the office of the Presidency). Black’s vision for the future was one in which women used their inherent maternal abilities to manage a home and extended their moral leadership to positions in the public sphere as settlement workers, club-women and public school teachers (Fritz, 38). Soon after graduation, she joined a women’s club and began her own career in philanthropy, aided by the business connections of Simon Kander, her husband (ibid.).
In her valedictory address, Lizzie Black outlined a role for women influenced by the “cult of domesticity.” Beginning in the 1850s, women were regarded as the moral strength of society, responsible for channeling their gentle, nurturing instincts toward raising good, productive citizens (Dorfman, 3). The domestic science field, newly emerging at the time, took cues from this elevation of the feminine, self-sacrificing role. According to the principles of domestic science, the home was a woman’s laboratory and she approached her tasks with scientific methods, applying chemistry, sanitation, dietetics and physiology. (KITCHEN AS LABORATORY PARALLELING ACCONCI’S IDEA OF TELEVISION AS NONTHREATENING FURNITURE) Advice manuals of the time, such as “Treatise on Domestic Economy,” by Catherine Beecher supported such an approach to household work by addressing topics such as kitchen functionality and organization as well as managing household staff (Dorfman, 3-4).
Cookbooks of the time, including The Settlement Cookbook, adopted this domestic science perspective and its unimpeachable scientific authority. Under the “Rules for the Household” section, classification tables detail the relative nutritional values of foods, and before recipe sections such as breads, the “composition of bread” is divided for the reader: Protieds 9%, Fats 2%, Mineral Matter 1%, Water 32% and Carbohydrate 56% (Kander, 15). Guidelines are issued for measuring, setting the table, building a fire, dusting, waiting on the table and clearing up after dinner (Kander, 5). Similar guidelines are laid out under “general rules” sections throughout the book, defining terms and explaining details about the ingredients involved in the recipes to follow.
Advice literature appealed to the middle and lower classes by presuming that readers among those groups were striving to rise socially. Correspondingly, advice literature authors believed that their guidance would eventually reach its true target audience, the lower classes, by first influencing the middle class. If the middle class would adopt the correct habits and sensibilities that are the foundations of ideal home life, they believed the lower classes would emulate the habits of their social superiors in hopes of improving their own situation. (Dorfman, 4). CONSUMER CULTURE, COMPARED TO A&H UNDERSTANDING OF CULTURE INDUSTRY
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In Reform Jewish communities of Kander’s time, philanthropy was central to identity and this service to the immigrant populations maintained the social division between the established elite and the newly arrived in the Jewish communities (Braunstein and Weissman, 96). The settlement house was an ideal outlet for such charitable ambitions.
The settlement house movement combined aspects of advice literature, domestic science, and philanthropic outreach in an effort to assist and Americanize recent immigrants. Founded in 1900, “The Settlement” in Milwaukee joined a tradition of social aid that began in Britain in the 1850s and carried on at organizations such as Hull House in Chicago and the Neighborhood Guild on Manhattan’s Lower East Side (97 Orchard, 160). Among their services, settlement houses offered kindergartens, gymnasiums, reading rooms, and vocational training for women. Classes in literature and the arts offered refinements while English classes, civics and American history courses were available to acculturate the foreign-born. Cooking classes offered settlement workers another way to Americanize the newly arrived immigrants and improve their culinary practices (97 Orchard, 160).
Kander’s cooking class at The Settlement reflected the wider trend of introducing immigrants to standard American cuisine. Generally, these cooking classes taught plain, simple American foods such as soups, roasts, fish, breads and desserts, echoing the mainstream culinary preferences of cooking class instructors such as Kander. However, settlement houses such as Milwaukee’s that served Jewish populations adapted the cooking classes to kosher laws at the request of their students. A New York city settlement worker is quoted as saying “There are some kosher laws that have to be followed, else the teaching would go no further than the classroom and would never show practical results,” (97 Orchard, 160). However, because of the strong tradition of oral learning associated with Jewish food and culinary traditions, cooking classes were not universally successful ventures for settlement houses. Jewish homemakers felt they already knew how to cook (97 Orchard, 160).
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Though the Settlement Cookbook is sometimes cited as an example of a highly successful charity cookbook, Kander’s purposes for publishing were educational, first. High school students comprised the majority of her cooking class students and they fit lessons in after school. Copying each lesson was a lengthy process that took time away from actual cooking, so Kander and fellow settlement worker Schoenfeld sought to publish the lessons and recipes as a convenience for the students, first, (and a saleable product second). Famously, The Settlement executive board declined to contribute the printing costs, so the women and their publisher sought alternatives (Braunstein and Weissman, 97). By selling advertisements to businesses within the German-Jewish community (Fritz, 44), Kander used her authority to recommended to her audience the goods and services of this select group of merchants. Many of these merchants would have been among her social circle, due to her husband’s business and political connections. (NETWORKS, PER CTMS) Her recommendation to patronize them can be understood as an invitation for readers to join the community (Bower, 144), and follow its norms.
The Settlement cookbook was not a “come as you are” invitation. Lizzie Kander’s statements to fellow women’s club members reflected genuine concern for the living conditions of Milwaukee’s Jewish ghetto, which at the time was inhabited by Russian and Polish immigrants (Fritz, 41). When calling for Americanization efforts among the immigrant Jewish community, however, Kander is quoted “… not alone for their own sake and for that of humanity, but for the reputation of our own nationality. Their misdeeds reflect directly on us and every one of us, individually, ought to do all in his power to help lay the foundation of good citizenship in them,” (Fritz, 43). Kander’s concern for maintaining the social status of German Jews in Milwaukee and avoiding anti-Semitism seemed to take on a paternalistic tenor. (IDEA OF SHORTCUT/MYTH, PER BARTHES IN STEREOTYPING)
With excess water from bottle sterilization at the Schlitz Brewery, Kander developed the Keep Clean Mission, a bathhouse next to the Schlitz plant. “Short sermons on cleanliness” were given to children from five to ten years old, and covered hygiene and clean living in general (Fritz, 43). Kander was instrumental in establishing vocational education for girls in the Milwaukee Public Schools, and the program also spun off “American” housekeeping extension courses for women (Fritz, 49). Perhaps the American public school wielded stronger influence because members of immigrants own families – their children – demanded the change. From the authoritative position of educators, the public school was able to modify attitudes and behaviors through modeling. Public schools nation-wide incorporated cooking classes similar to those Kander taught at The Settlement as part of home economics programs, with the expectation that students would share their knowledge with their families. The courses were based on the domestic science approach using model home kitchens, and resembled the formal programs taught at universities. To reinforce the culinary lessons, home economics teachers visited their pupils at home. School lunches acculturated immigrant children to American foods, and aimed to steer them away from foods judged less desirable by nutrition experts of the day (97 Orchard, 160).
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Immigrants used food as a medium of expression. It helped them define who they were, and how they wanted others to see them. Their relationship with food evolved, depending on context and conditions. “The language of food, like any expressive medium is never fixed, but perpetually a work in progress” (97 Orchard, 82). The Settlement Cookbook encouraged assimilation by projecting a vision of refinement and sophistication through the social status of its prominent authors.
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