Full Description
Seasoned Socialism considers the relationship between gender and food in late Soviet daily life. Political and economic conditions heavily influenced Soviet life and foodways during this period and an exploration of Soviet women's central role in the daily sustenance for their families as well as the obstacles they faced on this quest offers new insights into intergenerational and inter-gender power dynamics of that time. Food, both in its quality and quantity, was a powerful tool in the Soviet Union. This collection features work by scholars in an array of fields including cultural studies, literary studies, sociology, history, and food studies, and the work gathered here explores the intersection of gender, food, and culture in the post-1960s Soviet context. From personal cookbooks to gulag survival strategies, Seasoned Socialism considers gender construction and performance across a wide array of primary sources, including poetry, fiction, film, women's journals, oral histories, and interviews. This collection provides fresh insight into how the Soviet government sought to influence both what citizens ate and how they thought about food.
Contents
Foreword / Darra Goldstein
Introduction: Food, Gender, and the Everyday through the Looking Glass of Socialist Experience / Anastasia Lakhtikova and Angela Brintlinger
I. Women in the Soviet Kitchen: Cooking Paradoxes in Family and Society
1. Love, Marry, Cook: Gendering the Home Kitchen in Late Soviet Russia / Adrianne K. Jacobs
2. "I hate cooking!": Emancipation and Patriarchy in Late Soviet Film / Irina Glushchenko, Translated by Angela Brintlinger and Anastasia Lakhtikova
3. Professional Women Cooking: Personal Soviet Cookbooks, Social Networks and Identity Building / Anastasia Lakhtikova
II. Producers, Providers and Consumers: Resistance and Compliance, Soviet-Style
4. Cake, Cabbage, and the Morality of Consumption in Iurii Trifonov's House on the Embankment / Benjamin Sutcliffe
5. Sated People: Gendered Modes of Acquiring and Consuming Prestigious Soviet Foods / Olena Stiazhkina
6. Dacha Labors: Preserving Everyday Soviet Life / Melissa L. Caldwell
7. Vodka en plein air: Authoritative Discourse, Alcohol, and Gendered Spaces in "Gray Mouse" by Vil' Lipatov / Lidiia Levkovitch
III. Soviet Signifiers: The Semiotics of Everyday Scarcity and Ritual Uses of Food
8. Cold Veal and a Stale Bread Roll: Zofia Wędrowska's Taste for Scarcity / Ksenia Gusarova
9. "Our only hope was in these plants": Irina Ratushinskaya and the Manipulation of Foodways in a Late Soviet Labor Camp / Ona Renner-Fahey
10: Shchi da kasha, but Mostly Shchi: Cabbage as Gendered and Genre'd in Late Soviet Prose / Angela Brintlinger
11. Still Life with Leftover Cutlet: Nonna Slepakova's Poetics of Time / Amelia Glaser
Afterword: Cultures of Food in the Era of Developed Socialism / Diane P. Koenker
Index
