Weekend Cooking - 'have the men had enough?'

Weekend Cooking hosted at Beth Fish Reads is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs.

Excerpts from two very different books I'm reading but both touching on the same theme.


The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.......the doctrine of Mrs Markham....

"...in all household matters, we have only two things to consider, first, what's proper to be done, and secondly, what's most agreeable to the gentlemen of the house - anything will do for the ladies."

Daughter Rose to her brother.... 


".....-we can't do too much for you - it's always so - if there's anything particularly nice at table, Mama winks and nods at me, to abstain from it, and if I don't attend to that, she whispers, ' Don't eat so much of that, Rose, Gilbert will like it for his supper' -- I'm nothing at all..............in the kitchen it's - ' Make that pie a large one, Rose, I daresay the boys will be hungry; - and don't put so much pepper in, they'll not like that' - or - 'Rose, don't put so many spices in the pudding, Gilbert likes it plain,' - or ' Mind you put plenty of currants in that cake, Fergus likes plenty.' If I say ' Well Mamma,I don't,' I'm told I ought not to think of myself." p57


'Have The Men Had Enough?' by Margaret Forster
Grandma has senile dementia and constantly thinks she's her old self of the 1930/40s with a doctrine exactly the same as Mrs Markhams.
Family mealtimes are a nightmare...

"Have the men had enough?
Never mind the men.
Which men?
Hurry up, the potatoes will be cold.
I'd love a potato.
Then take one, Grandma.
Have the men had enough?

Have the men had enough?
Yes, thank you, Mother.
Who's Mother?
You are, go on, Mother, help yourself.
Hold the plate steady.
Go on, Grandma,
Have the men had enough?


I wonder what these women would have thought of the modern day male invasion of the kitchen!