Not surprisingly as the literature I’ve written about has moved into the domestic sphere (early 19th century onwards), so the food described has tended to be prepared by women. Whether it be Charlotte Lucas’s mince pies in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the dinner party prepared in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway or the welsh cakes made by Evans the Death’s mother in Under Milk Wood, it is largely women who are responsible for the food preparation.
The second-wave feminism that swept across the US and much of Europe between the 1960s and 1980s moved beyond the fight for political enfranchisement that had been the focus of the struggle of first-wave feminism to consider a wider range of issues affecting women such as employment, marriage, family and the household, issues that continue to be a source of debate nowadays.
The English writer Fay Weldon tackles many of these issues in her novels and short stories, perhaps most notably in her 1983 novel, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, in which a jilted wife takes revenge on her adulterous husband and his younger, slimmer, more glamorous mistress.
In her short story ‘Weekend’, originally published in the women’s magazine Cosmopolitan in 1978, Weldon focuses on the challenges for women of juggling home and working life. At the centre of the story is Martha, a working mother of three children, married to the chauvinist, Martin. Every Friday evening the family leave their city home and travel to their country house for the weekend.
The reader quickly discovers that a situation that is presented in the opening paragraphs as a pleasure and a privilege is far from delightful for Martha. From the preparations on Friday evening – ‘Then Martha would run round the house tidying and wiping, doing this and that, finding the cat at one neighbour’s and delivering it to another, while the others ate their tea’ – to their arrival at the cottage – ‘Then there was the car to unpack and the beds to make up, and the electricity to connect, and the supper to make, and the cobwebs to remove, while Martin made the fire’ – Weldon strings together lists of phrases to convey the unmanageable number of household tasks that Martha takes on, whilst her husband orders her around and does very little himself.
Lying at the heart of the household duties is the cooking. Martin is insistent that the family and their guests should eat proper, home-cooked food: ‘Saturday lunch: family lunch: fish and chips. (‘So much better cooked at home than bought’: Martin).’
It is, of course, Martha’s duty to provide the food, whilst Martin feels it is his to advise her on how best to cook it. Weldon juxtaposes Martha’s thoughts about the cooking she has to do with the advice imparted by Martin, highlighting the constant pressure Martha is under: ‘Martha rustled up a quick meal of omelettes. … (‘Martha makes a lovely omelette’: Martin) (‘Honey, make one of your mushroom omelettes: cook the mushrooms, separately, remember, with lemon. Otherwise the water from the mushrooms gets into the egg, and spoils everything’).’
The omelettes are made for their friend Colin and his new girlfriend Katie (who has replaced his wife, Janet) who arrive at one-fifteen on Saturday morning ‘just after Martha had got to bed’. Martha thinks longingly of Janet: ‘when Janet came down to the cottage she would wash up. … And Janet would wash the bath and get the children all sat down … Janet would garden too. … Lovely Janet; who understood.’
Katie is not like Janet. Glamorous and unfettered by marriage and children, she is presented as Martha’s (and Janet’s) polar opposite. Offering to help with the gardening, she ‘pulled out pansies in mistake for weeds’. Patronising Martha – ‘You do so much, poor thing!’ – she offers to make lunch: ‘And she pulled out of the fridge all the things Martha had put away for the next day’s picnic lunch party – … and had it all on the table in five amazing competent minutes’, greatly impressing Martin in the process: ‘”That’s all we need darling,” said Martin. “You are funny with your fish-and-chip Saturdays! What could be nicer than this? Or simpler?”’
The story ends not with Martha murdering Martin – my preferred ending! – but on a more sombre, despairing note. Martha and Martin’s daughter, Jenny, has started her first period: ‘and Martha cried and cried and knew she must stop because this must be a joyous occasion for Jenny or her whole future would be blighted, but for once Martha couldn’t.’ For Martha knows that the cycle will simply continue.
And so to food. I thought I would make the mushroom omelette. Unfortunately Martin’s advice is good – it is best to cook the mushrooms separately. I wish that wasn’t the case, but I tell myself he probably learnt it from a woman so that’s okay.
A FEMINIST’S MUSHROOM OMELETTE
Ingredients (for one person):
One handful of mushrooms chopped
2 large eggs
50g butter
Freshly squeezed lemon juice
Salt and pepper
Method:
Fry the mushrooms gently in half the butter until cooked through. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat whilst you make the omelette.
Melt half the remaining butter in a small frying pan. Lightly beat the eggs using a fork and add a pinch of salt and grind of pepper.
Pour the egg mixture into the frying pan.
Gently move the frying pan back and forth over the heat, so that the egg mixture runs to the edges of the pan; then, using a spatula or fish slice, go around the edge of the pan, gently pushing down the edge of the egg mixture.
When the egg mixture is cooked on the bottom, but the top is still runny, spoon the mushrooms on top of one side of the omelette. Then bring the other half over the top of the mushrooms.
Place the remaining butter on the top of the omelette (so it melts), gently slide onto a plate and serve with crusty bread and a green salad on the side.
