Document Type
Theses, Masters
Disciplines
Food History
Abstract
Before the rise of restaurants and the accessibility of dining out, the home was where food engagement took place. In the recent surge of Irish Michelin restaurants, and our growing reputation for food culture, one element has been overlooked. Long before the great chefs and level of fine dining we have now – the heart of Irish food culture lay in the home. In the ongoing debate of what Irish cuisine is, we haven’t thought to look inwards, to the routes of our food engagement. This thesis seeks to understand the places, practices and engagement of ordinary women and food in Dublin City, from 1950 to 2000. It has examined literature from a variety of sources concerning elements of women’s food engagement, including grey literature, imperative in the understanding of an undocumented social area. It seeks to answer the key events / issues of the period 1950-2000, that have impacted Irish women’s relationship with food and the key locations, through Oldenburg’s (1999) theory of place in uncovering significant food third places. Using quantitative and qualitative research methods, this research comprised a data collection of two stages. Stage one, saw the study use an online survey to gain a wide scope of voices concerning the topic, and archival research, looking into nine pieces of popular female media sources from 1950 to 2000. Stage two employed a series of six oral history interviews - analysed using thematic analysis. The purpose of using two stages was to gain a broad foundation of the research topic in stage one, which would then equip the researcher more successfully in stage two. The research philosophy implemented was interpretivism, which followed the understanding of letting the story tell itself through the data. Four overarching themes emerged in the final analysis. These were the food of the home, society of the time, place and change. The food of the home looked at what food engagement looked like in the period. This comprised of kitchens, how they looked, their limited space available, who cooked, the roles and expectations around food, learning to cook, their influences and teachers, and food practices of seasonality, tradition and food memories. The theme society of the time looked at the key changes over the period that impacted foodways and women. Ireland saw vast advances technology, improving kitchen equipment, and decreasing manual labour at home, whilst accelerating the rise in convenience foods. There was growing interest in food media and TV chefs, bringing new influences into the home. Economically, Ireland went from post war recovery, onto recession, to the Celtic Tiger, during this seeing the growth of women’s rights, and the marriage bar changing the time available for food engagement. The theme of place saw the most common locations of food shopping and sourcing, supermarkets, family run grocery stores, local butchers, and markets. Often visited daily, these places were significant in the lives of many women, fostering community and interactions. The theme of change brought to light the biggest impacts on food engagement, the crushing rise of supermarkets, growing popularity of foreign foods due to increasing travel abroad and change in religious food practice and attitudes. The four themes, identified through three primary research methods, answer the question of what the engagement between ordinary women and food was, in Dublin City, from 1950 to 2000. Several further research avenues were found, in looking at measuring the impact of women’s food engagement on Irish cuisine today, and an investigation of recipes as an intangible currency shared by generations of women and the preservation of these recipes and food stories. The common foods ate, the style of kitchens at home, the Christmas morning fry’s - these are all normality’s, just now on paper. And that is why this thesis matters. To document and tell the story of women who created the food of the home throughout Dublin City from 1950 to 2000. Their stories matter. Their legacies matter. Just because something is perceived to be known doesn’t mean that it is. This is the place and practice in the engagement of ordinary women and food in Dublin City, from 1950 to 2000.
Recommended Citation
Byrne, Roann, "‘The Food of the Home’ An Exploration of Place and Practice of Ordinary Women in Dublin City 1950-2000 on Irish Cuisine" (2023). Dissertations. 24.
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/tfschcafdis/24
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Publication Details
A masters thesis submitted to the Technological University Dublin, School of Culinary Arts and Food Technology, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of M.A. in Gastronomy and Food Studies.