Gender’s gourmet trap

Cultures that fetishise food stick women in the kitchen for hours on hours. Gender parity takes off where the cuisine is functional, UK to Germany, overcooked cabbage to sausage

There’s a pungent paradox simmering in the world’s most celebrated kitchens: the better the cuisine, the worse the gender politics that come marinated with it. Somewhere between turmeric and tears, food becomes a trapdoor – one that opens only under female feet.

The hypothesis isn’t flambéed for effect. It’s slow-roasted in history: behind every mouthwatering national dish is a woman whose labour was ritualised, romanticised, and eventually rendered invisible.

Because once a culture begins to fetishise food, it quietly starts domesticating the female body – one rolling pin at a time.

Read the full story on TOI+.

END OF ARTICLE