英国における女性向け料理書の誕生とその発展に尽力した女性執筆者たちの概要

抄録

This article traces the history and social significance of domestic cookery books in Britain, paying special attention to the contribution of women writers. At first, it demonstrates how the varieties of medical housekeeping books that were prominent in the sixteenth century—many of which dealt with dietary matters-were later transformed into cookery books specifically intended for women, as a result of the growing clarification of women’s social roles in the seventeenth century. Furthermore, owing to the efforts of many experienced women writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these sorts of books gradually became recognized as familiar reading for women of every class and generation. The reason for their popularity was that women writers endeavored to select and describe practical, detailed, and simple recipes as much as possible, and attempted to establish the perception that “British cooking is economical.” Particularly in the nineteenth century, these cookery books became established as domestic cookery books that exemplified the ideal of “domestic cookery” in the “domestic sphere” for all sorts of middle-class women.