The Perfect Recipe

Abstract

This paper considers the implications of a particular kind of recipe, namely recipes that purport to be perfect, for democratic citizenship. I explore the political dimensions of perfect recipes not in terms of identity or community, but as a type of political instrument, or as manifesting a particular form of political obligation, based on the cook/reader's submission to the terms and commands of the recipe. We might thus describe the relationship between the perfect recipe and the reader/cook as authoritarian or autocratic. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that perfect recipes may make for good meals but bad cooks. But perfect recipes do more than make bad cooks—they make bad citizens because they encourage habits of docility and deference, both of which are inimical to democratic citizenship.

Keywords:

• recipes
• cooking
• politics
• women
• citizenship

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John E. Finn

John E. Finn is Chair of the Department and Professor of Government at Wesleyan University. He holds a JD from Georgetown University, a PhD in political science from Princeton University, and a degree in culinary arts from the French Culinary Institute. His works in the field of food studies include a review essay on Julia Child in Gastronomica and “The Kitchen Voice as Confessional” in Food, Culture, and Society. He is also the author of Constitutions in Crisis: Political Violence and the Rule of Law (Oxford University Press, 1991) and co-author of American Constitutional Law: Essays, Cases, and Comparative Notes, 3rd edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009). Department of Government, Wesleyan University, 238 Church Street, Middletown, CT 06459, USA ([email protected]).