Altering Cooking and Eating Habits during the Romanian Communist Regime by Using Cookbooks

Abstract

This digital project examines the role of a cook book, Sanda Marin’s Carte de Bucate, first published in 1936, as a vehicle for social education in Communist Romania. The book was censored and transformed during the Communist regime as two interconnected phenomena were taking place: the reinforcing of the ideology of the Communist model and an increasing economic crisis that led to scarcity of food. The paper also pays attention to how the language and tone used in the book changed depending on the understanding of gender roles in different decades. In spite of Communist claims of an equal division of responsibilities, procuring of food and cooking was considered a woman’s task. By addressing equal responsibility in the public sphere, not at home, the progress toward gender equity reached after the War was completely erased during communism since women had to work and also be responsible for all domestic duties at home, a situation that has been similar in other eastern European countries to this day.

Geografia dezvoltării. Abordări centrate pe om

“…Această grupare de texte conține cele mai diverse subiecte cu privire la gen în România comparativ cu categoriile menționate anterior. Ele tratează despre subiecte ce țin de mentalitatea colectivă și rolurile tradiționale, familia, violența domestică, religiozitatea și generozitatea (Lazăr & Hatos, 2019), activismul social și ONG-uri axate pe probleme de gen (Nimu, 2015), alocarea timpului liber (Roman, 2006); etnice (minoritatea romă); migrație; precum și diferite reprezentări ale genului în: cinematografia românească (Batori, 2019;Fătu-Tutoveanu, 2021;Georgescu, 2011), epitafuri, jucării, cărți de bucate (Ghita, 2018), benzi desenate (Ilovan, 2021b; a se vedea și Ilovan, 2020, 2021a) și structura limbii (Liu et al, 2017).…”

Sustainable Nutrition for Increased Food Security – Case Study Romania

“…The major problem with agricultural practices in Romania at the time was that, while Romania had been considered the "granary of Europe" since the interwar period and one of Europe's all-time leading suppliers of grain, its citizens suffered from food insecurity, nutrient deficiency, and many related health conditions. Thirty years later, the disruption of the communistera food supply still influences the population's dietary patterns [16]. The "traditional Romanian diet" is largely based on meat, especially pork, bread and potatoes, a traditional tree-course menu exceeding 845 kJ (about 200 kcal) per 100 g per person.…”

One Could Not Have Survived Communism Without a Grandmother

“…A volume that complicates and critiques assumptions related to nostalgia for Communism is Remembering Communism: Private and Public Recollections of Lived Experience in Southeast Europe(Todorova, Troebst & Dimou 2014).3 I am very grateful to Romanian and Eastern European colleagues-fellow survivors-who have been talking to Romanians about their lives during Communism, focusing particularly on food. I am sure I will miss many, but I would like to highlight the work of Dumitru-AlinSavu (2017), Claudia Florentina-Dobre (2016, 2017, InaGhita (2018), Catherina Perianu (2008, and those who contributed to the edited collection Remembering Communism (2014). 4 I use 'memory work' loosely in this article to refer to the process of reflecting critically on one's own memory, but I am inspired by the feminist qualitative research approach developed in 1987 by Frigga Haug and her colleagues (seeLapadat et al 2010).…”