Academic Anorexia? Some Gendered Questions about Comparative Literature
1997; Duke University Press; Volume: 49; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/1771281
ISSN1945-8517
Autores Tópico(s)Gender Studies in Language
ResumoBefore I address the anorexia of my title, I want to indulge in a brief personal reminiscence. When I was growing up, we were four girls, close in age, a female community somewhat like that of Little Women. Afternoons (that is, I suppose, after homework), we helped prepare supper-patting dry the ingredients for boeuf bourgignon, or chopping nuts for apfelkuchen, linzertorte, etc. We satiated ourselves on reading recipes. Only now-preparing this talk-do I understand how many of these recipes were born of ingenuity in response to wartime or postwar shortages, substituting dried eggs for fresh, for example; we made constant adjustments to the local conditions of the cupboard and icebox. Food was invested with the pleasures of sociability, with conversation, with stolen tastes, and with comparative sampling. At the table, however, a Calvinist spirit reigned: here the regime required at least one spoonful of everything such as eggplant or meat, and when it came to desserts, two was the limit. To be sure, this still left room for comparison: two linzertortes, one with raspberry, the other with apricot jam. But only two. Not one with raspberry and almond paste, another with raspberry and a teaspoon of cocoa in the dough, followed by apricot or orange-marmelade experi-
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