In Bonnie Garmus’ enjoyable novel, Lessons in Chemistry, set in 1960s America, Elizabeth Zott is a research chemist whose career is blighted by sexism in the workplace. In order to earn some money, she takes up the opportunity to present a daytime cooking show, which she uses to educate her audience of ‘housewives’ about scientific principles: ‘Cooking is serious science: In fact it’s chemistry’. Elizabeth’s approach, insisting on saying ‘sodium chloride’ for salt for example, is clearly exaggerated for comic effect. However, the idea that science was best taught to girls through cooking lessons was a respectable point of view in the early twentieth century.
Domestic Science
The motivation for dovetailing of science and cookery sprung from two places: a belief (like Elizabeth Zott’s) that the application of scientific knowledge would increase the quality of the cooking; and the idea that girls’ interest in science would be sparked by introducing the knowledge in a way that made its relevance clear, dovetailing with their existing interests.
A good example of a text-book that tried to flesh out exactly what a scientific syllabus might look like was written in 1915/1916 by Charles Hale, a former lecturer in Chemistry at the South-Western Polytechnic. This was a two year course for pupils at secondary school and covered topics such as heating, lighting and cleaning as well as food. In the cookery sections, there was a great emphasis on the chemical composition of foods and what this meant for the nutritional content. There were practical experiments to undertake – such as heating an egg white in a test-tube to observe changes. Questions at the end of the chapter were on the lines of ‘What method would you adopt in order to determine whether (a) rice (b) bread (c) white of egg contain nitrogen or otherwise?’. Certainly, nobody could have learnt to cook from following such a syllabus. However, teachers, as they always have, adapted the ideas in their own ways and what ‘Domestic Science’ looked like in the classroom could vary enormously.
Criticisms of Domestic Science
The Domestic Science approach attracted criticism from different quarters. A sneering journalist in The Nineteenth Century and After found it hilarious that ‘half-educated girls’ should bother their heads with such things as chemisty and painted a humorous picture of the cook who couldn’t make an omelette but could advise about ‘a reduction of the nitrogenous element’ in meals. Others felt that not only did such a syllabus lead to poor practical skills in the kitchen, it was also a poor introduction to science. Science teachers who acted as witnesses to the government’s Acland Report (1913) argued that the scientific processes involved in cooking were complex and not suitable for teaching basic scientific knowledge. Domestic Science would seriously disadvantage girls who were interested in a career as a scientist.
We can enjoy Elizabeth Zott’s lessons in chemistry via the medium of the television cooking show and admire her efforts. It’s true that school subjects should not be kept rigidly apart –learning in one area can usefully inform others. But ultimately, it seems a good thing that science and cookery have become disentangled.
References
Board of Education, Consultative Committee (1913) Report of the Consultative Committee on Practical Work in Secondary Schools (Acland Report) London: HMSO
Garmus, B. (2022) Lessons in Chemistry. London: Penguin Random House
Hale, C. (1916) Domestic Science Part II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Kenny Herbert, A. (May 1916) ‘The Teaching of Cookery’, The Nineteenth Century and After: A Monthly Review vol 59, no. 351, pp. 811-824
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Found it. Amazing. Your new book looks really interesting. I am looking forward to reading it. I expect I'll find that I fed you badly!! So proud though.