Cooking Up Resistance: Exploring Czech Identity in Cook County Through Co-Culinary Oral Histories

Abstract

This dissertation explores the bonds and identities made possible through the culinary labor of Czech women in Cook County, Illinois. Through co-culinary oral histories, which combines the process of feminist oral histories with the work of cooking and/or eating with my participants, I explore the significance of culinary labor as it relates to Czech identity. Food-based traditions are powerful cultural anchors that can communicate membership, commemorate important shared events, and perform radical resistance against threats of erasure. In this project, I explore the radical potential for resistance that is transferred through the work of my participants showing me how to cook and bake important Czech dishes. In this project, resistance manifests in multiple, shifting forms and locations. I advance a culinary ecology of memory in order to gesture toward the interanimating forces of food, memory, and identity. The culinary labor that my participants are engaged in extends beyond the physical work that occurs in the kitchen. Indeed, the memory work required to successfully preserve and transfer heirloom recipes is a form of gendered care work that requires additional exploration. This dissertation combines extensive oral history excerpts, recipes, and textual analysis in its expansion of current conversations on gender, memory, and food studies.