Paper short abstract:

The aim of my paper is to discuss how cooking became a significant element of family survival strategies during the crisis of the 1980s. As a gendered practice it served as a mean of women’s agency and at the same time as an element of public/private aspects of crisis discourses.

Paper long abstract:

Home-made food was an important element of home-making in communist Poland. Unlike in Soviet Union, GDR, Czechoslovakia and other countries of the bloc, canteens and lunchrooms did not gain popularity. And in spite of the official declarations of gender equality women were responsible for household, especially for cooking. Although there were some attempts to conceptualize women's unpaid work, home-making was mostly perceived as a private practice.

Deep crisis of the 1980s. brought changes in the notions of private, family life. Home-making and especially home-made food became a tool of visualising the crisis situation. Food shortages, insufficient meat supply, the danger of malnutrition and even starvation were the issues of constants concern for ruling party, opposition and medical experts. They included such topics into political discourse of crisis in such a way crossing the boundaries of private/public. Hence women's coping strategies, especially home-made food, gained political meaning. They served as a mean of women's (restricted) agency.

The analysis of gendered survival strategies and their notions in various discourses may be productive for understanding the process of changing policies towards women's and gender issues during 1980s.

My approach would rely on a critical analysis of expert discourses (economic and sociological ones), public discourses (present in the popular magazines, radio and tv), culinary texts and personal diaries (published and in manuscripts) of the time.