Pages of the Past

A Cookbook, Autobiography and Elegy

The Alice B Toklas Cookbook is a work of literary modernism. By fusing her autobiography with a cookbook, Alice B. Toklas (1877-1967) managed to create a groundbreaking style of writing which combined both a cookbook and a memoir. After the passing of her partner, Gertrude Stein (a well-known prolific writer of the time), Toklas wrote cookbook that invites readers to be privy to her life through the meals she shared with those close to her. Its contents include recipes inspired by her travels, amusing tales about her life with Gertrude, and a chapter with “Dishes for Artists” including Picasso and Hemingway. Published in 1954, she discusses rather taboo topics for the time, including her lesbian relationship, the deconstruction of gender roles (to an extent), and she even included the first known printed recipe for hashish brownies. As an American expat in early 20^th-century France, her cookbook illuminates her changing relationships with place, people, and oneself.

Recovery of Self Through Recipes

Alice Babette Toklas was born in San Francisco on April 30, 1887, into a Jewish/Polish family. After her mother's passing in 1897, Toklas assumed the role of caretaker for her little brother. Out of the need to feed him, she became fond of cooking and at a very young age began collecting recipes.  The sources for these include not only her mother's recipes but also her aunt’s, friends, cooks, and personal chefs, even at restaurants she would ask the Chef for a recipe if she really loved the dish. Collecting recipes became a common practice in her life and by the time she was living with Gertrude (around 1910) she already had a number of recipes she was able to recreate for her lover and her friends.

In her book Kitchen Culture in America, Scholar Tracie Marie Kelly categorized Toklas’ book into the genre of “Culinary Autobiography” because Toklas utilizes her recipe collection as a means of memory. The recipes might surprise readers as they are interspersed with life stories and details or the people with whom the recipe was enjoyed. She also details how she became herself through cooking and eating. By giving into her memories while sifting through her recipe box, Toklas’ cookbook is a recipe for her life. For example, the introduction to the recipe for The Carp Stuffed with Chestnuts, she recalls her experience killing the carp with vivid sensorial detail giving the reader insight into her worldview.

Cookbook, Autobiography… But Also, An Elegy

Given the memories present in the text one can even further subcategorize the cookbook as not only an autobiography but an elegy as well. Defined as “a formal and sustained lament in verse for the death of a particular person, usually ending in consolation” and given that this was written some years after Stein passing, some of the recipes appear to be written out of nostalgia. Not just nostalgia for her partner but it is also a nod to their homeland, as American ex-pats living in France. Through food, Toklas and her “hubby” found a way to cope when feeling homesick.  (In chapter 3, “Dishes for Artists”) She recalls being tired of French-Italian food and opting to cook fricasseed chicken with cornbread, apple, and lemon cake, a meal that reminded her about growing up in the San Joaquin Valley in California.

 

Recipes, Everlasting Memories

This collection of recipes acts as a physical space for her memories. The recipes act as a trigger for memory, which creates the narrative of the book. The recipes are sparse throughout the narrative and are connected through these memories. The author creates a version of the past that is not a copy but a nostalgic one fueled by the memories attached to the recipes. This way, Toklas manages to recover and reflect on her past. The book's central focus on food allows her to portray a sensorial and intimate representation of the past. By doing so, Toklas gives longevity to her memories making them possible to be replicated and experienced by her readers.

 

Sources

Tucan, Gabriela. "Gertrude Stein’s Experience of Expatriation and Settlement in the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" Gender Studies, vol.21, no.1, 2022, pp.98-118. https://doi.org/10.2478/genst-2023-0007

Siraganian, Lisa. "Speculating on an Art Movement: Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas." MFS Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 59 no. 3, 2013, p. 591-609. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/mfs.2013.0037.

Zafar, Rafia. "Elegy and Remembrance in the Cookbooks of Alice B. Toklas and Edna Lewis." MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S., vol. 38 no. 4, 2013, p. 32.51. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/535796.

Abraham, Michael. "Out of the Closet and Into the Home: Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and the Affordances of the Domestic Interior." Texas Studies in Literature and Language, vol. 64 no. 4, 2022, p. 339-366. Project MUSE

muse.jhu.edu/article/875314.

Alolaiwi, H. N. S. (2023). The Ex-pats Go to War: Hemingway, Paris and the Recovery of American Identity. Al-Adab Journal, (144), 11–28. https://doi.org/10.31973/aj.v1i144.3775

Chappe, Chloe Alice. “Recipes Like Floating Islands:” Recipe, Autobiography, and Memory in The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. Bard Senior Thesis (2016).