Elizabeth Robins Pennell

The Feasts of Autolycus Elizabeth Robins Pennell

I have always wondered that woman could be so glib in claiming equality with man. In such trifling matters as politics and science and industry, I doubt if there be much to choose between the two sexes. But in the cultivation and practice of an art which concerns life more seriously, woman has hitherto proved an inferior creature. For centuries the kitchen has been her appointed sphere of action. And yet, here, as in the studio and the study, she has allowed man to carry off the laurels. Vatel, Carême, Ude, Dumas, Gouffé, Etienne, these are some of the immortal cooks of history: the kitchen still waits its Sappho. Mrs Glasse, at first, might be thought a notable exception; but it is not so much the merit of her book as its extreme rarity in the first edition which has made it famous. Woman, moreover, has eaten with as little distinction as she has cooked. It seems almost-much as I deplore the admission-as if she were of coarser clay than man, lacking the more artistic instincts, the subtler, daintier emotions.