The Culinary Gender Binary in an Era of Multiculturalism

Postwar Italian Migration to Toronto

Italians from all around the nation made their way to Toronto after the Second World War. Postwar financial instability was the most significant push factor. To be sure, economic issues had existed throughout Italy prior to the war. However, economic depression and Italian fascism exacerbated the problem before the war dealt a finishing blow. These factors combined ensured that the Italian economy had been decimated by 1945. Markets had collapsed, exports were almost nonexistent, and unemployment was rampant. Regions in Northern Italy began to recover in the early 1950s because foreign aid contributed to the renewal of industrial production, but the largely agricultural south did not benefit greatly. As a result, Southern Italy continued to suffer; farm incomes dropped, industrialization did not materialize, and agro-towns were overcrowded. Factors such as climate swings, mountainous terrain, soil drained of its nutrients, erosion, and deforestation meant that the South was less than ideal for agricultural ventures. Southern agriculture could not keep up with rising birth rates in the region. Many Southern Italian families had massive debts to landowners—debts that funds from sojourning did not resolve. Further, the industrial sector was slow to grow in the South—limited to a few handicraft shops and smaller workplaces—which meant a shortage of employment opportunities. ¹¹ There was also a shortage of food, and those who knew of its availability in other parts of the world emigrated. For instance, food technology and rationalized methods of labor in industrialized America led to the widespread availability of meats and cheeses in the United States, items that were less reliably available in parts of Italy. Thus, many Italians and especially those from poorer regions migrated to America for a better chance at foods they deemed to be desirable. ¹²

Large numbers of Italians—mostly from the Southern regions of Abruzzi, Molise, Basilicata, Campania, Puglia, Calabria, and Sicily—also left hoping for better lives in Canada. The nation was initially hesitant to allow too many Italian migrants; open-door policies made little sense at first, given the fear of postwar recession. Italy was also considered an enemy state, though it was taken off the enemy alien list in 1947. Increasingly liberal immigration policies in the same year made it possible for a small number of migrants to come through, with many more arriving in the 1950s. Toronto was particularly attractive to immigrants because the city had seen a substantial postwar economic boom with the rise of manufacturing plants and rapid suburban development. Some 240,000 Italians arrived in Canada between 1951 and 1961; 90,000 of the newly arrived went to Toronto. Over 70,000 more had made their way to Toronto by 1971. Many settled right outside of city limits. It was under these circumstances that hopeful migrants began their new lives, thereafter negotiating the changes that came with resettlement. ¹³

Preserved Recipes and Changing Traditions

Italian immigrants who came to Toronto in the late 1940s and early 1950s changed their recipes to account for the shortage of traditional ingredients. While Italian food stores had existed in the city as early as 1881, ¹⁴ they would have been limited to ethnic enclaves for the most part. Scarcity was a concern for the vast numbers of Italian migrants journeying to Toronto who settled throughout the city, not just within ethnic enclaves. Those living immediately outside of Toronto had particular trouble finding the ingredients they needed to prepare traditional meals. ¹⁵ However, when asked whether their families had to alter recipes to account for ingredients unavailable in Toronto, all three interviewees responded in the negative. The narrators spoke to the prominence of ethnic grocery stores that made traditional ingredients readily available.

Iacovetta’s findings support the interviewees’ testimonials. Indeed, by the later years of postwar migration, newcomer women were able to prepare traditional meals for their families because many ethnic food shops had been established by members of previous migrations. Italian immigrants were particularly fond of Little Italy and Kensington Market where they could find traditional bread and oil-soaked olives. On the other hand, immigrants living immediately outside of Toronto were not as fortunate given the relative lack of ethnic grocery stores in those regions. ¹⁶

Although immigrants arriving in the later postwar years largely had access to traditional ingredients and could therefore preserve their recipes, many altered foodwork for practical reasons. Karina noted that her mother worked both inside the home—where she “assumed the traditional role of an Italian wife”—and outside of the home. “That’s pretty standard,” she stated of Italian women migrants. “That’s the way it works.” ¹⁷ Thousands of first-generation Italian women newcomers took part in wage labor while still being expected to complete domestic tasks; their wage work involved doing garment work and laundry, making novelty goods, and more. Italian women who did not natively speak English earned an average of CAD $1,456 annually—60 percent less than the average woman’s income at the time. ¹⁸ Her monetary contribution was nevertheless important, especially in a family that could barely make ends meet. Even so, Iacovetta and Sonia Cancian agree that Italian women who engaged in both types of work were expected to prioritize domestic labor. ¹⁹ Cooking meals was time-consuming, and it was difficult for women to cook traditionally while working for a wage. ²⁰ Karina’s situation was different because, even though her mother worked inside and outside of the house, the latter took place in their restaurant where the family consumed most of their meals. Her mother was preparing traditional Italian food for customers anyway, so it was not as time-consuming for her to simultaneously prepare the same for her family. Other women were not as fortunate. The Italian diet relied heavily on pasta, but homemade pasta took a long time to make. Even in many parts of Italy, store-bought dried pasta was the norm as opposed to the time-consuming homemade option. The latter was significantly less feasible for Italian women to prepare in Canada where many were expected to partake in both domestic and wage labor. They, too, used commercially dried pasta that had been available for decades prior to feed their families more conveniently. Some migrants may not have considered it “traditional” in that it was not handmade, but it was for the most part a relatively easy compromise to make considering pasta absorbs surrounding ingredients. Thus, making the meal delicious was relatively easy. In turn, homemade pasta was often reserved for weekends and special occasions. ²¹

Although none of the interviewees spoke to the laborious nature of preparing homemade pasta, they discussed other labor-intensive foodstuffs reserved for special occasions. Antonio stated that his family made sausages and olive oil in Italy around Christmas. He also used to make wine with his father. Indeed, his home of Calabria “was a wine town.” ²² He continued the tradition with his father for twenty years after moving to Toronto, though now he purchases wine or winemaking packages. Similarly, Giovanni said that his extended family has a Christmas gathering at his oldest brother’s house to make salami. It “is like a big feast. We buy fresh meat…and we just get together with five or six of us or seven and have a big gathering and just pass the whole day making the salami.” ²³ Like Antonio, Giovanni used to make wine with his father but no longer does, “I really don’t want to participate in the winemaking…because when my dad used to do it and my dad is older now so he’s not doing it…it was a lot of work.” ²⁴ Karina would help her grandfather make sausages as a young girl, “once a year [he] would make the sausages…fresh…they would let them dry here in a cold room…for however many months it took to do that.” Although her family no longer makes sausages, they make traditional pastries around Christmas. “All of the family sweets, all of the family traditional baked goods, sweet breads…typically my mother would prepare…with my grandmother…they would be baking traditional things that we wanted to enjoy at [Christmas]…my grandmother is not with us…but my mom has carried on regardless every year.” ²⁵

All interviewees emphasized the labor-intensive nature of continuing culinary traditions. In many cases, they even stopped producing certain traditional foodstuffs because of the amount of work involved. It is likely that specific dishes and ways of preparing them became reserved for special occasions because of the labor invested in them. The wine, cured meats, and pastries that the narrators described as holiday dishes have one major point of commonality: they are all time-consuming to prepare. Such dishes became traditional through the communal, family-oriented labor that goes into their production. Although ingredients perceived to be “traditional” are important in preparing a dish considered as such, the meaning imbued into food during production is an equally important part of the process. ²⁶ It is through communal labor that producing specific foods in ways considered traditional become ways to reaffirm kinship. These dishes may have been prepared much more frequently in the past before time constraints inherent in the emigration and resettlement process, and the routines of industrial wage labor largely restricted their preparation to holidays. In this regard, it is worth considering the role of labor in producing traditional foodstuffs. For instance, Antonio expressed a sense of pride in telling of a time when he and his father did “everything” ²⁷ in the winemaking process themselves. Now, he “just” ²⁸ buys wine or winemaking packages. There is a notable contrast between “everything” and “just” here. The former implies a significant amount of labor—especially as Antonio went on to describe the entire winemaking process—while the latter suggests effortlessness. After describing the shift from the labor-intensive method of winemaking to prepackaged products, he immediately stated, “but I still do a tradition for my father, garden.” ²⁹ Antonio’s use of “but…still” contrasts the tradition of gardening with his newer method of making wine and implies that he did does not consider the latter traditional, whereas he described the laborious winemaking process “a very good family tradition.” ³⁰ Given that he described himself as “a workaholic” because his “priority was…to provide for [his family],” ³¹ it is entirely possible that Antonio gradually gave up the traditional method of winemaking because it was too laborious for someone supporting a family. Similarly, Giovanni cited the arduous nature of winemaking as one of his reasons for no longer participating in it. Although none of the narrators explicitly spoke to substituting traditional ingredients for others—the recipes themselves remained preserved—they had to give up preparing relatively labor-heavy foodstuffs as often as they once did because they were preoccupied with starting new lives after immigrating to Toronto. Just as the economic realities of living in Toronto—for instance the lack or cost of traditional ingredients—made it impractical for earlier Italian migrants to follow traditional recipes as Iacovetta finds, ³² the same factors meant that it was difficult for late-postwar migrants to carry forward culinary traditions even with the increasing availability of such ingredients.

From Culinary Assimilation to Pluralism

Early postwar Italian immigrants who successfully resisted the pressures of practicality were hounded by diabetic gatekeepers like health lobbyists, social workers, and nutritionists to Canadianize their recipes and cooking habits. Gatekeepers encouraged migrants to take up modern cooking practices as a way of becoming healthier and promoted economical foodwork in the spirit of modernity. For example, Chatelaine magazine discouraged migrants from buying expensive out-of-season fruits and vegetables, instead pointing newcomers to tinned and frozen fare as alternatives. The magazine highlighted relatively affordable and purportedly healthy meals such as hamburgers as well as casserole with meat and rice. Diabetic gatekeepers were also interested in teaching immigrant women time management skills, promoting the use of refrigerators, ovens, and other kitchen appliances. Italian mothers who mostly came from small villages and towns with minimal access to convenience foods and state-of-the-art appliances were being encouraged by so-called experts to forgo their traditional ways in exchange for modernity vis-à-vis rationalized foodwork. They were even chastised for feeding their families the “wrong” way. In fact, Food Customs of New Canadians—the postwar food guide—described Italian migrants as the group farthest from Canadian food customs, stating that they had to be taught how not to waste their money on imported goods such as olive oil and to use Canadian alternatives such as corn oil instead. While gatekeepers argued that they simply wanted immigrants to exercise dietary flexibility, they were more interested in advancing an agenda to homogenize immigrant cultures as a means of nullifying the threat posed by cultural difference. ³³

In response to increasing pressure from diabetic gatekeepers, some Italian women experimented with “modernity,” fusing their traditional ingredients and culinary practices with those advanced by gatekeepers. Those wishing to experiment would do so in numerous different ways. Some mothers met the demands of their pleading children by providing them with Canadian breakfasts while making sure other meals were traditional to achieve a compromise. Newer foods that women often gave to their children included hamburgers, Kraft singles, Jell-O, and sugared cereal. In other cases, mothers fed children these foods while the rest of the family continued to eat traditional fare. ³⁴ As Hasia Diner discusses in the case of immigrant cultures more broadly, traditional values became fused with new ideas forced upon migrants who had to adapt to changing circumstances. Thus, what is considered traditional is relative and subject to constant transformation. ³⁵

The experiences of the interviewees who arrived during and after the late 1950s differed from those of the migrants discussed above, suggesting that pressure from diabetic gatekeepers to assimilate had largely but not completely dissipated by the late postwar era. Gatekeepers focused on culinary pluralism instead, ³⁶ as Iacovetta discusses in her work on the International Institute of Metropolitan Toronto. The Institute ran ethnic weeks in 1957 as a way of showcasing immigrant foods to foster exchange between Anglo-Canadians and cultures relatively unfamiliar to them. Indeed, native-born Canadians were increasingly traveling in the postwar era, thereafter desiring dishes from these cultures at home. Further, newcomers to Canada established more ethnic eateries, promoting experimentation with foods perceived as exotic. By 1968, the International Institute of Metropolitan Toronto planned to publish an “International Cookbook” to celebrate immigrant foodways. This emphasis on pluralism reflected Canada’s efforts to advance a mosaic discourse, simultaneously celebrating and appropriating immigrant cultures to build an international community—a sort of mini United Nations—in Toronto. ³⁷

Narrators’ responses embody the shift from assimilation to pluralism—an emphasis on celebrating one’s own culture but also those of others— ³⁸ perhaps explaining why those who migrated when culinary pluralism was more prevalent did not alter their recipes as significantly as earlier migrants. Antonio aptly spoke to the prevalent discourse of culinary pluralism in describing an encounter with his French-Canadian neighbor, “he [the neighbor] never used to cook. Then he come to my house, he learned how to cook…[I remember] the first time that he come to my house. His wife was out…he didn’t have his key he went to my house. My wife…give him food and everything.” ³⁹ Antonio’s response epitomizes the late postwar era when families were encouraged to experiment with food from different ethnic groups. Chatelaine began featuring more ethnic recipes to spread culinary pluralism, encouraging Canadian mothers and those from various ethnic groups to experiment with unfamiliar foods. ⁴⁰ Antonio’s story speaks to a similar experimentation with the ethnic Other. In fact, when Antonio came home and his neighbor—who believed he was intruding—began to leave, Antonio said, “Why are you going? There’s lots of food.” ⁴¹ Giovanni told a similar tale that suggests culinary pluralism has carried forward into the present, “The beauty of Canada is that…we bring [traditions] from Europe and we’re still doing it here…which is what I think makes it a great country too…We have Greek friends, Portuguese friends. They teach us how to do their ways and we teach them how to do our ways, or we show them anyway.” ⁴² While Karina did not describe explicitly sharing her culture through food, she did use fare to experiment with other cultures in the 1980s, “As a young adult I had an interest to explore and not just have Italian. On days off work we used to go to a Japanese place at Bay and Bloor.” ⁴³

The desire to share one’s culture and engage with others through food as Antonio, Giovanni, and Karina did reflects the discourse of culinary pluralism that gatekeepers promoted as a means of containment—the removal of ethnicity’s threatening features to transform it into a form of entertainment by which Canada could promote its cultural diversity. ⁴⁴ Indeed, Domenico—owner of an Italian grocery store established by his father when his family migrated from Puglia in the late 1950s— ⁴⁵ stated that, while most of their initial customers were Italians looking for a taste of home, the non-Italian clientele has grown in recent decades. Many of these newer clients had visited Italy and desired “authentic” Italian fare once they returned home, in turn seeking out supermarkets like those owned by Domenico. ⁴⁶ Along a similar vein, Tina Stewart, a director for the International Institute of Metropolitan Toronto in 1968, even stated that the boom in tourism after the Second World War led to “native-born Canadians” increasingly searching for relatively unfamiliar dishes at home. ⁴⁷ These years saw a growing interest in celebrating ethnicity more broadly. ⁴⁸ Take for instance a newspaper article advertising the variety of fare available at the Metro International Caravan. The first such event took place in 1969 and, according to Leon Kossar, chairman of the Community-Folk Art Council of Metropolitan Toronto which sponsored the event, it attracted over 100,000 visitors. The following year, the second annual Metro International Caravan boasted 5,000 representatives from Toronto’s ethnic communities at thirty-five stops, each offering food, culture, and dance; together, the Caravan would offer not just engagement with any one culture but an “around-the-world tour.” The Bavarian beer garden, Jamaican curried goat, Russian caviar, Spanish rosquillas, chapatis, and chicken curry would allow guests to perform a cosmopolitan identity, ⁴⁹ becoming immersed in various cultures by eating and viewing culturally themed entertainment—for instance a “mock bullfight as performed in Spain.” Descriptions of and recipes for various dishes on offer asked attendees to learn about and become a part of different cultures, if only for a moment. ⁵⁰ Similarly, 1970 saw Toronto’s first Oktoberfest which Wendell Reffle—president of the Oktoberfest committee—described as being for everyone and not just those of German descent. Aside from consuming “traditional Oktoberfest food” such as knackwurst, bratwurst, liverwurst, and sauerkraut, visitors were also encouraged to perform German identity by wearing lederhosen and other types of “authentic old country clothing.” ⁵¹

The growing interest in ethnic fare signaled a type of culinary tourism. Tourists eat to experience unfamiliar cultures in affordable and accessible ways, and opportunities to eat foreign fare have even become a vehicle for tourism. But just as people travel to eat, they also eat to travel. Eating at an ethnic restaurant in one’s own city can symbolically transport one to a different nation. ⁵² A global economy along with the elements that allow it to function efficiently and cost-effectively—innovations in technology and transport such as containerization, commercial trucking, and aviation, as well as cost-cutting vis-à-vis global divisions of labor— ⁵³ meant that previously unfamiliar foods became increasingly available to those who wanted to try them right at home in the late twentieth century. ⁵⁴ The same mechanisms that enabled and encouraged the narrators to sample unfamiliar fare also increased the profitability of food businesses such as restaurants and grocery stores because the clientele became much more ethnically diverse. However, the increasing desire for the “foreign” also encouraged corporations to mass-produce ethnic fare to turn a profit, as Donna Gabaccia and Marilyn Halter discuss of mid-to-late-twentieth-century America. ⁵⁵ Commodification is also evident in previously daylong celebrations for specific ethnic groups becoming weeklong affairs for “everybody,” as was the case with St. Patrick’s Day. ⁵⁶

It is no wonder, then, that the interviewees used food to experiment with other cultures soon after migrating, in turn changing their own diets. Although proponents of culinary pluralism encouraged people to experiment with whichever ethnic foods they pleased, not just economical and efficient ones, this was nevertheless a project meant to portray Canada as a benevolent entity seeking to bring different cultures together. ⁵⁷ As problematic as culinary pluralism can be pertaining to cultural commodification, ⁵⁸ that is the context under which late postwar Italian immigrants came to Toronto. Although assimilation discourse still existed, it was not as prevalent as it was when previous groups of migrants arrived, explaining—in addition to the availability of traditional ingredients—why the recipes that narrators brought with them remained preserved and were frequently prepared, even while the economic realities of urban life made it more difficult for them to prepare more laborious dishes. However, even pluralism can serve to assimilate if the goal is to create a homogenous, multicultural nation. ⁵⁹

Gendered Foodwork

For the most part, interviewees spoke of gender roles within foodwork—shopping, cooking, and cleaning—staying the same postmigration. Antonio’s parents were separated, and his mother lived in Italy; his younger sister did the vast majority of the foodwork in absence of their mother. Antonio’s grandmother cooked for him before he immigrated to Toronto. The gendered dynamics of foodwork remained preserved given that women did most of it, resonating with the works of Iacovetta and Cancian who argue that Italian women were by and large responsible for meeting the needs of their families and were expected to manage, organize, prepare, and serve traditional meals that appealed to the entire family, ⁶⁰ even if that meant learning new culinary skills. ⁶¹ This was linked to their broader roles as caregivers and nurturers. ⁶² However, the gendered dynamics of holiday foodwork in Antonio’s household differed from those of daily foodwork. Antonio recalled the salami-making process, “We used to do this [salami-making]…as a group. Everybody helped…Because you have to cut the meat, you have to grind, so there’s a lot of work. For one person it would be too much…My father came and helped. I helped…everybody [himself, his father, wife, and children] was helping together.” ⁶³ Although the consumption of meat has traditionally been associated with masculinity, that was not the case with salami production in Antonio’s household. This was a communal activity meant to reaffirm familial affiliations. ⁶⁴ This differed from daily food labor in Antonio’s family because men were contributing much more to the preparation of food than they typically did. Further, Antonio helped his wife whenever they prepared food for guests, “You give him [the guest] food. We used to make salami. Cut the salami, put some olive oil, sundried tomatoes, bread.” Antonio helping is not surprising given that scholars have noted men occasionally helping their wives do domestic foodwork. Cancian says that Italian men usually helped in preparing for elaborate meals, especially occasions with guests. ⁶⁵ Helen Vallianatos and Kim Raine note similar in Arabic and South Asian immigrant families in Canada; men helped because women often had the burden of working inside and outside the home. ⁶⁶ Similarly, Antonio was motivated to help cook in part because it would have been too much work for his wife alone, though he emphasized the labor-intensive nature of cooking for dozens of guests as opposed to concerns about his wife partaking in domestic and wage labor simultaneously because she did not do the latter. Marjorie DeVault, Michelle Szabo, and Brenda Beagan et al. speak to the broader phenomenon of men taking an occasional helper role in domestic foodwork. ⁶⁷ Thus, Antonio helping his wife was not unusual to say the least.

Giovanni’s experience contrasts Antonio’s. When asked who did most of the domestic foodwork prior to migration in his household, he said, “We were all doing it. Kids, my mom, my dad. We were all participating in doing all the work.” He spoke of cooking and cleaning as “Just a joint effort of everyone.” ⁶⁸ Similar gendered dynamics continued when they immigrated to Toronto. Even though Giovanni and Antonio spoke to two different sets of experiences pertaining to the gendered division of food labor, a noteworthy point is that their respective dynamics were not altered by migration; women still did most of the foodwork in Antonio’s household, while foodwork remained a joint effort in Giovanni’s family. Giovanni’s experience was not the norm at the time. Men certainly helped their wives, sometimes more after migration than before. ⁶⁹ Still, this does not align with Giovanni’s description of relatively equal foodwork. He was doing more than just helping. It was a “joint effort,” ⁷⁰ and his contribution to the family’s food preparation stayed the same as opposed to increasing after they immigrated to Toronto. Giovanni’s experience contrasts the findings of Cancian and Avakian, both of whom describe men who sat at the table waiting to be served. ⁷¹ Although Avakian is concerned with Armenian-American rather than Italian women, her framework is helpful in examining why Giovanni’s family divided foodwork evenly. Avakian states that women cook together to create a feminine space and because it is a chance for women to be together. ⁷² Similarly, perhaps Giovanni’s family saw foodwork as a way for the family to spend time together and to define the home as a place of family as opposed to one divided by gender. Making time to be with the family would be even more important postmigration, at which point the family would face new economic and social realities. In a family busy trying to make ends meet, foodwork would be a readily available way to bond with one’s loved ones. Foodwork during special occasions carried with it similar gender dynamics to how it was carried out on a daily basis in Giovanni’s family. He spoke to salami-making during the holidays as a large gathering where roles varied depending on which parts of the process the adults wanted to teach the children. This joint effort with everyone “participating in doing all the work” ⁷³ is similar to the gender divisions—or their relative lack—Giovanni highlighted in his family’s daily foodwork.

Lastly, Karina’s childhood experience is slightly more complex to analyze in the same way as that of the other interviewees because her parents met in Canada. Thus, there is no direct comparison to how their family negotiated the gendered divisions of foodwork in Italy. In other ways, her narrative is also the simplest to contextualize in terms of gender, given her straightforwardness in stating, “In the home, my mother assumed the traditional role of an Italian wife.” ⁷⁴ Even though there is no direct comparison to how her parents did foodwork in Italy, it was more likely than not “traditional” just as it remained after they migrated. Indeed, pastry-making continued to be gendered female as Karina’s mother and grandmother prepared traditional pastries for the family to enjoy annually at Christmas. After her grandmother passed away, her mother continued the tradition on her own. The ways in which Karina’s family divided foodwork along gendered lines resonates with Antonio’s childhood experience and in turn with the works of Iacovetta and Cancian, both of whom note the common nature of Italian women doing most of the foodwork in postwar migrant families. ⁷⁵ For the most part, culinary labor in Italian families migrating to Toronto in the late postwar era remained divided according to gender, as the literature reaffirms.

Culinary Masculinities and Femininities

The gendered divisions of food labor within the narrators’ families are not surprising—Giovanni being the exception—as scholars like Kate Cairns et al. have concluded that women continue to do most of the domestic foodwork in North American society despite increasing gender equality within workplaces. ⁷⁶

However, when we turn our focus to their foodwork in the twenty-first century, it becomes clear that men and women cooked for similar reasons in that they each used a combination of food masculinities and femininities—gendered culinary practices that scholars have found to be common of men and women, respectively—to discuss their motives for partaking in culinary labor. Food femininities include doing foodwork to care for others, to please others, and as a part of one’s responsibilities. Food masculinities include partaking in foodwork as a hobby, as culinary artistry, for leisure, and cooking mainly on special occasions. ⁷⁷ Murcott, DeVault, and others have employed culinary masculinities and femininities to frame their discussions about gendered foodwork, ⁷⁸ but scholarly conversation about the topic has largely been inadequate because only a handful of scholars have complicated the binary. Szabo is one major exception. In a study of thirty men from the Greater Toronto Area, she concluded that over half of the participants cooked to express care for loved ones and to nurture others. Some even stated that cooking was about sacrificing one’s needs for another’s. Many of these men were exercising what scholars call food femininities. Szabo demonstrates that the matter is more complex than simply concluding that a person embodies either masculinities or femininities. It does not have to be one or the other. ⁷⁹ Antonio, Giovanni, and Karina each described various reasons for participating in foodwork, and every interviewee demonstrated at least one food masculinity and one femininity, while some of the narrators also listed motives that do not fall under either category. The black and white nature of the traditional binary lacks the nuance needed to reflect the diverse range of reasons people carry out foodwork.

Narrators described doing foodwork to remember loved ones. Antonio cooks to remember his wife who has since passed, “Sometimes even thinking about her I do [cook] with all my heart.” ⁸⁰ At another point he said, “It’s nice to have the family together to show tradition and to do it how my wife used to. Lamb stew and other dishes, keeping her memory.” ⁸¹ Luisa Passerini describes these “food memories” as conveying psychological and emotional meaning. They can be metaphors for topics too difficult for narrators to discuss directly and even for joyous experiences. ⁸² Just as remembering dishes eaten before migration can prompt migrants to prepare the same dishes after immigrating, ⁸³ Antonio prepares dishes that especially remind him of his wife to honor the “wonderful woman” ⁸⁴ he spent thirty-five years with. He prepares these foods with family as a way of keeping her memory alive. Similarly, Karina’s mother cooks to remember her own mother. Karina said of pastry-making during the holidays, “All of the family sweets, all of the family traditional baked goods, sweet breads, even savory stuff that is tied to the tradition are things…my mother would prepare…with my grandmother…right until three or four days before Christmas, they would be baking traditional things that we wanted to enjoy at that time. All my life has been like that.” ⁸⁵ Her mother carried the tradition forward even after her grandmother passed. According to Karina, her mother continues to bake pastries that her grandmother enjoyed in memory of her, “I think there’s a certain desire to carry forward some things that remind her of her mom.” ⁸⁶ Although food memories are more prevalent in women because food is tied to their gendered sense of self, ⁸⁷ they should not be explicitly categorized as masculine or feminine. Rather, the process of preparing specific dishes the same way deceased loved ones prepared them is a human phenomenon. Taste allows one to metaphorically consume memories of happiness and conviviality, thereby transporting oneself back to a moment they enjoyed with loved ones. Food memories are too complex to be conveyed by the traditional culinary masculinity–femininity paradigm that scholars have overwhelmingly used to discuss gendered foodwork.

Antonio lives alone and has to do his own foodwork. He enjoys doing so, “I enjoy cooking. Cooking is a beautiful thing. You can make your own recipes. Sometimes I get something from the bakery and I put them altogether and do something.” ⁸⁸ Here, his reasons to engage in culinary labor are in line with food masculinities because experimenting with different ingredients and making one’s own recipes is a form of culinary artistry. Even so, Antonio described foodwork as an expression of love, “I cook for my grandchildren because I care.” ⁸⁹ The literature categorizes cooking to express care, which Antonio embodies, as a food femininity. Giovanni also mentioned enjoyment as one of his motivations to do foodwork, “[I] love cooking. I love enjoying new and different things…Love the idea of creating new recipes and just the way food smells.” ⁹⁰ Like Antonio, Giovanni calls forth the image of the culinary artist experimenting with different ingredients, classified as a food masculinity. On the other hand, Giovanni said that he enjoys “cooking for the family.” ⁹¹ At least some of his enjoyment comes from pleasing others, which the literature categorizes under food femininities. Finally, Karina stated that she “cooks as an expression for the desire to put something in front of someone that [she] care[s] about, something [she] crafted.” ⁹² This simultaneously speaks to both sides of the binary. Her use of the word “crafted” is important because it evokes the culinary artist, supported by her mentioning that she cooks because it “expresses creativity.” Further, she cooks “because it’s…tied to [her] work, trying new recipes and bringing them onto the menu.” ⁹³ Being the “talented and competent craftsm[a]n” in the public sphere—doing foodwork for entrepreneurial purposes—is typically seen as a masculine motive. ⁹⁴ Simultaneously, the literature describes her cooking to express care as a food femininity. The traditional binary does not account for these nuances.

The narrators also partook in foodwork to pass traditions down to younger generations. Antonio mentioned that he cooks for his grandchildren as care work, but his reasons are more complex than that. He cooks “because [he] wants them to remember Italian traditions.” ⁹⁵ His daughter-in-law prepares non-Italian food for his grandchildren, and his cooking for them is his way of making sure family traditions are passed from one generation down to the next. Giovanni spoke of salami-making in a similar way, “It’s keeping the tradition from way back then, and just keep going…my kids are starting to do it now too, so hopefully it keeps going and going. Never ending.” ⁹⁶ Salami-making is a way of preserving traditions for Giovanni’s family. They even make sure to distribute the roles in such a way that the children learn different aspects of the process each time. Giovanni encourages his children to partake so that they do “not forget where [they] came from.” Karina described Italian culture being “much more protected in the immigrant experience outside of Italy than…inside the country of origin” ⁹⁷ and food traditions as a way of keeping Italian culture preserved. However, she also demonstrated a reflexive awareness of the phenomenon, “It’s like…[the] belief that somehow if you keep those things alive the culture will not be diluted.” ⁹⁸ The binary does not include the desire to preserve one’s traditions under either category. That desire could be either masculine or feminine and categorizing it as one or the other simplifies an otherwise complex matter. Doing foodwork to preserve cultural traditions can be a response to the migration process, as Karina explicitly noted. In an era when national discourse emphasizes a multicultural Canada where many engage with a diverse range of cultures on a daily basis and life inadvertently becomes cosmopolitan owed to the circulation of ideas, goods, and people across national boundaries, family foodwork is a way to make sure that one’s own culture is not forgotten. ⁹⁹ Just as Richard Wilk shows how Belizeans used food to intensify the affirmation of local cultures when confronted with outside forces in the late twentieth century, ¹⁰⁰ the narrators’ emphasis on celebrating traditional foodwork can be viewed as a response to multiculturalism’s potential to homogenize cultural difference by obscuring the power relations, histories, and migrants that made these foods available in the first place. ¹⁰¹ Though women continue to do most of the domestic foodwork in North America, ¹⁰² multiculturalism has led to immigrant men and women partaking in foodwork for the collective purpose of preserving cultural values. The traditional binary does not account for the impact of multiculturalism on the gendered dynamics of immigrant foodwork, necessitating a more inclusive paradigm.

Conclusion

Many early postwar Italian immigrants in Toronto changed their recipes because traditional ingredients were relatively scarce, frozen and canned goods were cheaper and more accessible, and diabetic gatekeepers exerted persistent pressure upon newcomers to replace their traditional ingredients with Canadian alternatives. As evidenced by the interviews, migrants who came during the later postwar era altered their recipes significantly less than their predecessors, as traditional ingredients became increasingly available at Italian food stores and because culinary pluralism overtook culinary assimilation as the dominant discourse that gatekeepers emphasized. Although pluralism gained prevalence, all narrators spoke to the discontinuation of more time-consuming culinary traditions owed to the economic realities of migrating to an urban center. The gendered dynamics of foodwork were relatively preserved throughout the emigration and resettlement process; women continued to do the vast majority of foodwork while men occasionally helped. Giovanni’s family is the exception in that foodwork was more evenly divided among family members.

By the twenty-first century, national discourse focused on imagining a multicultural Canada. Interest in culinary tourism grew quickly. The narrators’ reasons to partake in foodwork at this point call into question the continued viability of the traditional culinary masculinity–femininity binary. The interviewees spoke to a multitude of masculine, feminine, and uncategorized—passing on traditions and exploring food memories—reasons for doing foodwork that the binary as it exists cannot convey; a new paradigm that accounts for the subjective reasons many partake in foodwork is needed. Migration to a country where people are encouraged to celebrate a broader range of ethnicities and not just their own can lead to such various reasons for partaking in culinary labor. Antonio, Giovanni, and Karina cooked to preserve cultural traditions, which I have argued is a response to multiculturalism’s potential to homogenize cultural difference by decontextualizing cultural products from their histories. Szabo called for scholars to use ethnicity as a framework to explore the binary. ¹⁰³ More work on the connection between migration and the preservation of cultural traditions can lead toward a more nuanced framework that addresses explicitly the implications of multiculturalism for gendered foodwork in immigrant communities.