A Bite Off Mama's Plate: Mothers' and Daughters' Connections through Food

by Miriam Meyers

Miriam Meyers celebrates the positive role that food plays in the mother-daughter relationship. Despite their increasing freedom to pursue other roles in society, women still retain primary responsibility for food-related tasks in the home. With that responsibility comes considerable work, but it also affords women in families a special opportunity for companionship, communication, learning, and inspiration. To illuminate the ways women use this role to connect with their daughters, Meyers combines original research, encompassing focus groups, interviews, and a national survey, with a personal memoir and a wide range of other sources. She shows, in women's own voices, how food offers, more than just nourishment for the body, something for the mind, heart, and soul.

Browse through the list of books that come out each year on women and food. The vast majority treat food as the enemy of women everywhere, either by pitching (or criticizing) the latest diet fad or by focusing on such problems as eating disorders, and parents' implication in them. Taking a different path, Miriam Meyers celebrates the positive role that food plays in women's lives, and in the relationship between mother and daughter.

Despite the changes wrought by modern technology, the provision of food remains necessary to sustain physical, social, religious, and familial life. The idealized homemaker of the 1950s, working ceaselessly to achieve the perfectly clean home and perfectly arranged food, has all but disappeared from the American scene. While the ways we acquire and prepare our food has shifted, women still have primary responsibility for home food management, despite their increasing pursuit of other roles. With that responsibility comes considerable work, but it also affords women in families a special opportunity for companionship, communication, learning, and inspiration.

Beginning with a look at food's place in the greater family, A Bite Off Mama's Plate explores the connections mothers and daughters enjoy in the kitchen and beyond. To illuminate those links, Meyers combines original research, encompassing focus groups, interviews, and a national survey, with personal memoir and a wide range of other sources. She shows, in women's own voices, how food offers, more than just nourishment for the body, something for the mind, heart, and soul.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published September 12, 2001

Reviews

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sweet book by a smart, lovely woman I gardened for in Minneapolis. It's apropos for me because I've been very food-focused lately (I blame Gourmet magazine and the show Top Chef), not to mention that it applies heavily to my own relationship with my mom. I'd reccommend it - it's not terribly rigorous, just perfect to read over breakfast and coffee.

[Carl Brookins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just delightful. Anybody interested in food, in family connections and specifically mother/daughter relationships ought to have this book in their library.

Myers is a good researcher, betrays a fine sense of humor and brings a firm hand to a wildly varied collection of stories.