‘Botha Cake’ and ‘Belgian Onion Soup:’ Gendered Patriotism Through Three South African, First World War, Community Cookbooks

This article considers three South African community cookbooks – including The Overseas Contingent Fund Recipe Book (Turffontein, 1915) and the Paarl Cookery Book in Aid of War Funds (Paarl, 1918) alongside Wartime Cookery (Cape Town, 1915) – as expressions of gendered patriotism. These community-created cookbooks enabled contributors to participate meaningfully in the First World War by drawing together two established gendered practices: philanthropic fundraising and food and household management. This ‘domesticity in action’ enabled participants to contribute to, and feel connected to, both local and trans-empire causes. These values of philanthropy, economy and patriotism are revealed in the constitutive components of the texts – the titles, aims, prefaces and even the recipes themselves. Apart from supporting specific funds, the call for economy in the cookbooks reflected both experiences and perceptions of wartime material hardship in South Africa. A further consideration of the contributors involved with the books’ compilations highlights the intersection of local and trans-empire networks, and wartime (white) identity politics within urban South Africa. The networks suggest locally-grounded loyalisms, many marked by personal connections to men serving, as well as friend and family networks with overseas reach. Lastly, the article is a reminder of the importance of cookbooks as neglected sources in the writing of history.