Opening the queen's closet: Henrietta Maria, Elizabeth Cromwell, and the politics of cookery.
The essay shows how two royalist recipe books- The queens closet opened (1655) and The court & kitchin (sic) of Elizabeth (1664)- fashioned Henrietta Maria (1609-69) and Elizabeth Cromwell (1598-1665) as very different housewives to the English nation. By portraying the much-disliked French Catholic Henrietta Maria as engaged in English domestic practices, The queens closet opened implicitly responded to the scandalous private revelations of The kings cabinet opened (1645); while, in contrast, the satiric cookery book attributed to Elizabeth Cromwell stigmatized her as both a country bumpkin and a foreigner. Yet the cookery books also had unintended republicanizing effects, as consumers appropriated the contents of the queen's closet for their own cabinets and kitchens.
Knoppers
Laura Lunger
LL
The Pennsylvania State University.
D003296:Cooking / Q000145:classification / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history / Q000379:methods; D004032:Diet / Q000145:classification / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history / Q000379:methods; D004467:Economics; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D049670:History, 17th Century; D006801:Humans; D008370:Manuals as Topic; D011056:Political Systems / Q000145:classification / Q000266:history; D012923:Social Class; D006113:United Kingdom; D014930:Women / Q000266:history