Arts :: Books
Butch: It’s what’s for dinner by Dana Rudolph
contributing writerThursday Aug 28, 2008 The food processor as power tool in The Butch Cook Book
"There’s no definition for the type of cooking that butches do," asserts Nel Ward. There are, however, butches who cook, and Ward, her partner Sue Hardesty, and their friend, novelist Lee Lynch, have gathered a truckful of recipes from them into The Butch Cookbook (TRP Cookbooks, 2008). Alongside the recipes, however, are literary quotes, insights, and historical anecdotes on what it means to be butch, making this not just a cookbook but also a celebration of lesbian culture past and present.
The idea came about when Lynch, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, was joking with some other butch friends about how a butch cookbook would contain nothing but variations on boxed macaroni and cheese. Discussions with Hardesty and Ward (self-identified as butch and femme, respectively) later convinced her there was more to butch cooking than met the eye--or the taste buds.
Lynch affirms her initial concerns were unfounded. "Some of the butches, as you can see from the book, are obviously gourmet cooks, and some of us make fried egg sandwiches. . . . My rule is if it’s more than three ingredients, forget it. I know there are a lot of butches out there like that, but I’m sure there are a lot of femmes out there like that, too, especially the ones who’ve been lucky enough to be with butches who like to cook."
The recipes include hearty dishes like Blackened Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo and Guinness Beef Stew, and ones that in name alone reveal a bit of the butches’ lives, such as Meatloaf from the Woodshop and Three Methods of Green Bean Preparation (Stone Butch, Soft Butch, and Green Beans for Butches Hoping for Sex on the First Date). There are also a bevy of sweets, including Melting Marshmallow Heart Buns to "impress that femme in your life!"
The "Butch Basics" section does include a few simple and stereotypical butch creations, like Cheese Melts and Hot Dog on a Raft. One reads this section not so much for the culinary details but to realize, if this is your cooking style, that you are not alone.
Overall, the book has the feel of the homespun cookbooks compiled by church groups and PTAs, a way for members of a community to share their good cooking with friends, complete with chatty asides.
While most of the contributors are not widely known, they include a few recognizable names like women’s music pioneer Tret Fure and comedian Kate Clinton. Clinton, more a jokester than a cook, offered only "air popcorn with Pam Spray to hold the salt," but this led the editors to an excursus on various butch comedians.
Ward, a retired librarian who now spearheads the American Library Association’s Rainbow List of LGBT-inclusive children’s books, says of the contributors, "If there was any unity among them - and I’m not sure this leaves femmes out - all the butches love to cook for their women. That was important to them for romance, for a family." She and Hardesty agree that cooking can be a significant part of building relationships, perhaps more so for lesbians than straight couples. Straight men, for the most part, "don’t expect to be part of the community cooking," explains Ward. Two women are more likely to share the work, she says, even if one takes a predominant role.
All three editors stress that while some may think butch-femme identities are remnants of our lesbian past, they remain relevant. Hardesty notes that when she worked in education, "no way I could be nearly as butch as I wanted to be. . . . But it’s like a lot of them say: butch never went away, it just kind of gets quiet at times."
Lynch, whose novels often feature butch and femme characters, observes, "It’s not a historical appellation, it’s very current. . . . Just the response to The Butch Cookbook. We had a wide range of ages and certainly a lot of butches out there."
The authors have high goals for the book. Lynch explains, "I hope it will cross cultural barriers and people of every persuasion will use it as a tool for cooking, but I also hope it will be a cultural ambassador and educate lesbians about who we are and who we were and where we come from. . . . Having a funny, intelligent, and useful book like this might help someone feel more comfortable with their sexuality, or a family member’s sexuality."
As she writes in her introduction, "It humanizes butches for those who have feared and rejected us and it puts the sex in the concept of homosexual into perspective. Finally we can tell you: this is what lesbians do, we cook."
Dana Rudolph is the founder and publisher of Mombian, a blog and resource directory for LGBT parents. She can be reached at drudolph@mombian.com.
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