The social costs of cooking from scratch: approaching my mother's brownie recipe

Abstract

This thesis is a contextual analysis of my mother's brownie recipe. Following the recipe through the microcosmic to the macrocosmic, I illuminate its biography in each context. To this end, I have structured my thesis under the overarching umbrella of Marxist cultural theory, on the relationship between basic global modes of production and superstructural social institutions. Within the microcosm, I employ performance analysis, comparative historical and feminist critiques. To understand how the brownie and its recipe communicate within the macrocosm, I deconstruct the recipe, analyzing the historic nature of the ingredients and how those natures become symbols of oppression and exploitation. After examining the utilization of the brownie recipe within the superstructure and exploring the repercussions of the ingredients' production modes within the base, I appraise the normalizing, hegemonic forces that interplay between the base and the superstructure—the forces that make the brownie so seemingly benign and mundane.