The Dione Lucas Cooking Show: French Food as Agency and Expression in Post-World War II Domesticity

by Madonna L. Berry

Primary advisor: Rachel Rubin

Secondary advisor: Judith Smith

Graduation date: June 2006

Abstract:
Dione Lucas was the first woman to teach French cooking on television. The cooking show was an invention of early television based on a concept developed in radio shows. In the late 1940s to the mid 1950s as a little known cooking show personality Dione Lucas stood in her television kitchen, peered into the television cameras and welcomed her viewers to the Dione Lucas Cooking Show. Analyzing how Dione Lucas dressed, what she did on television, and what foods she introduced, helps us see into the new world unfolding for middle-class women after World War II.

In this paper I explore how Dione Lucas and the French foods she showed how to prepare on her television show expanded the range of possibilities for post-World War II middle-class domesticity. Next I use the Dione Lucas Cooking Show to explore food and women's relationship to cooking and domesticity in the late 1940s to mid 1950s. I use the show to demonstrate the workings of commercial sponsorship in early television to suggest the early importance of television in women's lives. I contrast the foods Dione Lucas prepared on television with the post-war era "industrial" foods marketed more broadly to women. I discuss the values attached to Dione Lucas' work in bringing white middle-class women into the high-brow world of French and Continental cuisine by teaching middle-class women to prepare this fine cuisine.

By circulating the norms of French food and "refined" technique, Lucas invited white middle-class women to demonstrate upper-middle-class status by preparing elite, sophisticated haute cuisine, utilizing refined techniques and expensive ingredients. She was teaching a way of life. The women who learned to cook French food from her were likely already expected to find their domestic roles fulfilling. Preparing French foods implied a sophisticated world view. Women could use fine cuisine as a way to demonstrate status through domesticity.

My conclusion is that Lucas invited white middle-class women to demonstrate upper-middle-class status by preparing elite, sophisticated haute cuisine, utilizing refined techniques and expensive ingredients.
This research was fore grounded by the Dione Lucas papers housed at the Schlesinger Library.

Who might be interested in reading this work?

Scholars interested in: Dione Lucas, cooking shows on television, early television history, women's history, commercial sponsorship in early television, post-war era "industrial" foods marketed to women, the relationship between white middle-class women and the high-brow world of French and Continental cuisine as a way to demonstrate status through domesticity, and post-World War II middle-class domesticity.