‘The I Hate to Cook Book’ Fought Domestic Despair With Laughter
Peg Bracken’s 1960 cookbook embraced the joys of convenience, mediocrity, and a well-timed shot of whiskey
Once upon a time, back when Julia Child was perfecting the recipes that would become Mastering the Art of French Cooking and Betty Friedan was seething over the notes that would become The Feminine Mystique, a group of women in Portland, Oregon, known to themselves as the Hags, met regularly for martini lunches to commiserate about the trials of their lives as wives and mothers.
They weren’t plotting a revolution. They had always expected that this would be their lot in life. Everything in society and pop culture had told them so, and they’d never questioned it. But they had never anticipated that feeding their families would be such a goddamned ordeal. Breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner, day in and day out, without exception. Were they ever thanked? Did they ever get … Read more