Hearth and Home: A History of the Rural Kitchen in New Zealand, 1840-1940

Abstract

Taking as its basic assumption the belief that there are vital cultural insights to be found in the details of the daily round, this research examines everyday patterns of life for rural Pākehā and Māori families in New Zealand between 1840 and 1940. It intersects fundamental quotidian routines at a particular point of coalescence, using the kitchen space as a framing device to capture some of the key processes by which rural people produced, cooked, and shared food. The kitchen was the nexus of a web of social relations that stretched across and connected distant places, but it was also a space in which intimate personal relationships could be built and fostered. As such, it is the perfect vantage point from which to examine the overarching structures of the rural economy and rural society while also capturing the diversity of individual experiences.

Divided into six thematic chapters, the thesis begins with a reconstruction of the historical kitchen space. Utilising personal manuscripts, housing reports, and photographs, Chapter One integrates material, emotional, and symbolic constructions of the kitchen to consider what it has meant to be “at home” in New Zealand, and how that manifested in the form and function of rural kitchens. The three chapters that follow examine key processes which animated the space, following the logical progression of provisioning, cooking, and eating. Chapter Two reconstructs food gathering systems to demonstrate the physiological and psychological importance of land to rural people, offering stories of adaptability, resourcefulness, and survival within a broader narrative of dispossession and dispute. Chapter Three traces the development of cooking technology from open fire to electric oven, but highlights important economic, cultural, infrastructural, and personal reasons why this progression was not unilinear or universal. Chapter Four considers meals as social rituals, arguing that the sharing of food has been an important mechanism for the formation and maintenance of community relationships in rural New Zealand. Chapter Five analyses the dissemination of knowledge about food and cookery in New Zealand communities, assessing not only what sources of information were available to rural people but also how they incorporated that knowledge into their daily practices. Finally, Chapter Six offers various perspectives on the labour rural women performed within the structures of the home and family, arguing that the kitchen was not necessarily a stultifying place of work as subsequent historical analyses have suggested, and that many women found satisfaction in their domestic tasks.

Evincing the central importance of food and foodways in shaping our homes, daily routines, and communities, this thesis offers a searching look in through the window of the historical kitchen, showing individuals at work and at rest, capturing moments of sorrow and joy, and demonstrating the enduring social and cultural significance of the ritual of breaking bread. The rhythms and routines of country life are brought into sharp focus, revealing the important insights that may be reaped by bringing together rurality, race, and gender as intersecting forms of cultural difference: heretofore largely untilled ground in New Zealand history.