What is the feminine in the kitchen?

The feminine is an adjective that describes a biological, sociological, and grammatical reality. However, the noun we attach it to is related to an ideological conception. In the kitchen, the feminine has become generalized into two activities: the informal, which ends up collapsing the entrance of a house out of necessity, to move to a street stall; and the sweet, the one of cakes and cookies with royal icing, the one of the dessert station in restaurants with polished wood floors. But there is more. Women have filled the basket of the feminine with unexpected fruits.In the rewind of life, earth and fire were the initiating elements of the feminine. It was our responsibility to safeguard the home, to light and maintain the fire –from the Latin focus, fire– in the original caves. In each one, the brazier was a monument to life, as it kept wild animals away and safeguarded family warmth.Civilization evolved, but not the fate of our gender. The fire of the embers remained lit in the home without the right to become a profession. However, throughout history, there were witches who prepared culinary enchantments, chefs of high rank, women who fed soldiers, wet nurses, and queens who colonized with recipes the lands of their marriage ties. Of course, there were nuns, the guardians of theological and culinary knowledge. Under the sound of ora et labora, they specialized in culinary creation, pastry, and chocolate making. No one was surprised that cookbooks and culinary magazines of the Renaissance and Baroque periods had not a single woman’s name by mistake. In the 18th century, a historical moment when the word gastronomer became fashionable, the grammatical feminine version was glaringly absent. In the nouvelle cuisine of the 20th century, in August Escoffier's modern kitchen, women were confined to the table. Nothing new. Chapters that portrayed, as in other fields, machismo as a historical development. We were seen as weak to carry pots, a bad omen if we were on our period. And then came women who did not apologize for being talented: Eugénie Brazier –the first woman to receive three stars in the Michelin Guide–, Julia Child –the chef who popularized French cuisine in the United States through her books and television programs–, Alice Waters –the mother of Californian cuisine in her Chez Panisse in the seventies–.Thanks to those before and behind, the current kitchen is a battlefield where the feminine is redefined every day. Like Gabriela Cámara, who became a restaurateur at less than thirty and has succeeded in Mexico and the United States. Like Celia Florián, chef of Quince Letras, who preserves regional knowledge in her restaurant and is the voice of other traditional cooks in Oaxaca. Like Martha Ortiz Chapa or Elena Reygadas, who knew how to blend artistic talent with fine dining. Like Norma Listman of Masala and Maíz who conceptualizes both a spiced barbecue and an incendiary text. Like Pía Quintana, Titita, or Margarita Carrillo who broke ground, documented, and replicated to dignify what is now eaten on long tables.  The feminine then landed in the pulque maguey fields of Hidalgo, in the mezcal with Lala Noriega; it expanded in the blue agave fields with the tequila maker Melly Barajas Cárdenas; it was served in a martini glass in the hand of Fátima León or Mafer Tejada. It is the flavor behind great beers with Diana Arcos, a chemist from Wendlant. It has been the nose in wine alongside Georgina Estrada, Claudia Juárez, and Michelle Carlín and is the spirit of the vineyards cared for by winemaker Lourdes Martínez in Bruma. Taqueras, torteras, fishermen, tamaleras, butchers, owners of small eateries, ambassadors of beverages, entrepreneurs of community projects, creators of restaurant concepts, gourmet producers, agronomists, waitresses, baristas, conservationists of edible culture, culinary photographers, medicinal cooks, writers of flavorful experiences who have made it difficult to define the feminine in the kitchen and have ensured that no vocation remains out there without the heartbeat of a woman.