Trad Wife Gastronomies and other Homestead Tales

This is the Real Homesteading (song by Eminem?)

Instagram and TikTok (or the tiktak, as my younger and wiser cousin

Barbs Honeycutt

puts it in her hilarious tales from down under) are ruining EVERYTHING.

Now, they are ruining simple life.

I explain.

We (Barbs and I) grow up in a homestead - every summer from birth to university: a women-led clan churning their butter, harvesting trees, foraging in the woods, and spending our summers in an endless cycle of tomato sauce bottling, jam making, and cake devouring.

We did have the milk in a literal cold stream because our little house in the woods lacked electric power. We had a small ecological toilet deep in the woods, we washed our clothes by hand, and the oven was a mysterious and eclectic creature that only my mother and our grandmother could dominate for the delightful production of lasagne and crostate.

Sweets were scarce: the occasional watermelon, kept in the above-mentioned cold stream, some bread dipped in egg and milk and fried in butter, and undoubtedly no ice cream because there was no electrical power.

Grandma could repair torn pants on her ancient sewing machine, as heavy as an elephant - or so I thought. She had magical hands, and an infinite wisdom.

Because we wore pants, not frilly skirts: to forage in the woods, to climb trees and shoo inquisitive squirrels, to run in the fields after having stolen some perfect zucchini flowers from the farm nearby, before the owners would realise (mum was then sending over some token in exchange, such marmalade or a jar of tomato sauce).

We wore worn out sneakers, hiking boots or rain boots depending on the occasion because we were not posting pictures on social media: we were busy doing very active things, mainly implying we would have ended up with mud on our faces and leaves in our hair - and a helping of wild strawberries safely in our bellies.

Idyllic?

Maybe for a tiktaker or a city person.

In reality, it was a lot of work, and even if it was summer holidays, it felt like an endless list of tasks - mainly interrupting my Artur Conan Doyle readings.

I whined and complained while I had to abandon one of my Urania sci-fi books or one of my mystery Rex Stout adventures to go help mum and grandma. With what? Everything: from harvesting chestnuts to cleaning the big machine that we used to extract honey. We were beekeepers, as well.

Was life sweet?

It was.

But we were also sweaty and dirty, and we only bathed when the sun was shining because of the lack of electricity and the need to rely on firewood to warm up the icy cold water from the fridge and sun and wind to dry our hair. Mine were easy to dry, with a short bob and thin hair. But Barbs’ long, heavy, beautiful locks took their time.

When I look at these “homesteaders”, I know they are hiding their Dyson hairbrush just like the other insta-celebrities by watching their hair. Those perfect beach waves don’t fool anyone, honey babe.

Because this trad wife trend is just another Pinterest aesthetic. Or Instagram aesthetic. It’s just fluff, just something visual.

After the shabby-chic of early 2010, the glamourous Kardashian jet set Met, and now this.

Homesteading like a traditional wife.

Only, it is all fake.

In real homesteading, there is no time or money to buy a set of coordinated Le Creuset pans and pots. The table under the tila tree is covered in a plastic tablecloth—albeit cute.

Pans and pots come from at least two different grandmothers.

Plates are all different because they come from all the moves, divorces, separations, deaths, gifts and general household changes that bring in new plates, cutlery, and glasses but do not allow the old ones to be discarded.

That ends up in the cabin in the woods, for further use.

A wealth of single items, once upon a time part of beautiful sets. And they are indeed beautiful, all with their individual stories to tell.

In real homesteading, you must go out in the rain because you still need firewood for the stove, and your fingers are inexplicably blackened with charcoal, even if you just washed your hands.

And there is a new hole in your old pants from a thorn of the garden where you were musing over the unripened berries, thinking whether you should put an alarm to be quicker than the morning birds who are plundering your harvest.

In real homesteading, life happens, and you never have your phone at hand - there is slow internet reception or not at all, anyway.

And your hands are always full: carrying berries, wood, cloths, washed products and dirt-stained objects, in a permanent motion that only ends when the sun goes down and you have to hurry and make dinner because there is no electricity and if it is beautiful to dine at candlelight, it is not so much having to prepare the dinner without seeing what you are chopping.

All the pictures in this essay were taken during my most recent summer stays at the mountain homestead, which I shared with my family.

Unfiltered, raw, honest.

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Who wrote a beautiful and meaningful piece about the #tradwife trend is

Maria Nicolau

on El País. The trend per se is boring, just an aesthetic, precisely like every other social media phenomenon. But as a cook, brain, and sociologist, she writes about its sociological and anthropological angle (translation is mine):

I am interested in focusing on the gastronomic aspect of this type of content because in Roro's videos and the trad wife movement in general, there is a culinary phenomenon that has been constant throughout history: the use of cooking as a marker of class.

(The) tradwives show are those of a privileged, white and wealthy redoubt. Choosing intricate and luxurious recipes for your cooking videos demonstrates power translated into much free time and capital. They are not cooking videos but class exhibitionism.

If you want to read more about Marxism and food sociology: