Cooking in Other Women's Kitchens

Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens explores the lives and work of domestic workers in the American South between 1865 and 1960, focusing on their culinary labor and relationships within white households.

Rebecca Sharpless uses oral histories, archives, and personal narratives to reveal how domestic cooks shaped Southern foodways while negotiating race, class, and gender hierarchies.

The book situates cooking as skilled labor that carried cultural meaning and economic value, even as it remained undervalued and marginalized.

Sharpless analyzes both the constraints domestic workers faced and the agency they exercised in culinary practices.

The study deepens the understanding of Southern food history and the central role of domestic labor in shaping regional cuisine.