Cooking Against the Grain
Shields Library (Lobby - Left Side of Main Staircase)
October 15, 2024 - March 21, 2025
In 1940, amid rising fascism in Europe, German philosopher Walter Benjamin penned Theses on the Philosophy of History, a work that profoundly reshaped how we understand history. In it, he famously observed, “There has never been a document of culture which is not simultaneously one of barbarism.”
Benjamin argued that every cultural object is inseparable from the violence and oppression that surrounded its creation. As these artifacts are passed down through generations, Benjamin stated, they carry the imprint of violent power dynamics, often silencing marginalized voices.
To challenge the perpetuation of these dominant narratives, Benjamin urges us to reconsider how we engage with the past, reminding us that the historian’s task is to “brush history against the grain” by uncovering the suppressed and entangled stories embedded within cultural artifacts.
With this exhibit, we embrace Benjamin’s notion both literally and metaphorically to approach an everyday object we often overlook as a repository of history: the cookbook. We read these books as a cook would, not as a mere collection of prescriptive steps, but opting instead for intuition, creativity, and freedom.
Brushing, cutting, and cooking against the grain demands an active engagement with the culinary past, transforming the words on the page as cooks transform raw materials into meaningful food—whether carving through a steak’s strands or dismantling an onion’s perfect concentric layers. In slicing through the textual layers of cookbooks, this exhibit, too, aims to uncover the complex histories— of violence and power, but also of community, resistance, and solidarity—that are concealed in between ingredients and recipes.
The exhibit includes cookbooks from five centuries and diverse regions around the world, showcasing a rich tapestry of culinary voices. Some of these cookbooks may be familiar, such as Julia Child’s famous Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which brought sophisticated French cooking, once considered accessible only to professional chefs or the elite, into the hands of everyday American home cooks. Others will not, like the San Quentin Death Row Cookbook, a unique collection of recipes, invoices, and favored food items from inmates, offering a glimpse into culinary creativity and resilience found even in the most challenging circumstances.
We sought the stains, notes in the margins, hidden recipes and histories within the cookbooks featured. With over 4,000 cookbooks at the UC Davis Library, this is an invitation to explore the richness of the library’s collection and the myriad of stories they tell.
Now it is your task to brush, cut and cook history against the grain…
Co-curated by Daniela Gutiérrez Flores and Elizabeth McQueen
with support from Audrey Russek, Mikhalia Redovian, Stace Baran, Leslie Geathers, and Sara de Blas Hernández.