Boy Scouts and the Manly Art of Cooking

Bibliographic Data

ID5220146
AuthorsJay Mechling (University of California, Davis, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume13
Issue1-2
Pages67-89
Publication date2005-03-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFood and Foodways (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0740-9710 • E-ISSN: 1542-3484
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/07409710590915373
OpenAlexW2048207249
LanguageEN
Citations received13

Since its founding in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America has socialized tens of millions of boys in what it means to be masculine, but a paradoxical aspect of this gender socialization has been the instruction of boys (ages 11 through 17) in cooking and serving meals to others and cleaning up the mess. This article examines Boy Scout handbooks, pamphlets, commercial publications, the material culture of campout cookery, photographic evidence, and ethnographic fieldwork with a troop of Boy Scouts in California, to discover how the Boy Scout experience manages to teach boys an ethic of caring for others while, at the same time, still constructing that caring as masculine and not feminine

Archaeology · Boy Scouts · Ethnography · Social science · Socialization · Sociology · Anthropology · Diverse Educational Innovations Studies · Gender Studies · History · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Military history and social perspectives