Women, said the 1900 Post editors, had no place in the modern kitchen.

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Cooking Is a Man’s Job: Women, said the editors, had no place in the modern kitchen.

Science has busied itself with converting the ordinary substances of our food into food at once palatable and wholesome. And science is not likely to do much for us so long as the matter is in the hands of women cooks, who naturally look at the problem from the personal side, seeking to please our palates much more than is good for our stomachs.

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When a great undertaking in cookery is on hand, as for an army, or a palace, or a big hotel, nobody thinks of calling upon a woman to do it. A man is always taken. For one woman who has made a name for cooking there have been 10 men. It is only because we have not given the subject thought that we think of cook as a feminine noun.

This article is featured in the January/February 2018 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.