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[DOMESTIC TAYLORISM: EFFICIENCY, ELECTRIFICATION AND MODERNITY IN THE INTERWAR ROMANIAN KITCHEN] Bucătăria întró oră. 100 meniuri preparate fiecare în decurs de 60 minute [The Kitchen in an Hour. 100 Menus to Prepare in 60 Minutes]

Madeleine, B[rebu].

Item #2696

Bucharest: Atelierele Grafice Socec & Co., 1937. 130, [2] pp, tbls., ills., ads. 23,5 х 15,5 cm. Publisher’s illustrated wrappers. In Romanian.

Good condition. Colorful wrappers reinforced with tissue paper. Minor spotting and creases to the face wrapper, while the rear wrapper showing somewhat heavier staining and some wear. Round rubber stamp on the back. Stamped letters on the title. Faint foxing and spots throughout the block. Artistic cover signed by P.Brilot (?) 37, which corresponds with the imprint issue date stated and signals a commissioned cover art. Although no information on the artist is available, the publisher, Atelierele Grafice Socec was quite capable of hiring someone for the design of their edition. Socec was the leading Romanian bookprinter, owning a chain of bookstores, operating multiple branches and enjoying many clients interested in their regular publications such as yearly calendars and help–books. Brilot’s energetic yet not overly aggressive constructivistinfluenced design in black and white depicts the title literally, showing the time spent and the results to be achieved. The general design outlay signals expression, rapid action if not an urge to rush; something rarely seen in any cookbook. A similarly–styled advertising of a tourist bureau and a medical aid informational letter on the back compliments the color, font and layout of the edition.

The author, Madeleine Brebu (born Mina Braunștein, 1898—197?) was a journalist and a translator of contemporary French novels. Modern researchers identify her earlier edition: Ce mâncăm azi? [What are we going to eat today?] (Editura „Naționala-Ciornei” S. A., București, 1936). Braunștein held a position in the Ministry of Propaganda but it is said she was laid off in spite of her Jewish origin. The name change to a more neutral and European Madeleine Brebu probably followed to discard the familial Jewish roots that were becoming dangerous to openly express. Brebu authored at least 3 separate books on kitchen and cooking. Other local editions of the era, like Carte de bucate (Bucharest,) are known as Romanian kitchen highpoints, but few tried to automate the cooking as this one. Bucătăria as a whole is a constructed edition – and one constructed thoughtfully. Both the proposed dish sets and the price of 50 lei (not your ordinary pocket money, rather, an investment in the household quality) of the cookbook itself imply that the book was aimed not at the lower or the upper classes; the poor simply never had such a need to prepare quickly whilst not compromising on quality and diversity of the dining table; the upper class rarely engaged into cooking. The advice and approach expressed in the book is aimed at the newly born middle class. As the availability of a personal cook was diminishing for the city’s middle class, the society saw an inception of the figure of an emancipated woman who strived to be both integrated in career and cultural life, but had to attend the kitchen regularly.
The noticeably progressive idea of “Interwar kitchen time–management” expressed also in the cover design, described in the preface and supported by the general outlay of the edition. As stated by the author/editor, the book lists a curated selection of 100 course sets. Moreover, those 100 are arranged by the four seasons; those dictate the product selection and appropriate cooking methods. A typical cooking session is laid out in a step–by–step guide optimised for parallel activities in hopes for an effective kitchen effort organisation. This time–management approach is encapsulated in algorithmic timetables, ones reminiscent of factory algorithms. This comparison is not accidental. Back in the 1930s, the “efficient kitchen” idea was clearly influenced by the methodology of time-motion studies and development of the effective and scientific methodology for the factory work organisation, modeled on Taylorism after its founding figure Winslow Taylor.
The typical cooking session in the book includes a main dish, a second dish and a dessert. For example, one Autumn variant is: Tocană Sârbească (vegetable Serbian stew), Crochete cu Ochiuri (fried eggs
croquettes, sided with bechamel and a portion of salad), Tort de Struguri (baked grape cake with egg whites and almonds). The ingredients for each dish are calculated for 4 persons and many recipes give off a taste for French cuisine. The latter was probably a chosen option to engage the buyers as French style was kind of an exemplary way of life in Romania, up to the point that traditionally, Interwar Bucharest is nicknamed Micul Paris [Little Paris]. Every page is packed with advertising aimed at the ladies: a L. Feuchtwanger novel, an A. Munthe book, kitchen appliances, gramophones with music recordings etc. The ads can be found even within the recipes, with specific brands like Mott wine and Manol butter proposed as the best option for the dish. The ads do elevate the edition to an independent 1930s time–capsule.
The cooking sessions are meticulously calculated on the scale of time, but also the gas and the electricity is taken into account. Socec as the book publisher was still at its height and sold the books within lavish stores to the well-off audience, so quite probably the book was covertly positioned as an advertising booklet for the new modern flats built with communications for the gas and electricity. The woman in the family, being the primary decision–maker of the household organisation, ought to insist on a flat that could’ve optimised her own work-life balance.
The hopes for the modern, organized and lush life were ironically dismissed by the same author just years later. A similar handbook Bucătăria în timp de război: arta de a găti substanţial, gustos, variat,
economic, cu mijloace reduse [Wartime cuisine: the art of cooking substantial, tasty, varied, economical food with limited resources] was issued (or, according to some sources, re–issued) during the wartime (Bucharest, 1942). This signals a stark bibliographic trajectory from consious Taylorism of abundance to forced Taylorism of survival.

Scarce and unrecorded. No institutional holdings found in KVK nor in WorldCat.

Reference
Culinaria: o bibliografie a bucătăriei românești. Permanent website address https://llll.ro/culinaria/.

Status: On Hold