‘I'm old, but I'm not old-fashioned’: mealtimes and cooking practices among Danish widows and widowers

Abstract

Abstract Existing research on how older adults handle challenges associated with domestic housework, and in particular food work, almost invariably assumes that older adults are traditionalist, and that this affects the way they adjust to widowhood. This assumption is problematic, as decades of research have emphasised increasing gender equality in food work. In this paper, I explore how older adult men and women adjust to food preparation after the loss of a spouse. Interviews with 31 Danish widows and widowers aged between 67 and 86 years old suggest that the men have made culinary progress. However, I also show that the narratives around domestic food work among the older generations remain gendered: both men and women identify widowed men's domestic food work as something meriting acknowledgement, and men and women draw on traditional masculine and feminine ways of approaching domestic food work.