On TradWives + Halva Brownies

a reflection, a prayer, and a recipe to start your week

Last week I announced that the launch team for Bake & Pray is now open for applications! The team will officially kick off on September 9, but if you are interested in being a part of it, I recommend you sign up now. 

A launch team is a group that helps build momentum for a book online and in person. They leave early reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, share with local bookstores and libraries, and post on social media, helping the ever-important algorithms know that this book is one to pay attention to. 

The launch team for Bake & Pray will include opportunities to build community online and to deepen relationships in your own churches and neighborhoods—plus there will be lots of fun giveaways for those who participate!

Sign up to join the team at https://bit.ly/bakeandpray.

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I began writing an essay for this newsletter on TradWives two months ago. It was drafted before the interview with Ballerina Farms went viral and sparked a new slate of articles about the TradWife movement—ones that were, thankfully, far more nuanced than many that have been written before.

At risk of appearing to just jump on the TradWife bandwagon, I want to go ahead and share the essay with you still because I do think it’s a fascinating phenomenon to pay attention to in this season. I am particularly attuned to this community as, in many ways, they are a natural fit for my work…and yet I’m conflicted about how exactly to pursue getting my forthcoming book into their hands (if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments!)

This essay will be in two parts: the first half today and the second half next week for paid subscribers. That is the installment where I will dig further into what we can learn from this movement in this particular cultural and political moment.

Over the past year, the TradWife takedown has almost become a genre of its own. It’s easy—and even fun!—to scoff at the Instagram women in prairie dresses making bread and yogurt for their husbands and children while a brood of hens cluck out the back door, supplying the eggs for their baking adventures.

For those unfamiliar with the term, TradWife is shorthand for traditional wife. It’s associated with a movement on social media of women advocating for women to stay at home, to dress modestly, and to spend their days preparing food entirely from scratch. It’s common for TradWives to encourage their followers to drink raw milk, to mill their own wheat, and to grow as much of their food as possible on their own land—all with a gentle smile and surprisingly clean clothes.

At first blush, their content seems harmless, if a bit over the top...and maybe not even all that different from the work I do. 

“Is it really my concern if women want to devote their days to making baking and cooking more difficult than it really needs to be?” I’ve found myself questioning. 

I spent years breaking away from the pressures of deciphering the “right” way to eat, unraveling the false assumptions behind these “traditional” philosophies of food and home. But part of freeing myself from that pressure was muting those who stoke dietary fear. I’ve taught myself to ignore most of the bad food history perpetuated online.

But there’s another angle to the TradWife approach that is harder to ignore.

Interwoven into much of this content is an undercurrent of anti-government conspiracy theory. Among TradWives, the choice to prepare all their food from scratch is not purely born of the joy of gardening and cooking—it’s born out of fear that big corporations, the FDA, and pharmaceutical companies have banded together to undermine the health of ordinary Americans. 

If you follow these TradWives long enough, you’ll find that their homemaking is less about the making of a home and more about protecting their families from the perceived dangers that lurk just outside of it. 

This messaging has drawn the attention and the ire of cultural critics—from writers rolling their eyes at these “backwards wives” and journalists testing out whether their cooking rhythms are possible without the support of household staff, to comedians making satirical videos about TradHusbands giving up their autonomy in support of their working spouse.

The more TradWife takedowns I read, the more intrigued I become with the trend. And the more frustrated I become with most of the responses circulated online. I’m convinced that they undermine the subversive power these women possess, which ultimately serves to strengthen the content creators’ hold over their audience even more.

Whether you embrace the TradWife philosophy in part or in whole, or you are utterly disgusted by it all, you have to admit that they offer something that is desired by all who engage them: a connection to home, to place, and to community—or at least the illusion of it—and tactile methods of embodying care.

Those who adore the TradWives embrace this desire and look to her as a teacher, as a wise leader who can help her audience achieve similar connections in their own lives.

Those who abhor the TradWives oftentimes fear this desire, unsure how to dissect it from the conspiracies and gender ideologies so often intertwined.

For those who grew up in religious communities that emphasized male headship and female submission, and who witnessed the abuses so easily perpetuated within that gender framework, the red flags within much of the TradWife content are hard to ignore.

And yet, there is a fundamental irony to their work: the very creation of TradWife content is itself a method of establishing agency, asserting one’s voice, and creating an array of income streams with very lucrative potential. These women are not unlike Phyllis Schlafley, who leveraged the longings and fears of stay-at-home moms to overturn the Equal Rights Amendment—beginning with baking loaves and loaves of homemade bread for members of congress.

It’s easy to look at all the TradWife represents and write her off as unrealistic or perhaps even a little bit crazy. But the parallels to Phyllis Schlafley make me pause… Schlafly observed the longings and fears of women much like those who embrace TradWife content and leveraged it towards powerful political ends. She tapped into the power these women held within their homes, specifically their kitchens, and she took what was touted by opponents as a woman’s space of oppression and turned it into her space to assert control. 

While I dislike Schlafly’s political ends, I can’t help but be impressed by her wit. And I can’t help but wonder how different the outcome could have been if those longings and fears had been better addressed—and the power of the home better leveraged—by those who sought constitutional change.

Next week we’ll look more at how we might learn from TradWives (and the example of Schlafley) in this current season. To do so we must begin by separating out the values we share from the additional fears and conspiracies now coded within them.

Can we recover the good the TradWife has to offer—the personal and communal value of caring for others and the land through the production of food—while letting go of the fear and conspiracy undergirding the content mill (not to mention the rigid expectations for women)?

We shall see…

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A Labor Day Prayer

God you know the labor involved

in every bite we eat.

You see the burns, the bruises, the scars
on hands and on arms and on feet.

Inhale: By the sweat of your brow
Exhale: You will eat your bread

Be with those who labor
with hands in soil
for an unjust wage.

Comfort those who cook
to a soundtrack of mocking laughter
and crass jokes

Strengthen the workers who speak up
against injustice in their midst.

Each one created in your image
worthy of dignity, of protection, of care.

Amen.

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Halva Brownie

1 batch of favorite brownie recipe, enough for a 9-inch by 13-inch pan

4 ounces halva sesame candy
2 tablespoons water

1. Prepare your favorite brownie recipe according to directions and pour into a 9-inch by 13-inch pan. I personally prefer a rich, fudgy brownie—the kind that uses melted butter, cocoa powder, and a minimal amount of leavening.

2. In a small saucepot over low heat, stir together the halva and water until the halva melts down into a pourable sauce.

3. Pour the halva over the brownie and swirl into the top with a knife, careful not to stir the halva completely into the brownie.

4. Bake your brownies according to directions, potentially adding another minute or two to the bake time to ensure the halva is set. Let cool (just slightly) and enjoy! The halva adds a delicious nuttiness and richness to the brownies, taking them just a notch above regular brownies.

I am a huge fan of halva, and have been ever since I worked at a bakery that mixed it into caramel for a sesame latte and into our chocolate croissants. I brought two big tubs home from Greece with me, and halva brownies were the first thing I made!

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I’m currently reading The Book of Yerba Mate: A Stimulating History by Christine Folch. Folch is a professor of Anthropology at Duke University, but more than a decade ago, before she and I were both in Durham, she was a professor at Wheaton College. Folch came to Wheaton in my last year, introducing me to the field of food studies. While I knew I wanted to become a baker, Folch helped me see that I could take my fascination with food in an academic direction as well.

I’m thrilled to get to speak with Christine about her new book at Epilogue Books, Chocolate, and Brews in Chapel Hill on Thursday, September 12, at 7 pm. If you are local, I’d love to see you there! RSVP here.