The way to a heart : food for love

The connection established between pleasure and food has a long history in recipes for love. Cooking literature has reflected and shaped our ideas about home cooking as well as romance and can be read as a historical source for understanding those ideas as they were expressed in the past and in terms of what has endured over time. Considering cooking as a language that expresses love advances our understanding of the preparation of food as an emotional performance. The way to a heart, like love itself, is also historical rather than timeless. The shift in focus from advice to single women on how to win a man, to the newlywed on culinary skills to ensure a happy married life through to blogs promoting food as seduction, highlight changes in gender roles and sexuality that reinforce the significance of culinary literature as examples of material culture that reflect their time and place and the changing meanings of home cooking and love.