Winter 2027 – Floor Wilhelm – The Spinster Cookbook

I am not ashamed to admit that I judge books by their covers. The front cover of The Spinster Cookbook by Eli Davies features beautiful artwork by Libby Haines and says, “Culture, politics and pleasure in the single woman’s kitchen.” This subtitle, together with the cover, intrigued me, and I knew this was the 2026 release I wanted to read. The book by Davies is a combination of non-fiction, memoir, and a cookbook. I do not tend to read non-fiction for my pleasure, but I enjoy culture, am interested in politics, and I am also a single woman who enjoys cooking. However, once I started reading, I quickly realised I, a 21-year-old student living at my parents’ house, might not be the intended audience.

Davies’ personal stories take the reader through an exploration of cooking for one in a society built on households. Each chapter combines the history of British cooking with personal anecdotes that provide insights into how a spinster can find pleasure in preparing food for one. The book explores what cooking is like once it is uncoupled from a domestic environment. Each chapter ends on two of Davies’ favourite recipes for fellow spinsters. The personal stories woven throughout the book center around Davies’ break-up with her long-term partner and reflect back on the time she was working on her PhD at Ulster University, where she specialised in women, memory, and domestic space during The Troubles. After her PhD, Davies has written for The Guardian among other publications as well as co-editing an anthology about women’s music writing. The Spinster Cookbook is her solo debut.

In the introductory chapter, the author describes the book as being “about how cooking has become part of a broader struggle to make sense of my life as an uncoupled woman, and about where and how I live, my relationships, the support structures I do and don’t have access to, and the labour and resources involved in running a household.” Davies’ writing is easy to read. The brilliant combination of personal anecdotes and information about how British cooking has evolved made me not want to put the book down, even though a particular chapter might not be relatable to me at all. For example, in the first chapter of the book, “Vodka and Toast,” Davies reflects on her collection of cookbooks:

Accumulated during years of settled domestic life and pored over in preparation for couples’ dinner parties and family gatherings, they remind me of a person I no longer want to be: softer, eager to please, dependent on food and domesticity and a man for my happiness.

This sentiment is one that is woven throughout the book, and something Davies comes back to quite a bit. At times, this unrelatability was an issue in my reading experience. Every so often, the author’s experience with cooking felt the opposite of mine. I enjoy cooking and do not make myself a “girl-dinner” each time I have to eat something on my own. Eventually, Davies learns to enjoy making her own meals, but a journey about her complex feelings about cooking came before this. This was not the case for me, or, at least, I do not expect this to happen once I officially move out. The fact that many of Davies’ personal stories in this book are centered around her long-term relationship ending did not benefit the relatability, as this is also something I have not experienced.

When talking about the recipes of Meera Sodha, Davies connects the cooking of these particular recipes to baking and its need to be meticulous with the ingredients and their amounts. My own love for baking and, therefore, love for being precise with ingredients, is something that hindered my joy in cooking. When I first started, I struggled with the freedom of adding ingredients to taste. Luckily, the more I cook, the more I can let go of this and actually enjoy the freedom. During this passage, Davies describes how “there have been times over the last few years where I’ve found it extremely calming to follow a precise and prescriptive recipe.” I think this is where students like me can relate to the author, who also partake in so-called “stress-baking” around times of exams.

Another passage in the book that I could connect with is when Davies talks about Rachel Cusk’s post-divorce memoir Aftermath (2012). She recalls how “when she and her daughters stop eating their meals at the table it signifies that something is shifting in the gender and power dynamics of their family, with emotional centres in flux.” Since my parents got divorced in late 2020, and my mother bought a new house, we have only ever eaten at the table when we have guests over. All our meals are consumed on the couch in front of the TV. I am not sure if our case is the same as Cusk’s, and thus also signifies that something is shifting in the gender and power dynamics, but I do think it is interesting that at my father’s house we always eat at the table, except for when we have pizza or fries.

When reflecting on the contents of The Spinster Cookbook and recent societal developments, there are a few things that came to mind. This past September, the Global Gender Gap Index was released, and the Netherlands has once again moved down on this list. It is now ranked 46th out of 145 countries, compared to the United Kingdom, which is ranked 5th place. One of the main reasons that the Netherlands is ranked so much lower than its neighbouring countries is gendered labour practices — in particular, the fact that women are more inclined to work part-time than men.

This causes the care-taking duties to fall on the women’s shoulders. These duties, of course, also include taking care of the food. As Davies explains in The Spinster Cookbook, “It was the woman’s (divine) duty to tend to the home and feed and care for those inside it.” And because women more frequently work part-time, they also have fewer chances to get leadership positions. The Netherlands has never had a female prime minister, while the UK has had three. Specialists credit this regression to the lack of childcare provided by the Dutch government. When you compare the Dutch system to that of countries at the top of the index, it can be seen that they provide free childcare, which allows women to return to work instead of staying at home and taking on the care-giving duties.

Additionally, the growing image of the tradwife on social media is especially interesting to think about when reading Davies’ book, as they portray opposites of each other. An article by the University of Amsterdam describes the tradwife movement as “a complex conversation about gender roles, personal choice, societal norms, and feminism.” These themes overlap with Davies’ descriptions of her feelings on cooking and domesticity: “[These activities] are of course deeply gendered, related as they are to the weight of caring, wifeliness and ‘proper womanhood.’”

The author’s mission with this book and the tradwife movement can almost be seen as opposites. Where one advocates for cooking to be seen apart from its domestic associations, the other is encouraging women to stay at home in order to care for their families. Videos of tradwives on social media platforms such as TikTok mainly show them preparing food for their families. They will be baking sourdough bread and making everything from scratch. I cannot imagine that a tradwife ever makes herself an elaborate dinner or, let alone, could be a spinster. The Tradwife movement has a connection to far-right politics, and it can be argued that it has emerged from the “manosphere,” which has clear connections to the far-right, with its advocating for traditional masculinity and being strongly anti-feminist.

In the chapter on roast chicken, Davies explores this gendered dynamic when it comes to food and cooking. When talking about why the Sunday roast is such an important moment in the British week, Davies writes, “My hunch is that it is something to do with a kind of culmination of the industrial working week in the patriarchal nuclear family, where the man’s economic contribution to the household is lauded and celebrated in a large piece of meat which the woman, proving her worth to the household, cooks up and serves ceremonially to the family.”

I think the author’s hunch is terribly similar to the essence of the tradwife.

A critique I would give Davies and the publisher is that the quote on the front cover gave me false expectations for the book. It says: “Culture, politics and pleasure in the single woman’s kitchen.” I did not expect the book to be so heavily focused on Davies’ personal journey. Even when reading the more detailed description on the back cover, it does not become clear that this is a mix of a memoir, cookbook, and nonfiction. When looking at the book at face value, I expected only the cookbook and nonfiction elements. The memoir aspect often made the book not relatable for me, which meant that it was more difficult to keep reading at times. I think the setup of the book is very clever; that every chapter focuses on different dishes in the “cookbook” made it easy to continue reading and kept me interested. Davies’ writing flawlessly mixes the interesting combination of genres, as the non-fiction elements of each chapter add something substantial to the personal anecdotes and the dish it centers around.

Additionally, what Davies does really well is make the reader aware of these gendered dynamics that are traditionally associated with cooking. This awareness allows readers to evaluate the gendered dynamics in their own house. Davies’ writing makes the reader reflect, because through her own personal anecdotes that are woven throughout the book, they can relate to certain aspects in these stories and apply the writer’s observations to their own situations. Personally, as someone who has never been in a domestic romantic relationship and thus has not yet experienced the food and household duties together, I can be aware of these things and think about whether I want to conform to these duties or not in future relationships.

The Spinster Cookbook is food for thought. If you have experienced a long-term relationship ending where cooking may have played a role in gendered division looking back, or if you are interested in reading about British cooking and how it developed over time, then this book is for you. Even if, like me, you are merely interested in the themes listed on the front of the book, “Culture, politics and pleasure in the single woman’s kitchen,” then I would still recommend The Spinster Cookbook. Either way, if you are looking for an easy dessert option to enjoy after having cooked one of Davies favourite recipes, I leave you with my personal favourite bake — my famous, at least amongst family and friends, banana bread.

Banana bread

Ingredients

125 gr melted butter

200 gr sugar

2 large eggs

60 ml milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 ripe bananas

250 gr flour

1 tsp baking soda

Pinch of salt

As much chocolate or nuts as you want (I recommend using dark chocolate)

Method

Preheat the  oven at 160 °C, and line a cake tin/loaf pan with parchment paper.

Mix the sugar and butter until combined. Add in one egg at a time.

Add in the milk and vanilla extract. Mix in the flour, baking soda, and salt. Do not overmix.

Smash the bananas with a fork or blender. Add them to your mixture until combined.

Lastly, add your chocolate and/or nuts.

Add the mixture to the cake tin/loaf form and bake for 50-65 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out dry.

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