The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives

"The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives" by Elizabeth Strong Worthington is a story that looks with humor at marriage and being a wife in olden times. It starts with a group of young women having a fun talk about how to "cook" wives, which really means how they should act and what they should do as wives. The story is inspired by hearing about an article. Girls with names like Hilda, Prudence, and Nannie share their ideas about love and what they want in life during funny conversations. One of the characters, Nannie Branscome, feels confused about what people expect from her and uses silly food comparisons to describe how she feels. The story mixes jokes with a serious look at what it was like to be a woman back then, making you think about marriage and being yourself in a world full of rules.