Teaching Modern Women How to Cook: Doņa Petrona and Domestic Community in 1930s Buenos Aires

Petrona C. de Gandulfo first stepped into the public spotlight in the late 1920s when she began cooking in front of small neighborhood crowds in Buenos Aires to show off the new gas stoves sold by the British gas company, Primitiva.  By the 1930s, she had already begun to establish herself as a new kind of national figure—a domestic expert.  In addition to giving live cooking presentations for Primitiva in front of thousands of enthusiastic women, she began to pen her own magazine column, host a national radio program, and publish the first editions of her extremely popular cookbook. 

In this paper, I will explore the factors that contributed to Doña Petrona’s resonance during the 1930s.  I will argue that her initial career success depended upon the support and interest of many individual women in a rapidly changing society.  As many in Buenos Aires made breaks with their past due to migration, immigration, or education, Petrona began to establish herself as a sort of foster mother who could teach other women how to cook and be there for them when something went amiss.  She made herself consistently available to answer questions in person and, by 1934, in her magazine column for El Hogar.  Even as female friends and relatives continued to teach their kin how to perform domestic tasks, professionally trained strangers, like Petrona, also fulfilled this role.  As the burgeoning of technology and media transformed Buenos Aires into a “society of masses,” Petrona C. de Gandulfo built her career on women’s desire for advice from and connection with other women, especially in their supposedly private and individual capacity as modern housewives.