Kamala Harris is reclaiming what it means to be a "woman in the kitchen"

Videos of vice president Kamala Harris cooking and talking about food have popped up all over the internet ever since she replaced President Joe Biden as the presumptive Democratic nominee over two weeks ago.

“Under the skin with some butter, before you’re going to cook it, so that butter will just melt in there” she said in a 2019 video where she explains how to cook a turkey just 60 seconds before a live interview. 

“And then get a nice big bottle of cheap white wine to base the butt — Yes, hi!” she interrupts herself to go live on air.

The resurfaced video has gone viral in recent weeks. As she waits to go on air, Harris’ light up and she describes every step of the process with her hands, desperate to share her turkey recipe before the interview begins. It’s clear this is a woman who loves food.

Cooking has become a rather significant part of the Democratic nominee’s public persona. From teaching Sen. Mark Warner how to make a proper tuna sandwich in a pandemic-era Instagram live, to her “Cooking with Kamala” series on YouTube, the vice president’s culinary skills have taken the public by storm. Food and cooking have been a small but still significant part of her political campaign since she first ran for president in 2020. 

For decades, the kitchen has been closely associated with a particular type of femininity. Kitchen work has often been considered the undervalued physical labor of mothers, grandmothers, wives and girlfriends, a space where they fulfill their duties as domestic providers. 

But Harris is reclaiming what it means to be a “woman in the kitchen”, a stereotype long used by men to imply that a woman’s rightful place is in the home, not in the workplace. Harris has autonomy over the kitchen and cooks because she loves food, not because she is bound by a certain gender obligation. 

In every video of Harris cooking, her authentic love of food and flavor shine through, as do her kitchen skills. In a particularly popular cooking video from 2020, Harris impressed actress and comedian Mindy Kaling with her deft onion slicing. She bonded with the actress over South Indian dishes they ate in childhood and how their parents both keep their spices in Taster’s Choice coffee jars.

In another 2020 campaign video, Harris admires the history of a handwritten recipe passed down from generations before handily cracking an egg with one hand. She uses the casual setting of the kitchen to relay stories of family and connection through food, not to mention to show off her culinary prowess.

It may seem like a bold choice to use the image of a female politician in the kitchen as a political tool. In the White House, matters of cooking have historically been left to the first ladies of America. From Nancy Regan’s brownies to Barbara Bush’s famous chocolate chip cookies, many first ladies — Republicans in particular — have embraced cooking to fulfill the image of American womanhood.

Other female politicians have rejected the kitchen and its gender associations in the name of feminism.

“I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession,” Hilary Clinton controversially said in 1992. The comment sparked outrage among stay-at-home mothers across the country, who thought Clinton was implying they were less important for staying home.

It’s a narrative that’s been pushed onto women for decades: to be successful, one has to choose between being a “woman in the kitchen” or a “woman in office.”

But Harris is both. She is a woman who loves to cook and one of the country’s most powerful politicians, a duality that shows the world that women are not bound to a place of domesticity or success, they can move between both as they please.

To Harris, cooking is not a lowly pursuit reserved for domestic women, nor is it an obligation bound by gender. It is a creative outlet, an expression of joy and a form of self-care. She even reads cookbooks to unwind before she goes to bed, she told The Cut in 2018. 

“Everything else can be crazy, I can be on six planes in one week, and what makes me feel normal is making Sunday-night family dinner. If I’m cooking, I feel like I’m in control of my life,” Harris told The Cut.

Refreshingly, there is not a sprinkle of diet culture rhetoric when she discusses recipes either. She doesn’t suggest “healthy” alternatives or justify including oil, carbs or sugar. She cooks to eat.

“My mother said to me, ‘Honey, you like to eat good food. You better learn how to cook,’” Harris recalled in one “Cooking with Kamala” video.

Her love of food is authentic and that’s why it works.