Tied tight
Does anybody wear aprons anymore?
By Christina Eng
December 26, 2007
Back in the day, cooks at home — my mother among them — wore aprons.
She wore one in the kitchen, when she peeled and chopped vegetables, when she prepped fish in the sink, when she stir-fried meats in a well-seasoned wok, the ventilation fan whirling overhead. She wore one outside the kitchen, when she brought plates of food to the dining table and cleared the dishes afterward.
My mother put on an apron automatically, like a second layer of clothing. She picked up a knife or a spatula with one hand, an apron with the other. She protected her dresses from spills and splatters. She alternated among four or five aprons, and washed them in the machine with the rest of our laundry.
She wore floral prints in reds and yellows, and styles with flat fronts and decorative hems. In the pockets, my mother stashed Kleenex. She sewed her own aprons, customizing them to suit her frame. (Back in the day, people at home sewed.)
These days, it seems, cooks at home seldom wear aprons. Not the ladies on the Food Network. Not when they chop onions on a board or grill meats on the stovetop. In front of the camera, under the lights, they hardly worry about spills or splatters.
Sandra Lee, Ingrid Hoffmann, and the incessantly perky Rachael Ray tend to wear form-fitting V-neck or scoop-neck tops and tees in their television kitchens. They never get flour in their impeccably styled hair. They never spill a thing on their undeniably fashionable outfits. It is, of course, make-believe.
In my local newspaper a short while back, I learned of a great-grandmother in an Oakland suburb with a remarkable collection of more than 200 aprons.
The oldest, the reporter noted, was a flour-sack apron from a century ago. (I am not sure what that is, really, but it doesn’t sound entirely flattering.) One of the newest was a full-length barbecue apron with large pockets and the words “Sexy Senior Citizen.”
“Put on an apron and tie it,” the apron collector told the reporter, as gently and sweetly as a great-grandmother would. “The tighter you tie it, the bigger the hug.”
But the article didn’t tell me everything.
I do not know, for instance, how she acquires her aprons. Does she shop actively for them or receive them as presents? (Both, perhaps.) Where does she keep them? How does she sort them? By color? Fabric? Which ones does she actually wear? Most of all, what does she cook?
Aprons, I realize, have long been synonymous with domesticity. They have been linked inevitably to physical work on farms and in kitchens.
“Homesteading alongside the men,” EllynAnne Geisel writes in The Apron Book: Making, Wearing and Sharing a Bit of Cloth and Comfort, “women tucked their dresses into apron waistbands to clear and plow the fields, then unfurled the aprons to carry grain to the chickens, gather eggs, and harvest vegetables from the garden.”
In the years following World War II, the garments grew increasingly popular among middle-class housewives, Geisel notes. The designs at that time reflected “their aspirations to be modern, social and stylish. Fabrics were bold with color, and adornments became more playful.”
Eventually, there were theme aprons and holiday aprons, and aprons that matched potholders or tablecloths. There were aprons that sported cartoon graphics or witty phrases. There were casual aprons made of cotton and fancy aprons made of silk, organza, or taffeta. There were practical aprons, like my mother’s, and not-so-practical aprons.
Most home cooks these days, I suspect, prefer function to form. They would do without trims or ruffles, selecting comfortable, straightforward bib aprons in a range of colors.
I take an informal poll among friends my age. Some have aprons, others don’t. Some wear aprons, others don’t.
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| Contributions from farmers, cooks, and others who are tasting the many meanings of food. | |
- Dinner, American-style — An American cooks for her Italian friends
- Buying the farm — Planting the seeds of agricultural bliss
- The sourdough apprentice — Two weeks, five pounds of flour, one loaf
- Spring green — Pick your own knotweed shoots
- Butter me up — Good fat, better fat
- The whole-grain diet — One mama’s attempt to force-feed her family
- Heartfelt tradition — Passing on a classic family recipe
- Sight unseen — Tasting dark chocolate in the dark
- Tied tight — Does anybody wear aprons anymore?
- Memory, preserved — Raspberry cordial, lost in time
- The walking cure — Hunting for mushrooms, finding herself
- The staff of life — Family time is bread time
- Well sauced — Marinara, Mom-style
- Cooking away trouble — Chicken and biscuits make everything OK again
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There are 11 comments on this item
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1. by valereee on Dec 26, 2007 at 10:03 AM PST
I wear aprons! Only when I’m both making something messy and trying to protect what I’m wearing, though. For instance, if I’m wearing a white shirt and making tomato sauce, on goes the apron. If I’m in my jammies making an omelet, not so much.
2. by radish on Dec 26, 2007 at 11:05 AM PST
I have a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fabric apron my grandmother sewed for me. She has no idea what those characters like and bought the fabric for 99 cents. It’s got a tiny pocket for Kleenex. I love it and have had it for years!
3. by Sheryl on Dec 27, 2007 at 5:28 AM PST
Like the first poster, I wear an apron for messy stuff. Mine is black with a screen print of a pig that says “Not My Dinner”. But I’ve been thinking that I need to expand my apron wardrobe. I’ve got an amazing fabric store a few blocks away and personally, I think aprons are going to be the hot item for 2008. :)
4. by bipolarlawyercook on Dec 27, 2007 at 6:02 AM PST
I have several, including the blue chambray one I bought for myself in recognition that my cooking “hobby” had become a full blown obsession. I like it best, second only to one I received after my brother in law went to Roswell, NM. It says “Alien: The Other Gray Meat.” I always wear an apron when baking, and usually when deep frying or blending anything. For a quick weeknight supper, though, not always.
5. by carrie on Dec 28, 2007 at 10:40 PM PST
I am a messy cook, keen on wiping my wet hands on the back of my jeans, capable of dusting as much flour on myself as the counter when I bake. For the longest time I didn’t wear an apron while cooking — I didn’t like the idea or look of it, and I didn’t own one. Then a friend made me one (tiny flowers on an eggplant purple background, long sherbet-green ribbon ties) and I decided to try it out.
I like it! I like doing less laundry. I like the feeling that I can get even messier because I don’t have to worry about my clothes. And I like the moment after cooking, before sitting down at the table, when I whip it off!
6. by sj.breeze on Dec 31, 2007 at 2:03 PM PST
I collect vintage aprons and have dozens of them, they hang on the wall in my kitchen. I never wear them, they’re too precious to me, but I do put on a simple, solid-colored apron for baking and “weekend cooking,” aka something more involved than pasta. If I were a housewife, however, I might wear an apron all day.
7. by LizCrain on Jan 2, 2008 at 10:04 AM PST
I got my first apron for Christmas this year! I always see ones that I like -- particularly in thrift stores -- but just never bought one for myself. I’m looking forward to wearing it.
8. by anonymous on Jan 3, 2008 at 4:36 PM PST
My mom always said that if you don’t wear an apron you’ll get a line of grime across your belly, right where the edge of the counter hits. Thinking she’s right, I’ve always worn an apron. Though it took me years to replace the one she’d given me when I moved away from home: In gigantic letters it reads “BITCH BITCH BITCH”. Strangely enough, that sentiment is not always appropriate.
9. by Emily H. on Feb 29, 2008 at 7:39 PM PST
I started wearing an apron after I’d ruined one too many favorite shirts—I am such a messy cook, I don’t know how I ever managed without one! I have only one; it’s a cream and black French toile, and I love it.
Btw, a flour-sack apron is just an apron made from the fabric of flour sacks. Until around WWII, flour came in these really soft, durable cloth sacks, and it was really common for frugal families to use them to make clothing. After awhile the manufacturers actually started designing their sacks based on what they thought women would find most attractive for sewing. My grandmother made my mom and her sisters nearly all of their clothes from those sacks until they were in high school, when they finally got buy a store-bought dress or two.
10. by Amanda on Jun 17, 2008 at 11:22 AM PDT
@ Emily H. - Almost all of the towels in our kitchen are flour sack towels embroidered with fruit or flowers. I like them because they don’t seem to wear out like terry cloth do.
I also only have one apron, and it’s always covered in flour. I only really wear it when baking, since I’m messy with the flour. I’d like another for regular cooking, I think.
11. by lindsey k on Jun 18, 2008 at 3:52 PM PDT
i’m 27 and i wear an apron. :) for precisely the grime-across-the-belly reason. also for washing dishes, as i always seem to get water splashed up there. i use a plain, solid red $14 thing from some boring department store. it helps that it’s not ‘precious,’ and it’s good and sturdy and takes a washing well. if only it protected my forearms while frying!
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