Discourses on health and indulgence in Flanders, 1945-1960.

Up until the late 1950s the Flemish housewife seemed to follow a strict meal pattern that was consecrated by the Women Farmers Association. Breakfast had to be consumed before the cows had to be milked, the hot lunch was served at noon after which the afternoon activities took place, and a cold meal was eaten after a long working day. Moreover, this Flemish meal model was not only strict when it came to organising the day, it also stringently outlined the content of the meals. Especially the three-course meal at noon was structured: a bowl of soup had to be followed by a plate composed of mainly meat, covered with a gravy, lots of potatoes and a little bit of overcooked vegetables. A homemade desert (e.g. a pudding or cake) ended the meal.
At the beginning of the 1950s the Women Farmers Association published a series of articles on the nutritional value of food in its monthly magazine. Each of the articles ended with some dietary guidelines ("eat more vegetables!") and the new trend also spread rather quickly to the recipe section.
The question at stake is how this new attention for healthy food suited the Flemish meal pattern. Alan Warde's antinomy of taste between novelty and custom (tradition) will be used as conceptual framework to tackle this issue. How did the Women Farmers Association maneuver between novelty and custom in terms of usual or healthy food? Were the new dietary guidelines able to change the organization's opinion on the Flemish meal model? In order to answer these questions, I want to look at the discourses used in the recipe section of the Women Farmers Association's monthly magazine for the period 1950 - 2000.