Women eat, Mothers cook: motherhood and cooking practices in Western Brazilian Amazon

This paper describes and discusses how motherhood is practiced and represented in women's domestic cooking practices in Western Brazilian Amazon A descriptive and qualitative study was conducted with 16 women cooks using in-depth interviews. Data were analyzed by identifying the regular expressive and significant units of significance. These women, when childless. cooked to meet their individual needs and out-of home work schedules. During pregnancy, but specially after birth, women modify their cooking practices, appropriating the preconceived hegemonic ideas on what it means to he a mother, focused on homemaking and greater investment of time and effort, such changes reinforce the belief that mother-child relations should involve intensive motherhood.