What does Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz mean when she says, "What wisdom may be ours if not the philosophies of our kitchen...?"

With Sor Juana's history, it might be important to recall
that from a very young age, she was interested only in learning and books. (She was
reading at age three.)

Later, when Sor Juana had joined the
convent, in her writing Respuesta a Sor Filotea, she wrote of time
spent in the kitchen:

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Well, and what shall I tell you, my Lady, of the
secrets of nature that I have learned while cooking?...I shall not weary you with such
inanities, which I relate simply to give you a full account of my nature, and I believe
this will make you laugh. But in truth, my Lady, what can we women know, save
philosophies of the kitchen? It was well put... that one can philosophize quite well
while preparing supper.

The
meaning of her quotation is in two parts. The first is that women are limited to the
kitchen so that is all they know. The second part is that there is sufficient time for
women to "philosophize" as there is a great deal of manual work to do and a lot of time
spent in the kitchen. Sor Juana knew that education came from every direction, as she
states when she was once forbidden by a "saintly" mother superior from reading for three
months:

I
studied all the things that God created, taking them for my letters, and for my book all
the intricate structures of this
world....

Sor Juana knew that
the knowledge that there was in the kitchen was only what women
could know: women were not allowed to attend the university to study; this was only for
men. And while I do not think she would have insulted the endeavors of those who served
by working hard in the kitchen, Sor Juana would have felt much confined in terms of
educational pursuits had she been expected to always fulfill the traditional tasks of
women in the kitchen, rather that being educated and allowed to read from the
innumerable books available to her, allowing her a vast knowledge of the world at
large.