Food Symbolism in Society

Topic: Food Symbolism in Society
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Introduction
Research on food thrives, from the history of contradictory types of charge to the relationship between provisioning and values, gender responsibilities, and eating maladies. On subjects related to health and nutrition, few studies focus on the figurative aspects of alimentation; eating has often been emphasized as an expression of uniqueness in ethnic, regional, and religious sets. Comprehending how communication is made through food behavior requires an examination not only of foodstuffs but also for the preparation, service, and consumption of food for all are ways of achieving symbolization (American Folklore Society, 2007). Although we often think of food in terms of violence and necessity in the realm of politics, the texts we have explored here align food with pleasure, community and the politics of change. This paper investigates the representation of food, preparation practices and consumption as a channel for positive social change and an expression of individual desire.
Argument and Discussion
In (Esquivel, 1989) Cooking is a reminder of apparent and unperceived forces. We are connected through food. In CITATION Esq89 \l 1033 (Esquivel, 1989), magic is mostly associated with cooking. Food works as a narrative site/subject which allows an easy slippage between magical and realize discourses. The novel's protagonist, Tita, is a cook who can magically transform food and bestow it with powerful properties that affect all those who eat it. The novel addresses the question of whether women can transform cooking, feeding, and eating from positions of oppression into sources of power. Food is a central focus and symbol in this book. In the many scenes where food is prepared, served, and eaten emphasizes it's social and symbolic importance. Food is particularly important in the novel as a voice for women and their abundant emotions and there are many scenes of cooking and eating. The protagonist Tita; her mother, Mama Elena; and her two sisters, Rosaura, and Gertrudi, communicate differently through food.
For many women, being forced to cook, feed, and serve others has been an enactment and symbol of their powerlessness and low status. Relegated by her mother to the kitchen, Tita is excluded from the rest of the house and, indirectly, society:
"She mixed up the joy of life with the joy of eating. For a person who got to know life through a kitchen, it was not easy to understand the outside world" (13)
However, she dominates the kitchen space and makes of her cookery skills a way of self-expression and intervention into that world she has been denied access to. Each recipe reflects a different aspect of Tita's way of thinking, so much that an unconventional reality is constructed in which Tita finds a way to express her sexuality and love. The first magical event that signals her new way of commun...