We Are What We Eat

"We are What We Eat" theme materials created by Susan Swetnam, Idaho State University, 2007.

See the book list, theme essay, discussion questions for the series, books for further reading and related websites below.

Book List

Click on the titles below for a summary, author information and web sites.

Theme Essay

Food is one of human beings’ favorite obsessions. Most people spend a great deal of time physically and mentally preoccupied with food: we organize and prepare meals, we daydream about what’s for lunch or dinner; we eat. Beyond simply an enjoyable, necessary human pastime, though, eating has important implications for how we think of ourselves, and how we relate to the larger cultures of which we are a part. The books in this series invite readers to consider food as a serious topic, one that touches on some of the most important questions that we can ask about what it means to be human in general, and to be ourselves in particular.

Human tastes in food vary widely–virtually every nonpoisonous potential foodstuff (and a few that are poisonous unless prepared in a particular way)–is fare for some culture. Which foods people prefer is connected not only with what grows well in a particular place, but also with tradition, ritual, even scarcity, for rarity can make foods desirable. A foodstuff which is beloved in one place may be considered appropriate only for animals in another (as corn once was), or even disgusting (some cultures relish sea creatures and insects that make most Americans blanch). The way that meals are arranged, too, varies by culture. What is appropriate to eat for breakfast? Cereal? Rice and fish? Blood-sausage? Only a very sweet roll? What time do you eat lunch, and is that the main meal of the day? Do you dine at 6 p.m., as many Americans do, or wait until 9:00 p.m., like Spaniards? What do you serve at particular festivals, and how does that fare vary from everyday meals? What kinds of food would be inappropriate to serve for a particular festival–would your guests look at you aghast, for example, if you offered Buffalo wings and beer for a bridal shower, or a dainty pink cake and watercress sandwiches for the Fourth of July? And who makes that food, and how much time are they expected to spend? The name of the delicious Italian dish, Spaghetti Putanesca (with its sauce of tomatoes and capers) actually means “prostitute’s spaghetti,” reflecting the culture’s suspicion of any woman who would whip something up as quickly as this dish can be made. What was she doing with the rest of her time, people might ask, the hours that most good women spent in the kitchen showing their love for their families through food?

Whatever and however people eat, food inevitably becomes a marker of who they are (or were), reinforcing membership in a particular group. The wide variety of ethnic and regional traditions which persist in America reflect this--tamales, manicotti, latkes, fried clams, collard greens and ham, conch chowder, falafel, won ton soup, ramps, barbeque, cracked Dungeness crab. The combination of ethnic and regional foodways can place families in a very particular time and place, as happened in my own childhood, where Pennsylvania Dutch treats like shoofly pie and mustard pickle shared the table with 1950s cuisine (hamburger and soup casseroles, pot roast with dried mushroom soup as a flavoring, Velveeta cheese sandwiches on white bread). We also (in a weird application of the now hip term “eat locally”) ate foods that identified us as loyal Philadelphians: Tastycakes, cheese steaks, hoagies (not “subs,” and with Italian dressing, not mayonnaise, please!). However weird these combinations, whatever the quality of the substances themselves, people tend to develop great affection for the foods of their childhood, for they remind us of a time when life was less complicated and we knew that we belonged with the people who nurtured us. As the books in this series affirm, particular foods can inspire vivid memories. One taste or smell can transport us back to a particular room in a particular season; can bring us into the presence of someone we loved deeply. The way that food binds us to our roots is so strong that one scholar has even called eating “a vehicle for the performance of group identity.”

And yet food can also remind us of struggles against our traditions or our families, as several books in this series also document. Immigrants’ children sometimes shun the “weird” food of their parents and embrace mainstream eating patterns with pride, even when the food isn’t nearly as good. As people grow up and begin to craft their own identities as separate from their parents’, they frequently change the way that they eat as a symbol of that difference. My baby boomer generation, for example, brought up on all those soup-based casseroles, was the one that fueled the whole-foods-based eating, that deliberately sought out small ethnic restaurants that encouraged supermarkets to stock odd vegetables that were never seen there before–avocados! radicchio! fennel! And yet many people still retain affection for at least a few foods of their childhood, or return to them later: I know more than one baby boomer who eats Velveeta sandwiches and Campbell’s tomato soup when he or she is sick.

Food also reflects our broader values, our politics. How our food is grown, gathered, and marketed to us inevitably effects the earth and the people involved in the process. How we prepare and consume our food suggests what we value. Is saving time important to us? Economy? Is self-discipline an important value in our homes? Or are we more concerned with indulging our senses, or eating healthily (according to whatever defines “health” to us)? Is food an opportunity for demonstrating our connoisseurship? Our skill? Or is it deliberately simple, a rebellion against yuppie pretense or pressure on women to be domestic goddesses? I know women who brag about how much time they spend on meals, and other women who brag about how little. I know people who drive across town to shop at bulk stores, for whom saving money is a virtue, and others who just as virtuously spend a great deal more money for organic produce at the farmers’ market. Such choices say a great deal about individual politics and values. Changes in food practice and sudden widely-embraced enthusiasms within a culture can also be significant, signaling deeper sorts of evolution or even anxieties. I’d suggest, for example, that Americans’ current fascination with previously obscure regional food traditions and folksy food festivals reflects a longing for authenticity and simplicity in our lives.

It’s important to remember, as you read these books, that there are no intrinsically right ways to eat–everybody, in fact, considers his or her way “right,” though it may seem bizarre to the neighbors next door, not to speak of the neighbors across the planet or in the previous century. However we eat, though, it is clear that food matters a great deal in human culture. For what we eat and how we eat reveals a great deal about us–what our assumptions are, what our history has been, even who we, as individuals, seek to be.

Discussion Questions for Series

1. What specific cultural assumptions are reflected in the ways that people eat in the various books in this series? How do eating practices reflect cultural differences? How do your own eating patterns reflect the various cultures of which you are a part?

2. Where in these books do you see food taking on a spiritual dimension? Why might food be connected in people’s minds with something beyond physical nurturing? Do you ever consider eating as something spiritual?

3. Where in these books do characters make choices about food that symbolize their own individual values (as opposed to the mainstream ones of their cultures or families)? Where do you see people using food to recreate themselves or to set themselves apart? Have you ever done anything like this?

4. Several of these books comment explicitly or implicitly on the ethics of eating. What issues of sustainability, labor, health, ethics of food production concern you most? Do you believe that individual consumers can do anything about these problems? What?

5. Food serves as a locus on memory in many of these books, emotionally binding people to times and places that they loved. Why does food have such power, do you think? What food memories do you have that bring back important moments in your past?

6. If the group wishes, it might be fun one night to invite each member to bring a dish for a potluck that is important to that person because it symbolizes something about his or her identity and/or sparks a particular memory. As you eat, share that symbolism with each other. Recipes would be appreciated, too! This session might even be an extra sixth one, after all of the books have been discussed.

For Further Reading

Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses, by Isabel Allende.
A lusty memoir by one of Latin America’s most revered novelists, with recipes. Food as aphrodisiac.

The Debt to Pleasure, by John Lancaster.
A complex, highly literate book, part novel, part philosophical treatise, with a self-obsessed and twisted narrator.

Eat My Words: Reading Women’s Lives through the Cookbooks They Wrote, by Janet Theophano.
An interesting historical study of women’s recipe books, ranging from handwritten collections from the 17th and 18th centuries, to printed books in which women made personal notes, to recent community cookbooks. Such books, the author demonstrates with ample examples, can tell us a great deal about women’s friendship patterns, relationships to their families, ethnic identifications, and even self-image.

Everybody Eats: Understanding Food and Culture, by E. N. Anderson.
An accessible overview study of why people eat what they do, with a global perspective. Good introduction to the kind of topics that food scholars discuss.

The Gastronomical Me, M. F. K. Fisher.
Delightful autobiographical essays, funny and thoughtful, from one of the queens of food writing.

Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain.
A frank and funny expose of what goes on at the country’s top restaurants. Not for the faint of heart.

La Cucina, by Lily Prior.
A murder novel with rich characters set in Sicily, full of food and sex.

Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel.
A magic realism novel set in turn-of-the-twentieth century Mexico that focuses on the lives of three sisters, especially the youngest, Tita, who is frustrated in love but gifted as a cook. (In the Let’s Talk About It Collection)

My Life in France, by Julia Child.
A memoir of the great chef’s discovery of French food–and her vocation–as a young married woman.

Never Eat Your Heart Out, by Judith Moore.
An autobiography of bittersweet food-based memories from the author’s childhood to adulthood.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan (nonfiction)
Presents a hard look at three alternative methods of procuring dinner: through the practices of agribusiness (including feedlots); through modern commercial organic farming; and through individual and local hunting/gathering.

Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century, by Laura Shapiro.
An entertaining, revealing look at the way that white middle class home economists (“domestic scientists) shaped American eating patterns in the early twentieth century and set the stage for American housewives’ love affair with convenience foods.

Pomegranate Soup, by Marsha Mehran.
Three Iranian sisters flee a revolution to settle in Ireland and establish a café in this novel of cultural difference, food, and belonging.

Secrets from the Tsil Café, by Thomas Fox Averill.
The son of two dueling chefs grows up with their bickering to found his own restaurant, the One World Café. A novel.

The Sociology of the Meal, by Roy C. Wood.
An accessible introduction to academic discussions of food. Discusses choices that people make (mainly in Britain) about what, where, and how they eat, and connects those choices to larger structures of social, class, and gender behavior.

Stand Facing the Stove: The Story of the Women Who Gave America “The Joy of Cooking.” Anne Mendelson. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996.
A thoroughly-researched, very readable biography of Irma Rombauer and her daughter Marian Becker, “unabashedly amateur cooks,” who were responsible for one of America’s most beloved cookbooks. Fascinating information about the politics of various editions, and about how the book fits into evolving American culture. Required reading for anyone who loves Joy.

Web Sites

http://www.foodtimeline.org
The Food Timeline is a collection of related Web pages compiled by Lynne Olver, editor and researcher. "Food history presents a complicated buffet of popular lore and contradictory facts. Most foods and recipes are not invented; they evolve."

Chocolat by Joanne Harris

Chocolat Can indulgent food be a force for spiritual liberation, or is it inevitably an invitation to self-indulgent corruption? The novel Chocolat addresses this question through the story of a free-spirited outsider, a woman with a young daughter who arrives in a straight-laced French village and opens a luxury chocolate shop. The town’s priest, a repressed and angry man, immediately conceives of her as a rival for the souls of the townspeople. While many solid citizens align themselves on his side, the town’s less conventional residents, including a straight-talking elderly woman, a community of gypsies who live on river barges, and an abused woman who flees her husband, look to Vianne Rocher’s shop as a place to share their secrets, fears, and dreams. During Lent, Vianne and the priest find themselves locked in a combat that will reveal long-guarded secrets and force Vianne to examine her own choice of life.

Chocolat was made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. In the movie version, the priest Father Reynaud has been changed into the town’s mayor. Readers might be interested in seeing the film, discussing whether or not they think that this revision changes the novel significantly (and if the change improves the story or not), and speculating on why the change might have been made. Harris herself has commented that the movie is “less dark” than the book, adding, “but I like milk chocolate, too.”

*Cover reprinted with permission from Penguin Group (U.S.A.) Inc.

Author Information

Joanne Harris was born in 1964 to an English father and French mother and has lived her whole life in England. Trained as a linguist at Cambridge, she worked as an elementary school teacher for fifteen years, during which time she published three novels. The last of these was Chocolat, which catapulted her in 1999 to international fame. She then became a full-time writer and has produced five more novels (several of which also use food motifs, including Blackberry Wine and Five Quarters of the Orange) and a collection of short stories, and she has collaborated on two cookbooks (The French Kitchen and The French Market). Her fiction has been termed “gastromance” for the way that it merges exuberant description of food with the conventions of romantic fiction. She lives with her husband and daughter near where she was born, and is a musician as well as an award-winning writer.

Author Interview
Author Website

Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think that Vianne sets up her chocolate shop in this town? Why has she chosen chocolate in the first place as a means for expressing herself, since her mother wasn’t interested in the craft of cooking? Is luxury chocolate appropriate, given her personality? Her psychic gifts?

2. Why (besides the chocolate’s delicious taste) are the townspeople drawn to Vianne’s shop? What is Vianne expressing through her chocolate, and why do the townspeople need that?

3. In what ways are Vianne and Father Reynaud moral opposites? Harris has said that there are no real heroes or villains in the work–do you agree? Can you see drawbacks to living with Vianne’s values, as well as with Reynaud’s? Can you find pity for him, as well as for her?

4. What does the character of Anouk add to the book? How would your sense of Vianne, or of the symbolism of the chocolate itself, be different if she weren’t there? Does knowing that Harris based the character on her own young daughter influence your take on the novel? Knowing that the character of Armande was based on Harris’ beloved great grandmother, a fine cook and powerful matriarch?

5. The battle over chocolate in Lansquenet takes place during Lent, a time when people traditionally deny themselves things to focus their spiritual energy. Harris seems to be suggesting that such self-denial is inevitably repressive–do you agree? Or, do you think that there is a time and place for such discipline?

6. Chocolat has a great deal to say about insiders and outsiders (in both social terms and in terms of institutionalized religion). What do you think that Harris is ultimately suggesting about the costs and benefits of being one or the other?

7. Do you think that the ending (both what happens to Reynaud and what happens to Vianne) is plausible? Why or why not?

8. Harris has suggested that the book demonstrates that “love, not faith is the key to salvation.” How does this theme play out in Chocolat? Why might Harris have chosen chocolate, per se (vs., say, garlic or cheese or lobster) as the central metaphor, given this thematic intention?

Choice Cuts by Mark Kurlansky

Choice Cuts is a wide-ranging anthology of writing about food, spanning the ancients (Plato is represented here, discussing food as medicine) to the turn of the 21st century (Mimi Sheridan writes about bialys, Jewish onion rolls). Arranged by topic (meat, bugs, salad, fruit, drinks, memorable meals, etc.) this collection includes selections by many well-known food writers (M. F. K. Fisher, James Beard) and by many writers of fiction and poetry (Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings on killing birds, Pablo Neruda on French fries). It also contains fascinating excerpts from philosophers, old cookbooks, and travel memoirs into what Publishers Weekly termed “a banquet of historical and modern writings on food.”

A good way to approach this delightful but extensive collection in a public library discussion would be for the librarian or the scholar to suggest in advance how readers might focus, to insure that everyone is familiar with some of the same sections. Discussion might focus on several chapters about particular types of food that correlate with other books selected for the series (chocolate, meat, spices), or purposefully on new subjects (fat, starch, vegetables). Readers might, alternately, pay special attention to the chapters on national cuisines, for those are full of entertaining cultural speculation, and on the final two chapters, which discuss in an accessible manner theories of food choice. Another option would be to trace the multiple selections that several writers have contributed to the book, coming prepared to characterize each one’s style and attitude and compare and contrast their work.

Author Information

kurlansky Mark Kurlansky wrote the best-selling books Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changes the World, Salt: A World History, and The Basque History of the World. He worked as a professional chef and pastry maker in New York and New England and writes a column about food history for the magazine Food and Wine. He has won the James Beard Award for Excellence in Food Writing. He has also written for 25 years about international affairs, particularly European and Latin American subjects, and has recently written a collection of short stories and a novel based on his experiences in the Caribbean. He lives in New York with his wife and daughter.

Author Interview: New York State Writer's Institute

Photo © Lisa Klausner

Discussion Questions

Specific discussion questions for this book will vary, depending on the approach chosen locally (see the suggestions above), but here are some general approaches:

1. How do the approaches and attitudes toward specific foods (chocolate, spices, meat) voiced by writers in this collection compare/contrast to those put forth in other books that you’ve read in this series?

2. Within any given chapter in this book, you’ll see a range of ideas about the properties of a particular food group, the best way to prepare it, and what it symbolizes culturally. Look at some of the writers who voice attitudes less familiar to you. What can you learn about their culture/time period from what they say about food?

3. Many of the writers in this book are extremely opinionated. What is it about food, in particular, that tends to bring out such strong feelings? Choose a few writers for your discussion.

4. Can you identify historical changes overall in the way that people think about food? What are those? Are the more recent writers necessarily more “right” than the earlier ones? Why or why not?

5. Can you identify any constants in the way that people think about food that transcend the historical and cultural contrasts chronicled in this book? What are they?

6. Which selections here do you particularly like? Why? Do those writers express attitudes toward food that you share?

Choice Cuts by Mark Kurlansky

Choice Cuts is a wide-ranging anthology of writing about food, spanning the ancients (Plato is represented here, discussing food as medicine) to the turn of the 21st century (Mimi Sheridan writes about bialys, Jewish onion rolls). Arranged by topic (meat, bugs, salad, fruit, drinks, memorable meals, etc.) this collection includes selections by many well-known food writers (M. F. K. Fisher, James Beard) and by many writers of fiction and poetry (Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings on killing birds, Pablo Neruda on French fries). It also contains fascinating excerpts from philosophers, old cookbooks, and travel memoirs into what Publishers Weekly termed “a banquet of historical and modern writings on food.”

Author Information

Mark Kurlansky wrote the best-selling books Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changes the World, Salt: A World History, and The Basque History of the World. He worked as a professional chef and pastry maker in New York and New England and writes a column about food history for the magazine Food and Wine. He has won the James Beard Award for Excellence in Food Writing. He has also written for 25 years about international affairs, particularly European and Latin American subjects, and has recently written a collection of short stories and a novel based on his experiences in the Caribbean. He lives in New York with his wife and daughter.

Discussion Questions

Specific discussion questions for this book will vary, depending on the approach chosen locally (see the suggestions above), but here are some general approaches:

3. Many of the writers in this book are extremely opinionated. What is it about food, in particular, that tends to bring out such strong feelings? Choose a few writers for your discussion.

4. Can you identify historical changes overall in the way that people think about food? What are those? Are the more recent writers necessarily more “right” than the earlier ones? Why or why not?

5. Can you identify any constants in the way that people think about food that transcend the historical and cultural contrasts chronicled in this book? What are they?

6. Which selections here do you particularly like? Why? Do those writers express attitudes toward food that you share?

Climbing the Mango Tree by Mudhar Jaffrey

Climbing the Mango Tree is a delightful memoir of the author’s childhood in mid-twentieth-century Delhi, India. Madhur Jaffrey’s wealthy family lived in an extended-family compound, and her life was rich in cousins, aunts, and uncles. It was also rich in food, and this book links specific memories with lovingly-described meals, from street food to picnic snacks to full-course dinners that boggle the imagination. Because Jaffrey’s family was of the professional class, their lifestyle blended Hindu traditions (their heritage, to which the family’s women gave primary allegiance), Muslim culture (which the men absorbed in their work), and English customs (again from the men, but also from the children, who attended English schools). This blend worked itself seamlessly into their food, dress, and family culture–until the partition of India in the 1940s disrupted their lives. The book provides a fascinating look at a way of life that will be exotic to many Americans, full of memorable characters and delicious recipes.

Author Information

Madhur Jaffrey was born in 1937 into a well-off family in Delhi, India. When she was 19, she went to London to pursue her interest in acting, studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. While there, she missed the food of her youth (she had never done any cooking as a girl), so she wrote to her mother, requesting recipes, and taught herself to cook. After graduating from the RADA, she acted in film, television, and radio productions, marrying an Indian actor. After a move to New York, she began to write food articles, then to host a television program about Indian cooking. She has been the host of three BBC series on Indian food and has published numerous cookbooks. All of her work seeks to put food into the context of regional cultures, educating Westerners about life in India and beyond as she teaches them to cook.

Biography

Discussion Questions

1. How does food help Jaffrey’s family negotiate their mixing of cultures? Does it help create an independent identity for the family?

2. The family’s structure is overtly patriarchal, but the women still seem to inspire strong memories in Jaffrey, and she herself is a strong, independent girl who grows into a distinguished woman. What kind of role models does she see among the women in her family that help her? How do these women function in the family? Does food play a role in their roles?

3. What aspects of the elite Delhi culture that she describes surprise you the most? Which would you find most difficult to negotiate? Why?

4. The family seems to have strong unwritten rules about which foods belong in which settings–what it is appropriate, in other words, to eat at particular times and places. Consider your own unwritten rules about such things, and compare them with others in the group, if you’d like. Why do you think that people develop such customs?

5. Jaffrey seems to have a strong sense of her own family and its identity, even within the extended family living situation. What distinguishes her family, in her mind?

6. How does Jaffrey herself blend cultures into her attitudes and personality?

7. At the book’s end, Jaffrey talks about how the “innocent honey” put on her tongue came as she aged to be “mixed with the pungencies of Indian spices.” What does she mean by that? Do you have a parallel food metaphor, from your own cultural setting, to describe the progress and growing complexity of your life?

The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber

The Language of Baklava is a memoir with recipes–a delightful testament to the deep connections between food, identity, and memory. In a series of narrative vignettes, Abu-Jaber chronicles a childhood shaped by both Arab (Iranian and Jordanian) cultures and American culture as she traces her history as a young woman trying to find her place within the pull of various traditions. The book contains a large, colorful cast of characters–eccentric aunts and uncles and other relatives, sisters, a compassionate, level-headed American mother–but it is the narrator’s father, a jovial, impractical man impassioned about reminding his children of their roots, who dominates this book. Some of the stories chronicle warm family episodes (shish kabob cookouts in upstate New York); others portray the anxieties of being between cultures; some are set during temporary relocations back to the Middle East, where the narrator is strongly attracted to the life of city streets and Bedouin tents. Though the narrator rebels at times, the story ultimately glows with love and the celebration of family, and the recipes are delicious.

National Public Radio Features and Commentaries

*Book cover reprinted with permission from Anchor Books

Author Information

Diana Abu-Jaber was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1960, to a Jordanian father and an American (Irish-German) mother. Her family moved to Jordan when she was seven, spending two years there, and she has often returned. She holds a Ph.D. in English literature from the State University of New York at Binghamton. She has taught literature and creative writing at the University of Michigan, the University of Oregon, and UCLA, and is at this writing Writer-in-Residence at Portland State University. Her first novel (with autobiographical elements), Arabian Jazz (1993) won the Oregon Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award. She won a National Endowment for the Arts award to support a second novel, Memories of Birth, and she has received a Fulbright Research Award for travel to Jordan to interview Palestinian and Jordanian women for her third novel. She calls The Language of Baklava, published in 2005, a “food memoir.” Information about Abu-Jaber can be found on-line at www.voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/Bios/entries/abujaber Diana. She also has a website (which was not working as these materials were being compiled but may be back on-line by the time that this LTAI theme is available): www.dianaabujaber.com.

Author Inteview

*Photo copyright Scott Eason, reprinted with permission

Discussion Questions

1. In the memoir, Abu-Jaber’s father Bud constantly uses food to reassure himself that his connection to his origins and family are not lost, and to attempt to connect his children to that heritage. Why, do you believe, does food hold power to forge such connections? What foods remind you of such connections?

2. Some immigrant children reject their ethnic foodways (at least temporarily) in an effort to become Americanized. Despite Diana Abu-Jaber’s temporary rebellions, she never does. Why might that be so, given her larger feelings about her father and her family?

3. One important theme in this book is finding one’s place as a person between cultures. Do you believe that such accommodation happens for Diana? If so, how does she accomplish it? Or does she end up identifying herself more one way than another?

4. Do you like the fact that recipes are included in this book? Why or why not?

5. Although the themes of The Language of Baklava are serious, the book is full of humor. What does the humor add? Do humor and food go together, in some ways, for you?

6. More than ten years before she wrote this memoir, Abu-Jaber explored her childhood (or childhoods like hers) in novels. Why might she have written about those experiences as “fiction” before she turned to memoir? Do you think that there is a difference in writer’s mind-set between the two genres?

The Mistress of Spices by Chita Banerjee Divakaruni

The Mistress of Spices is a lyric novel, written in a mixture of prose and poetry, in the style that has been called “magic realism”: while primarily set in this world (specifically, a run-down part of Oakland, California), it includes features which defy natural laws and give it an air of mysticism. The heroine, Tilo, comes to Oakland after she has been trained on a remote, magical island by the priestess-like Old Mistress of Spices for a vocation of ministering to others. Assuming a crone’s body and forbidden to leave her shop, Tilo shares the magic of her spices and her own psychic powers with a variety of Indian immigrants who are alienated, lonely, and/or in danger in their new homeland. Soon, however, her own independent, intense nature leads her to disobey her instructions (and the voices of her spices, which take on animate qualities). She ventures outside the shop; she falls in love with a non-Indian. In the end, Tilo must decide whether she will remain true to her calling or choose an ordinary life of mortal love, knowing that her choice will bring potentially dire effects.

Author Information

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni was born in India (Bengal) and lived there until 1976, when she emigrated to the United States to study. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. During her education, her website biography notes, she worked at “many odd jobs, including babysitting, selling merchandise in an Indian boutique, slicing bread in a bakery, and washing instruments in a science lab.” She has published in many anthologies and magazines (including the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly) and has won awards for her poetry (a Pushcart Prize, and Alan Ginsberg Award) and for her prose (Arranged Marriage won a National Book Award in 1996). The Mistress of Spices was named to several best-books lists, including the San Francisco Chronicle’s “100 Best Books of the 20th Century” list. Divakaruni teaches creative writing at the University of Houston and has judged the National Book Award and the PEN Faulkner Award. She has continued to be active in social justice concerns, working with organizations that help South Asian and South Asian American women who are victims of domestic violence, and with a group that helps educate urban slum children in India. She lives in Houston with her husband and two sons.
Her website (www.chitradivakaruni.com) includes biographical details, information on her books and awards, links to interviews, and a page about her writing practice.

Discussion Questions

1. The book shares a great deal of information about the alleged powers of individual spices. Do you believe that spices (or other food) can indeed change people’s ways of thinking? Ways of behaving? Fates?

2. Tilo is clearly an independent, rebellious young woman from her earliest years. Why does she choose to become a Mistress?

3. In writing about her own work on her website, the author says that women’s problems–especially the problems of immigrant women–are among her foremost concerns (she also reveals that she worked at a battered woman’s shelter in Berkeley). Does this novel have things to say about why immigrant women (or any women) suffer? Does it hold out any hope for relief? Are the spices a kind of metaphor in this equation?

4. “I write to unite people . . . to dissolve boundaries,” Divakaruni has said. What kinds of boundaries are being dissolved in this novel, and how? Does food play a role in this dissolution?

5. A New York Time Book Review article called Mistress of Spices’ ending (in which Tilo chooses her lover over her vocation) “predictable”; a more harsh phrase that might be used is “a sell-out to romantic conventions.” How do you respond to Tilo’s choice? Is the author ultimately compromising the theme of women’s power by having her main character deny her vocation?

6. How do you respond to the earthquake at the book’s end?

7. Divakaruni’s poetry has won many prizes, as the biographical sketch above suggests. In what ways is this book “poetic?” Do those components make it a better book? Do poetry and spices go together, somehow? How?

The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The Mistress of Spices is a lyric novel, written in a mixture of prose and poetry, in the style that has been spices called “magic realism”: while primarily set in this world (specifically, a run-down part of Oakland, California), it includes features which defy natural laws and give it an air of mysticism. The heroine, Tilo, comes to Oakland after she has been trained on a remote, magical island by the priestess-like Old Mistress of Spices for a vocation of ministering to others. Assuming a crone’s body and forbidden to leave her shop, Tilo shares the magic of her spices and her own psychic powers with a variety of Indian immigrants who are alienated, lonely, and/or in danger in their new homeland. Soon, however, her own independent, intense nature leads her to disobey her instructions (and the voices of her spices, which take on animate qualities). She ventures outside the shop; she falls in love with a non-Indian. In the end, Tilo must decide whether she will remain true to her calling or choose an ordinary life of mortal love, knowing that her choice will bring potentially dire effects.

Cover reprinted with permission from Random House.

Author Information

Divakaruni teaches creative writing at the University of Houston and has judged the National Book Award and the PEN Faulkner Award. She has continued to be active in social justice concerns, working with organizations that help South Asian and South Asian American women who are victims of domestic violence, and with a group that helps educate urban slum children in India. She lives in Houston with her husband and two sons. Her website (www.chitradivakaruni.com) includes biographical details, information on her books and awards, links to interviews, and a page about her writing practice.

Discussion Questions

2. Tilo is clearly an independent, rebellious young woman from her earliest years. Why does she choose to become a Mistress?

4. “I write to unite people . . . to dissolve boundaries,” Divakaruni has said. What kinds of boundaries are being dissolved in this novel, and how? Does food play a role in this dissolution?

5. A New York Times Book Review article called Mistress of Spices’ ending (in which Tilo chooses her lover over her vocation) “predictable”; a more harsh phrase that might be used is “a sell-out to romantic conventions.” How do you respond to Tilo’s choice? Is the author ultimately compromising the theme of women’s power by having her main character deny her vocation?

6. How do you respond to the earthquake at the book’s end?

We Are What We Ate: 24 Memories of Food, edited by Mark Winegardner

We Are What We Ate presents a smorgasbord of personal essays in which well-known writers share their ate memories of eating. Funny, touching, nostalgic, irreverent, these pieces are delightful reading in and of themselves, but they also introduce readers to larger questions about food-related behavior. Some of the writers speak of how food bound their families together and reinforced ethnic, regional, or class identity (Bobbie Ann Mason writes lovingly of her mother’s down-home cooking); others chronicle how their parents adapted quirky foodways (one black writer extolls her father’s Chinese spareribs); others even admit to changing their eating practices as a rebellion against their parents (Robert Girardi on adding sauce to his English mother’s unadorned pasta). One admits to being a junk-food junkie. Other essays describe the writers’ encounters with the food of other nations, other classes, commenting directly or indirectly on food as a cultural marker. A few speak explicitly about hunger, and a few others touch on the politics of recent food trends–the gourmet revolution, the eat-locally movement. As a whole, they present a provocative range of experiences, all of which testify to the symbolic, as well as the nutritional, importance of eating.

This book was published to benefit Share Our Strength, an organization that has donated more than $50 million to fighting hunger since 1984.

Book cover from WE ARE WHAT WE ATE, edited by Mark Winegarder, copyright 1998 Share our Strength, Inc., reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. This material may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Author Information

Mark Wineg mark ardner is a literary novelist and creative writing professor at Florida State University. A native Ohioan, he reports in We Are What We Ate that he grew up in a house that never had an onion in it. After graduating from Miami University, Ohio, he completed his MFA at George Mason University, publishing his first book while still in graduate school. He is the author of four novels (including The Godfather Returns) and two works of nonfiction, and he has edited three collections. His short fiction has appeared in magazines ranging from Family Circle to Playboy to TriQuarterly, and his novels have been chosen as among the best books of the year by publications including the New York Times Book Review, the Chicago Sun-Times, and USA Today.

Discussion Questions

1. “All artists, I think, suffer from a mild form of synesthesia, that metaphoric condition where a taste or smell can call up the immediate image of something utterly different,” writes Robert Girardi. What kinds of “utterly different” things do food memories recall for the writers in this collection? Do you see patterns of memory? Thinking about your own life, do particular foods call up images for you of things beyond the food itself?

2. In what ways are food and family bound for these writers? What particular foods remind you of your family? If you rebelled at all, did you use food as a way to dramatize your difference?

3. Some of these writers admit that their mothers weren’t very good cooks. Can even poor food symbolize something about a family that makes affectionate memories?

4. Some of these writers discuss how tasting new foods in new places opened their eyes to whole new ways of perceiving the world and themselves. Do you identify with any of these? Why? Have new foods, and new food experiences, broadened your perspectives in any ways? What have they taught you about different cultures, and about yourself?

5. Several of these essays (and Winegardner’s introduction) chronicle the bland food served in ordinary middle-class American families in the past. What do the choices such families made suggest about that culture?

6. Several of these essays discuss hunger and eating in extremity. What do they teach you about human nature?

7. A number of these essays talk about how the food of a particular family or culture has changed over time. Why do you think that such changes took place? What do they suggest about the people who made the changes?