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OFF THE PLATTER AND OUT OF THE KITCHEN:

FOOD THINGS IN AMERICAN FICTION, 1860 - 1945

Jennifer Christine Rogers

APPROVED BY SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE:

___________________________________________

Erin A. Smith, Chair

___________________________________________

Nils Roemer

___________________________________________

Eric Schlereth

___________________________________________

Ashley Barnes

___________________________________________

Julia Ehrhardt

Jennifer Christine Rogers

I dedicate my dissertation work to my family and friends. A special gratitude to my supportive

parents, Ginger and Jerry Rogers, whose unflinching love and patience ensure that I persevere.

My friends, LaShell Martinez and Lyndee Yarger, for their words of encouragement and

constant companionship through my highs and lows. My friend, William Fields, for his resolute

belief in my abilities, which often surpass my own, and gives me the tenacity I need to succeed.

OFF THE PLATTER AND OUT OF THE KITCHEN:

FOOD THINGS IN AMERICAN FICTION, 1860 - 1945

JENNIFER CHRISTINE ROGERS, BA, MA, MPA

DISSERTATION

Presented to the Faculty of

The University of Texas at Dallas

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN

HUMANITIES

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS

May 2024

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to my Chair, Dr. Erin Smith, who

made this endeavor possible. Without her guidance and patience, this journey would have been

insurmountable. I am also deeply indebted to Dr. Shari Goldberg who started me on my research

path. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the committee, Dean Nils Roemer, Dr. Eric

Schlereth, and Dr. Ashley Barnes. Special thanks to my fifth committee member, Dr. Julia

Ehrhardt. Additional thanks to Assistant Professor Linda Smith-Brecheisen and fellow members

of her Structured Writing Accountability groups as well as the assistance provided through

graduate writing consultations. I am also grateful for my editor, Carissa Abrego, as well as

fellow colleague, Julie Kendig, who provided valuable feedback. I would be remiss in not

mentioning my steadfast research companions, LaShell Martinez and Lyndee Yarger, to whom I

am forever indebted. Finally, I would like to acknowledge my friends and family for all their

support.

February 2024

OFF THE PLATTER AND OUT OF THE KITCHEN:

FOOD THINGS IN AMERICAN FICTION, 1860 - 1945

Jennifer Christine Rogers, PhD

The University of Texas at Dallas, 2024

ABSTRACT

Supervising Professor: Erin A. Smith

To the detriment of various academic studies, scholars habitually overlook foods that appear in

literature outside of traditional settings of dining room platters and kitchen pantries or that

remain unconsumed. I utilize thing theory to identify the foods’ common characteristics and

patterns, unconsumed foods appearing in non-traditional settings, and define them as ‘food

things.’ The resultant interpretations of food things broaden the perspective of social norms

regarding food and culture. Studying food things addresses neglected areas of scholarly research;

namely, (1) thing theorists do not study food objects, and (2) social sciences do not utilize fiction

works as primary historical sources. Studying foods through thing theory also creates an avenue

for unorthodox comparisons of fiction works and their authors. This dissertation identifies a

pattern of food things in select American fiction from 1860 to 1945. The analysis is in three

parts: (1) women’s fiction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; (2) men’s war

literature from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries; and (3) immigrant fiction from the

early twentieth century.

vii

I discuss works by Louisa May Alcott, Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, Stephen Crane, Ernest

Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Anzia Yezierska, Ole Edvart Rölvaag, and Pietro di Donato. The

work of thing theorists Bill Brown, Barbara Johnson, and Elaine Freedgood inform my approach,

illuminating how food functions as material objects in literature. A composite analysis pinpoints

the intersection of history and the food's human-object interactions through close reading of the

text, culinary history, and accounts of the author’s experiences. The resulting interpretations

recognize that food things are material markers of moments when a food’s habitual use is

interrupted by conflicting human-object engagements. Thus, food things are culturally significant

rather than literary props allowing food things to tell their own stories in the larger context of

history and culture.

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................v

ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................vi

CHAPTER 1 LITERAL FOODS AS THINGS ..............................................................................9

CHAPTER 2 THE SOCIAL POWERS OF FOOD ......................................................................43

CHAPTER 3 THE EVERYDAY REALITIES OF FOOD ........................................................102

CHAPTER 4 CULTURAL TRADITIONS OF FOOD ..............................................................145

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................193

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................199

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................211

CIRRICULUM VITAE

CHAPTER 1

LITERAL FOODS AS THINGS

To the detriment of various academic studies, scholars habitually overlook foods that

appear in literature outside of traditional settings of dining room platters and kitchen pantries or

that remain unconsumed. I utilize thing theory to identify the foods’ common characteristics and

patterns, unconsumed foods appearing in non-traditional settings, and define them as ‘food

things.’ The resultant interpretations of food things broaden the perspective of social norms

regarding food and culture. Studying food things addresses neglected areas of scholarly research;

namely, (1) thing theorists do not study food objects, and (2) social scientists do not utilize

fiction works as primary historical sources. Studying the foods through thing theory also creates

an avenue for unorthodox comparisons of fiction works and their authors. This dissertation

identifies a pattern of food things in select American fiction from 1860 to 1945. The analysis is

in three parts: (1) women’s fiction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; (2) men’s

war literature from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries; and (3) immigrant fiction from

the early twentieth century.

I discuss works by Louisa May Alcott, Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, Stephen Crane, Ernest

Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Anzia Yezierska, Ole Edvart Rölvaag, and Pietro di Donato. The

work of thing theorists Bill Brown, Barbara Johnson, and Elaine Freedgood inform my approach,

illuminating how food functions as material objects in literature. A composite analysis pinpoints

the intersection of history and the food's human-object interactions through close reading of the

text, culinary history, and accounts of the author’s experiences. The resulting interpretations

recognize that food things are material markers of moments when a food’s habitual use is

interrupted by a conflicting human-object engagement. Thus, food things are culturally

significant rather than literary props, allowing food things to tell their own stories in the larger

context of history and culture.

Food Is My Thing

While some readers may skim over food appearing on a nineteenth-century street or in a

conversation while on a lifeboat, I find these food placements jarring. I know foods are unique in

non-traditional narrative settings because the traditional interpretive social and cultural context

does not fit. I remember being in high school and reading about Amy’s limes in Little Women

and the Oiler’s ham sandwich in “The Open Boat” and thinking there was something different

about them. Academically, I began studying food as an undergraduate archaeology lab assistant

for the Los Adaes Archaeology and Heritage Site in Natchitoches, Louisiana. There, I noticed

the absence of foodstuffs amidst the artifacts of food preparation and storage tools. Most foods

are missing from dig sites because they were consumed or biodegraded. Bones and food debris

from archaeological trash sites or preserved in burials and ceremonial sites provide infrequent

evidence of foodstuffs. These artifacts and excavation sites do not accurately illustrate the

everyday social reality of food and people.

At Los Adaes Archaeology and Heritage Site, I learned about experimental archaeology

under the tutelage of Dr. Pete Gregory. A group of students and I made cooking pottery using

traditional Caddo nation methods. During the laborious work, there were opportunities for

uncensored academic conversations in which I expressed my issues regarding the study of food

in archaeology. Dr. Gregory introduced the idea that I needed to approach food differently.

Instead of treating food like an artifact, it might be considered an ‘ideofact.’ He likened food to

an South African mask in the university museum’s collection. The artifact, a wooden hand-

carved mask, contained all the appropriate provenance of its culture and location. The mask’s

purpose was to cover the wearer’s face as a tool. However, as an ideofact, the mask was worn by

tribal healers to embody the healing power themselves. The mask’s cultural meaning was

separate from its material form.

Dr. Gregory shared that figuring out the right approach for an artifact was an issue he was

experiencing with an upcoming traveling exhibition. The exhibition was going to Spain and

featured traditional Creole musical instruments, including spoons and a washboard. The problem

Dr. Gregory encountered was explaining how these standard household tools designed and

created for a specific purpose became musical instruments. The traditional artifact approach was

not sufficient in this instance. Dr. Gregory informed me that this would not be the last time I

would run into the issue of how to approach an object if I stayed in the field. He advised that I

needed to be willing to search out different approaches not limited by an object’s physical form

or intended purpose.

I started questioning the lack of foodstuffs at archaeological sites and how little

information about food from archaeology contributed to cultural studies because of my

childhood background. Food was and continues to be an integral part of my life and permeates

my earliest memories. I grew up in the American South, specifically in Shreveport, Louisiana, a

culinary crossroads of traditional Louisiana cuisine and Texas roadhouses. My earliest memories

are of growing up in my family’s Grass Roots Lunch & Tea Room restaurant kitchen. There are

pictures of me in an infant walker, scooting around the kitchen while I gnaw on crepes or a roll. I

live most of the food stereotypes of Southern culture and its society, from rural church fifth

Sunday luncheons, family cookouts, celebratory meals, crawfish and shrimp broils, and potlucks.

Growing up entrenched in food culture, I did not appreciate its uniqueness until I moved away to

college and met people who did not grow up in the South.

My awakening came when I witnessed the tension between my Midwestern roommate

and my Southern matron grandmother during a family dinner, where I perceived unique cultural

differences in their social interactions around food. My Midwestern roommate fumbled through

the social dynamics of a Southern kitchen gathering; women chatted together, cooked, and

prepared the meal. At the same time, men wandered in to chat, grazed, and stirred the pot (both

female tempers and the food), followed by a dining room meal. The conflict arose when my

roommate did not eat much of the meal, so my grandmother naturally assumed the food was not

to her liking. Memaw kept offering to make something else from the kitchen if what was on the

table was not to my roommate’s liking. Finally, my roommate had enough of the insistent

inquiries and announced she was going to bed. She left her plate of barely consumed mashed

potatoes at the table, not even returning the used dish to the kitchen.

The incident proved a surprisingly complex situation within a deceptively ordinary social

event, a family dinner. This interaction was the first time I realized that it was not just the food

that was important in Southern culture; the act of consuming food constituted a significant role in

cultural meaning. After dinner, I spoke with both my roommate and my grandmother. My

roommate was flabbergasted and could not understand why my grandmother pressured her to eat

and tried to feed her more food. My grandmother could not understand why my roommate would

not eat or let my grandmother fix the food she liked. As I tried to explain the other’s reactions, I

began considering their actions and responses from opposite social and cultural perspectives.

My newfound awareness of Southern food culture and Dr. Gregory’s academic problem

occurred within the same semester, and each made me more aware of the social realities of food

and sparked a lifelong scholarly investigation into food studies. My early archaeological and

anthropological coursework examined colonial and early settlers’ cooking tools, food storage

containers, and serving utensils—tools, not foods. As I advanced in my undergraduate studies,

foodstuffs became more readily accessible as the historical centuries progressed with

researchable primary sources, such as recipes, journals, and recorded banquettes. While I found

these archives valuable, they did not fulfill my need to understand foods within human-object

relationships as aspects of everyday life, and they did not answer Dr. Gregory’s problem of

looking at food beyond the limitation of the food’s physical form or intended purpose to provide

nutrition.

I reviewed, then discarded, disciplines that limit the study of food to the physical form,

such as culinary arts, food science, or nutrition. These studies researched and analyzed food’s

fundamental properties rather than the human aspect of the foodstuffs. Meanwhile, disciplines

that incorporated historical, cultural, behavioral, and socioeconomic determinants or

consequences of food production and consumption sometimes analyzed food objects beyond

their singular form. However, these analyses often occurred within large populations or global

settings rather than in aspects of everyday life. I finally found exciting research with

interdisciplinary scholars who conducted smaller population studies of food and consumption.

Food was a window into societies for these food scholars, and they paved the way for me to

formulate a research paradigm to study food beyond the object’s form.

My twenty-five years as a museum professional have honed my ability to recognize the

importance of relating artifacts and their stories to human relationships through an

interdisciplinary lens. Museum educational components, such as exhibits and tours, thrive on

personal stories within everyday life rather than pivotal historical moments or large populations.

Museums also have a unique material culture lens because they strive to interpret objects by

analyzing social interactions between objects and people through behavioral actions, reactions,

and dialogue—all elements of the social tenets of objects within a community. This interpretive

method creates a better understanding of the social reality of objects beyond their creation,

usage, consumption, and trade. Museum professionals often encounter artifacts that were

designed and created for a specific purpose or used in a particular location that become other

because they no longer fit the intended function or place. All museum professionals have ‘that

thing’ which defies conventional interpretive methods—mine is food.

Food is a historical artifact that is often the topic of museum exhibits but rarely displayed.

The public is fascinated by food in everyday life regardless of the historical themes of the

museum. As a result of the public’s rabid interest and my own inclinations, I actively include

food histories in my educational programming. Settings where social engagements with food

typically occurred, such as the kitchen and the dining room, or exhibit facsimiles of these spaces

currently serve as visual representations of human-food interactions. These food exhibit settings

include furniture and tools representing food-related activities, such as storage, preparation, and

service, derived from primary historical sources and archaeological reports. However, I also

acknowledge that food stories occur outside these traditional spaces and reference fictional

sources as examples in my educational content. I believe that not recognizing foods outside of

conventional storage, preparation, and service areas is a disservice to my audience, because I

know from novels and short stories that social engagements with food historically also occurred

outside the traditional food settings and had social relevance. Unfortunately, until now, I have

been unaware of any established framework to identify and interpret these foods.

These missing food stories and the inability to identify and interpret them led to my

dissertation research to develop an academic approach toward fictional foods outside of

traditional social norms and provide an interpretive analysis of the cultural narrative. Midway

through my doctoral studies, I took Dr. Shari Goldberg’s thing theory course. The more I

understood thing theory, the more pieces fit together to answer my unconventional food problem.

Everything I’ve Ever Read about Food & Things

I have distilled the collection of works about food or thing theory to the essentials that

build toward my research of studying unconsumed and unconventionally placed foods in fiction.

Thing theory, a critical theory branch of literary criticism, focuses on human-object interactions

in literature and culture and proves to be the necessary bridge between literary objects and food

culture studies as well as studies in author experiences contributing to fiction. The literature

review demonstrates that anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, sociologists, psychologists,

and literary critics address food but fail to interpret unconsumed food in non-traditional settings.

At the same time, thing theorists have ignored food in their research. While the scholarly

research does not address food outside the traditional social engagements and narrative logic of

traditional food spaces, its expertise in food studies is valuable to the dissertation's formation

because it recognizes traditional food spaces, which assist with establishing research parameters.

The problem I encounter in the literature review is that regardless of discipline, the

research publications cited share a specific characteristic: They analyze food appearances that

follow conventional ideas of food placement and narrative logic. From narrative logic,

researchers infer actions and placements of food based on historical sources of conduct

surrounding food to aid critical analysis. Researchers use narrative logic to identify food’s

traditional setting in places readers expect to find them: being stored in the larder, prepared in the

kitchen, served on plates and platters, and the aesthetics of feast and banquet tables (Baucekova

161; Brooks 117-118; Davis and Powell 14; Gowers 3; Vester 40). Additionally, food scholars

admit that their food interpretation depends on social and cultural norms that revolve around the

ritual of eating and the established historical process of storing, preparing, serving, and eating

food that provides the analytical context because their interpretation of food scenes, whether

historical or fictional, mirror actual celebrations or everyday food settings (Davis and Powell 15;

Hastorf 57; Vester 3-4). As a result, scholars are drawn to studying food in traditional narrative

settings because such settings are easy to identify and readily offer themselves up to

interpretations (Davis and Powell 15; Lupton, “Food, Memory and Meaning” 666; Vester 3-4).

Another issue with researchers interpreting foods in fiction is the tendency to rely on

gender to analyze the food and food spaces within a story. Owing to the firmly rooted ideas of

American gender roles, readers and scholars expect to encounter food in women’s fiction and

female-designated spaces. Using the concept of ‘separate spheres’ introduced by feminist

historians in the 1960s, scholars broke social spaces into several dichotomies, male and female,

public and private (Merrett 1). Due to the “gendered nature of domesticity,” kitchens and similar

areas in the home associated with food preparation and service are established as female spaces

(Meah 671). Private spaces in the home, such as kitchens, are gendered and designated female

because they are attached to the female’s societal role (see, for example, Davis and Powell,

Hellman, Meah, and Romines). However, these scholars determine that the foodstuff itself is not

as important as who is serving or withholding the food, or the traditional gendered spaces in

which the food exists, whereas my focus is food in non-traditional narrative food spaces. That

being said, gender studies and literary studies of food that follow narrative logic are relevant to

analyzing food things since they help define non-traditional narrative spaces for food by defining

the traditional spaces.

The publications including gender and food or food spaces span the past thirty years and

feature a multitude of prominent research—though the focus is on the relationship between food

and ‘women’s fiction’ (see, for example, Adolph, Aoyama, Naranjo-Huebl, and Sceats). Ann

Romines’ opening line in her essay highlights researchers’ connecting of food spaces and

gender: “The book literally begins at the breakfast table where “Henry Colbert, the miller,

always breakfasted with his wife,” and ends in the kitchen” (86). Literary scholars, such as Linda

Naranjo-Huebl and Sara Sceats, as well as cultural scholars, like Andrea Adolph and Tomoko

Aoyama, echo the belief that the gender of the author determines the gendered space written into

the text. Using three nineteenth-century books by three female authors, Naranjo-Huebl explores

nineteenth-century New England cooking, tea making, and communal moments of food

preparation. She analyzes the pages of descriptive texts regarding food in storage, preparation,

and service spaces, concluding that the female authors are writing traditional food spaces into

being because of their gender. The expectation of food in female literature or female-designated

spaces has carried over into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as indicated by Andrea

Adolph’s Food and Femininity in Twentieth-Century British Women’s Fiction and Sara Sceats’

Food, Consumption and the Body in Contemporary Women’s Fiction.

Cultural studies of food and fiction also include gender analysis in order to examine the

preparation and consumption location of food that exists within traditional narrative settings,

arguing that these locations serve as a reflection of gender norms (see, for example, Adolph,

Aoyama, and Smith). An example of gender cultural study and food is Tomoko Aoyama’s article

“Food and Gender in Contemporary Japanese Women’s Literature,” which heavily reflects

genderization in Japanese fiction written by women since the mid-1970s and underscores the

representation of feminine and masculine gender associations with food and eating. A similar

examination occurs in Virginia Smith’s article, “Proust’s Mother, Food and Contemporary

Southern Women’s Fiction,” which includes research on memory and food.

One of the more recent publications is Andrea Adolph’s Food and Femininity in Twentieth-

Century British Women’s Fiction, which employs feminist theory of the body by reading from

housekeeping manuals and contemporary women’s fiction to analyze women’s consumption

practices regarding food.

For the casual reader, and in many ways reinforced by the above research, there is an

inclination to expect female authors to write about food or for food to only appear in gendered

spaces. Numerous popular articles and blogs list or discuss food, fiction, and female writers.

Some examples are Mandy Mikulencak’s post “Elevating the Role of Food in Fiction” and J.L.

Newton’s “What’s Food Doing in Your Fiction?” written for Women Writers, Women['s] Books.

Parallel with the expectation that women’s fiction always has food and that food exists in

traditional narrative spaces of kitchens and dining rooms, a first pass through the scholarly work

supports a false expectation that men’s fiction does not have food. Contrary to the bounty of

cultural and literary studies of food in women’s fiction publications, there are dramatically fewer

books and articles addressing male food culture or food in men’s fiction.

Like many scholars of women’s fiction and food culture, scholars of men and food

culture continue to focus on the dining table as the social setting for food and analyze class,

gender, space, nationality, and even desire through society’s rules governing consumption

etiquette. For example, Gwyn Hyman’s Making a Man: Gentlemanly Appetites in the Nineteenth

Century British Novels is a rare source of scholarly research that explores themes of men and

food in the collection of six works; men wrote four of the selected novels. Hyman draws

connections between the “alimental gentleman,” or the various gentlemanly states of being that

the male characters embody, and their choices of food and drinks (10). She argues that

gentlemen in the novel wind up eating and drinking themselves out of existence even as they try

to enforce control over their rapidly modernizing world.

A similar approach appears in Rosalind Gill’s Powerful Women, Vulnerable Men and

Postfeminist Masculinity in Men’s Popular Fiction, in which Gill explicitly states that she is not

examining the literature for “literary merit” or “cultural value”; instead, Gill attempts to map the

construction of gender and intimate relationships through language and interactions with

different foods in traditional food spaces (2). The focus is on “guy lit,” “lad lit,” and

“postfeminist male romances” and features contemporary fiction written by men. An example of

Gill’s food analysis is her argument that toast, often consumed in a kitchen or dining setting, in

many twenty-first-century novels represents “a certain infantilism and refusal, or inability to

grow up and cook ‘proper’ food” (10). While Hyman and Gill focus their studies of food on

consumption practices and appearance in private settings, other scholars pinpoint a tendency for

food to appear in public spaces, like the public dining room in a restaurant. For instance, several

researchers tackle Herman Melville’s clam chowder served in a bowl at Try Pots, an early type

of restaurant and a public dining room. The clam chowder at Try Pots is a single narrative scene

that features food in a traditional setting and results in multiple analyses, from symbolic to

historical, spanning twenty years from various scholars (see, for example, McWilliams, Pettey,

and Talley Jr.).

The recognition that food in male-authored fiction appears differently than in female-

authored fiction is critical to my analysis and is the basis of Katharina Vester’s A Taste of

Power: Food and American Identities, which has proven instrumental in studying “manly

cooking” and identifying masculine-gendered food spaces (66). In men’s fiction, Vester

redefines traditional narrative food spaces as campsites and “campfire cooking”—an outdoor

kitchen (69). Men’s gendered space for cooking stems from nostalgic depictions of the West and

camaraderie, the cowboy way of life, or the companionship of soldiers in combat (Vester 69).

During the 1920s and 1930s, pulp and dime novels secured campfires and outdoor cooking as

masculine food spaces. The identifying element of the campfire kitchen is the fire as a central

heat and cooking source (Vester 86). As a result, the campfire kitchen becomes a space that

follows narrative logic for food placement in men’s fiction.

The setting of campfires functioning as outdoor kitchens is similar to kitchens inside the

home in that there is an accruement of cooking-specific tools and a heat source for cooking. In

the home kitchen, the heat source is the stove or hearth; in Vester’s outdoor kitchen, the heat

source is a campfire. Margaret Visser, the author of The Rituals of Dinner, also notes the

importance of eating utensils as markers of civilized food spaces, whether indoors or outdoors.

Visser argues that mealtime rituals, manners, and diners’ inclination to use eating utensils are

“automatic and unquestioned by every participant” and indicate a person’s civilized behavior

(146). She further argues, “Every human society without exception obeys eating rules,”

including an agreement about acceptable food settings and consumption practices (518). Thus,

the specific cooking tools (eating utensils, plates, and bowls) and furniture (sink, chairs, table,

and tablecloth) are elements in both kitchens.

With a clear understanding of food research in traditional narrative settings and the role

of gender in food, attention turns to recognizing foods in non-traditional settings through thing

theory. Applying thing theory provides a clear framework that answers the initial problem of not

identifying and interpreting fictional foods outside traditional social and cultural contextual

narratives. Thing theory focuses on an object’s thingness in literature and, later, in real-world

objects. It isolates objects explicitly within the limitations that the thing no longer serves its

intended purpose, thus is ‘broken,’ and appears in settings where the object usually does not

exist. As a result, thing theory’s argument of thingness applies to unconsumed foods, which

marks the foods as ‘broken’ because they do not serve the purpose of providing energy and

nutrition. The theory also applies to foods not appearing in traditional narrative settings. Thus,

fictional foods that are unconsumed and appearing in non-traditional settings, are food things as

defined by thing theory. I argue that these food things redefine human-object relationships and

challenge established food norms. Similarly, thing theory provides an avenue for interpreting

food literature and culture and recognizing the importance of food things as cultural or historical

objects.

Bill Brown published the original research for thing theory in 2004 as a critical theory

combining sociology and literary criticism to critique culture. Brown’s thing theory stems from

Martin Heidegger’s conclusion that broken or misused objects become ‘things’ because they no

longer perform their intended function (B. Brown, “Thing Theory” 7). Brown’s monograph, A

Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature, initiates, in many respects, a

decisive move away from a purely commodity-based or symbolic analysis of literary objects

toward the more complex examinations of subject-object relations (16). One of Brown’s last

examples in A Sense of Things is Henry James’ “golden bowl,” which has a “crack” (172). The

object, a bowl, is broken because of the crack and can no longer function as a food vessel. Thus,

Brown argues that the cracked golden bowl has shed its original purpose and become encoded

with a different sociocultural value. In these written moments, broken objects assert themselves

as things within the story because they document a changing relationship between humans and

objects (B. Brown, “Thing Theory” 16).

Most thing theorists utilize the idea of slippage, which describes the in-between state

from object to thing (B. Brown, “Thing Theory” 10; Poltz 110). Brown states that thingness

“concerns the slippage between having (possessing a particular object) and being (the

identification of one’s self with that object)” (“Thing Theory” 13). When considering slippage,

thing theorists oscillate between the object’s state of being and its history of being, reinforcing

the idea that things exist beyond their intended meaning and purpose (Poltz 110). The role of

slippage in my food analysis is critical because slippage extends beyond the object and includes

the narrative space and act of consumption. As a result, understanding slippage brings flexibility

to the distinction between traditional and non-traditional narrative spaces and consumptive and

non-consumptive acts, which is necessary to distinguish food things in fiction.

Brown and other published thing theorists do not identify specific foods in their analysis,

though it is not explicitly stated why. I suspect that because food is biological, biodegradable,

and not a ‘created’ object, thing theorists overlook food. Most thing theorists focus on ‘made’

things in their examination, such as equipment, tools, art, architecture, buildings, and bubbles.

These are all human-object creations, ‘made’ things rather than grown objects that are

commodified and traded. However, food consumed by humans also undergoes a production and

creative process. Food production consists of planting, nurturing, cultivating, harvesting,

preserving, storing, and processing (Higman 21). Creativity occurs in the cooking process and in

plating aesthetics (Higman 147). Thing theory’s objectness is less about human-object ‘creation’

and more about human-object ‘interaction,’ which allows me to identify and analyze food

through thing theory.

The idea of ‘broken’ or ‘misused’ food, meanwhile, is an unfamiliar concept. Thing

theory focuses on things that assert themselves because they are broken or misused; thus,

identifying this characteristic in food is essential for the dissertation. Food’s original purpose is

to provide nutrition and calories for humans and other living organisms’ continual existence, and

consuming food is required to complete this purpose (Hastorf 21). Without consumption, then,

the human-object relationship changes, and the food becomes a food thing, broken and misused.

The secondary characteristic of thingness is an object not “obscured by their everyday use” (B.

Brown, A Sense of Things 9). The definition highlights objects which appear in narratives where

they do not usually occur. It is easy to overlook these out-of-place objects because their

placement is unexpected—they do not follow narrative logic. As a result, thing theory scholars

direct closer attention to narrative settings. Using this approach, I recognize foods asserting

themselves in non-traditional narrative settings.

Other thing theory scholars such as Lorraine Daston, Barbara Johnson, and Elaine

Freedgood support Brown’s initial research by applying the theory to uncover various objects’

value and meaning in literature and material culture. Though Daston and Johnson do not provide

cultural analysis, their work does connect thing theory to literary and real-world objects, which is

relevant for connecting literary foods to real-world foods. Johnson’s Persons and Things

provides a separate way of examining literary and material objects through her process of

deconstructive criticism, and postulates that objects with material gaps or voids expose

psychological and social delusions (Johnson 64-65, 196). Contrary to Johnson, Daston’s Things

that Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science is an essay collection that singles out real-world

material objects rather than literary objects. The essays explore objects such as an island, a

painting, soap bubbles, or glass flowers and analyze their thingness beyond the object’s physical

use and focus on pinpointing the intersection where the object’s habitual use is interrupted. The

essayists determine that the object’s history and customary use no longer coincide at the moment

of study. The intersecting moment is critical because it marks when the object becomes a

culturally or historically significant thing (Daston 17).

Daston’s contribution is valuable because she and other essayists analyze the moment

that thingness occurs by examining the historical or cultural intent of the object and how that

intent is interrupted, resulting in a different meaning. This interpretive approach is essential for

my analysis, since food also has its own history and meaning, which changes when the food is

not consumed or the consumption is interrupted. Furthering the connection of food and thing

theory is Freedgood’s The Ideas in Things: Fugitive Meaning in the Victorian Novel, which steps

away from real-world objects and people (like Daston and Johnson), toward studying things in

literature beyond the established ideas of commodity and fetishism (75). Though Freedgood does

not address food in her research, one of her early examples for understanding objects outside of

their narrative setting includes food. Early in The Ideas in Things, she asks how contemporary

readers, who retain only the faintest knowledge of the material world associated with Charles

Dickens’s life (contrary to his nineteenth-century readers), are able to comprehend a novel like

Great Expectations. “For the Victorian resident of London,” Freedgood writes, “Pip’s walk past

Smithfield to the office of Jaggers would have conjured up the blood and guts of this meat

market; to the twenty-first-century American college student… it may evoke only the vaguest

association of ham, if that” (Freedgood 102-103). Freedgood identifies the trouble of interpreting

things in literature without having a first-hand account of historical times and cultures. She

argues that understanding cultural and historical context is critical for analyzing things, which I

extend to include food.

Additionally, Freedgood strongly cautions against treating objects like literary symbols,

allegories, or anthropomorphism—that is, representations of human characteristics and actions,

something that appears in Johnson’s work and prominently figures in work by literary scholars

(see, for example, Fitzpatrick, Gymnich and Lennartz, Hyman, Davis, Jakal, Lane, and Xu). The

symbolic study of food or consumption does not assist the analysis of food things since it does

not recognize that the objects contain their own histories outside the fictional setting. Literary

critics principally interpret food via symbolism. For example, the Victorian Literature and

Culture journal created a special edition of essays featuring nineteenth-century literature on food

and drinks to discuss the symbolism of excesses, such as anorexia (the excessive absence or

control of food) or alcoholism, and their moral implications (see, for example, “Editors Topic:

Food and the Victorians” 372; Gymnich and Lennartz; Hyman). Much of the literary analysis

regarding food in fiction concerns characters and how their interactions with food represent

aspects of social morality.

These literary critics’ tendency to rely on primary literary texts, including fiction, to

research the symbolism of food or the act of consumption follows the logic of scholar Mervyn

Nicholson, who does not read the food in fiction as ‘real’ objects. He chooses to focus on the act

of consumption or lack of food consumption within traditional narrative settings because the

food is not ‘real.’ “In life, eating is a routine necessity,” states Nicholson, “but in literature,

eating is always a symbolic act. People eat to be alive, but the characters in literature do not eat

to live since they aren’t alive. They eat only for symbolic purpose” (38). Hence literary scholars

of food principally study the symbolism of food rather than the cultural object.

Combining Nicholson’s teaching with historical studies of food is literary critic Maggie

Lane, the author of Jane Austen and Food, who combines fiction and historical archives for her

analysis. Lane integrates close reading with historical research of Austen’s letters to

comprehensively analyze Jane Austen, the author, and her fiction. By investigating Austen’s

domestic environment, including the scheduled times and types of meals a woman of her class

would be familiar with, Lane connects the historical information to Austen’s letters and novels—

doing the object history work Freedgood suggests. However, like other literary critics, Lane’s

research aims to determine how Austen uses food to illustrate her characters and symbolize their

moral status.

The bulk of literary critics ignore food and analyze consumption practices because the

food is seen as a prop; it performs a motif, symbolic, or allegorical function in which characters

engage to create meaning. Freedgood insists instead that researchers follow the observations of

Walter Benjamin and examine the objects within the context of their existence. As a result, she

does not dismiss the mass of objects in Victorian novels. Rather, Freedgood suggests that, upon

closer examination, the objects “in their ’objectness’ were highly consequential in the world in

which the text was produced” (2). Consequently, she draws attention to these objects and

emphasizes that each has a story consisting of its history and symbolic meaning outside of the

narrative setting.

While the works of Johnson, Daston, and Freedgood contribute to my food thing analysis,

they do not directly address food as things. However, Man Ting Yiu’s master’s thesis, “Are We

What We Eat?” Negotiating Identities through Cuisine and Consumption: a Thing Theory

Approach to Allison Wong’s As the Earth Turns Silver,” emphasizes food with “hybridity,” or

dual ethnic meanings to interpret foods as intersections of transcultural interactions (Yiu 11). As

a result, Yiu reframes food as an exploratory discourse that identifies and analyzes the role of

cuisine and consumption in facilitating the migrant experience (3). An example Yiu provides to

demonstrate hybrid food is when a character takes a walk with “mooncakes,” which combines

the mourning ritual of two cultures, Chinese and Pakeha Maori (12). Yiu argues that conflict

within the hybridity of cultural identities is embedded in the food, and the resultant hybrid foods

are the root of cultural conflict associated with cultural identity. Though Yiu does not identify

specific narrative locations or include acts of consumption as characteristics of his hybridized

food, his recognition of foods as markers of cultural conflict contributes to my interpretation of

food things.

Yiu’s analysis of Alison Wong’s novel also underscores the necessity for understanding

the author’s cultural background to analyze food things, especially regarding immigrant fiction

which is a source of my research. Much like gender studies and food, several scholars have

already pursued immigrant studies and food, examining foods through food preparation and

consumption within traditional narrative food spaces to highlight the importance of cultural

representation, especially within immigrant culinary communities. Lorna Piatte-Farnell’s chapter

“Immigrant Identities” in Food and Culture in Contemporary American Fiction studies the

phenomenon of “cultural communities,” which are geographic pockets of immigrant social and

cultural networks, including culinary food customs (105). While culinary communities provide

ethnic or religious ties between immigrants, they also create sociocultural boundaries between

immigrants and ‘Americans.’ Piatte-Farnell’s examination of various immigrant literatures

concludes that each work provides a window to immigrant experiences, and the food links their

past in their native lands to their lives in America. Additionally, food transcends generations by

connecting them through rituals and traditions. The linkage between food traditions and

generational knowledge is relevant to my analysis of food things featured in immigrant fiction.

Furthermore, Piatte-Farnell and Yu emphasize the importance of researching the author’s

experiences and beliefs since they influence the choice of objects in the literature. Supporting

scholars’ argument that authors inject their worldviews in food and fiction are sociologist

Deborah Lupton and anthropologist John Allen. The crux of Lupton’s research reveals that

authors rely on memories to insert fictional foods rooted within social relationships and cultural

practices (“Food, Memory and Meaning” 664). Lupton reiterates the arguments of

anthropologists and archaeologists (see, for example, Hastorf, Moran, and Parasecoli) who share

Lupton’s view that food indoctrination occurs from early childhood and is an “enculturation

process which shape[s] everyday behaviors such as eating,” which are written into stories

(“Food, Memory and Meaning” 666). She argues that individuals are not blank slates and that

ingrained behaviors influence individual choices regarding food. “The analysis of memories

about food,” Lupton states, “serves to reveal the ways in which our memories of everyday life

are socially constructed and patterned, to demonstrate that individual memory of ‘banal’ events

and experiences is not merely the subjective property of individuals but is part of a shared

cultural experience” (“Food, Memory and Meaning” 668). She claims that fictional food is more

than a literary prop, more than a foil that authors insert for their characters to react. Instead, the

food is intentionally inserted into the fiction because the author is constructing social scenes of

everyday life that mirror the author’s memories.

Allen furthers Lupton’s research, stating that memories are a social construct and specific

food tastes, smells, and textures bring back memories unique to an individual’s connection to

places, times, and experiences. These food-associated memories trigger deeper emotions and

create physical reactions to those emotions and memories (Allen 150). Additionally, several

scholars believe that a group of individuals can share life experiences that affect their worldview.

Those shared experiences are written into objects within the literature (see, for example,

Crawford, Kippax and Onyx, and Lupton). The connection between the authors’ experiences and

the social construct of memories that can be shared allows me to draw parallels between different

authors’ shared experiences and their artistic expression of food within a fictional narrative.

Another study that contributes to the analysis of food things is the interdisciplinary

research of Bridget Heneghan. Whitewashing America: Material Culture and Race in Antebellum

Imagination by Heneghan provides some strategic points for developing my research, since

Heneghan recognizes the unusual placement of food and objects in non-traditional settings,

which she remarks is ‘other’ or a “material marker” (xi). Heneghan’s research builds on the idea

of ‘material markers,’ objects that authors write into their works that reflect class, gender, race,

nationality, socioeconomics, education, and age (xi). As a result, an author’s use of the object in

their work establishes the social connection between using/possessing an object, like food, and

its correlation to socioeconomic standing, racial integrity, gender perceptions, and understanding

of authority (Heneghan xi). Therefore, it is not the crafting of the object that determines its

otherness but how the author uses it. Like thing theory, Heneghan’s approach bridges the

disciplines of literature and material culture and recognizes foods as material markers of culture.

Additionally, Heneghan parallels fictional objects with historical objects and anchors them as

material markers, contrary to social science fields that interpret through cultural analysis and do

not consider fiction works to be viable historical sources aside from the occasional anecdotal

inclusion. The few references to food in literature among anthropologists, sociologists, and

historians are usually limited to classical literature, such as The Odyssey or Bible passages.

The reason fictional foods are often excluded from cultural analysis is because each

social science field has its preference for the type and origin of the source material for food

studies. Archaeologists and anthropologists prefer their source material to be objects or artifacts.

Material culture studies also dissect the object’s material facets, including human-object

relationships, such as those who design, make, and interact with the object (Woodward 361).

Historians and sociologists include source materials that are primary historical sources, such as

cookbooks, medical journals, paintings, and artifacts, to determine why moments of history

happened the way they did within large populations rather than the everyday life of communities.

Though the various approaches of social science disciplines do not directly impact food thing

analysis, the history of each contributes to the development of a general understanding of

cultural analysis and how it can be applied to fictional foods.

Archaeology and anthropology researchers provide some of the early social work that

Lupton’s food studies reference. Researchers like Fernand Braudel study food procurement from

physical records. Braudel’s publication, La Méditerranée et le Méditerranéen â l’Epoque de

Philippe II researches food supplies connected with Mediterranean commerce from the age of

Odysseus to the 1920s. He bases his methodology on the Annales school, a French style of

historiography that reconstructs the experiences of ordinary people through changes in history.

His research targets food procurement related to maritime occupations and trade labor as it has

changed through the decades. By the 1950s, the social sciences, in conjunction with

anthropology and archaeology, began to move away from economic analysis and explore more

cultural food associations. Scholars began to study how people work together to codify social

rules and order, resulting in social communities that institutionalize the cultural norms of food

from childhood.

Anthropologist Emilio Moran states, “Food is one of the earliest things learned by a child

in the home—what is and is not ‘food’—its associations with disease prevention and curing, its

daily consumption with the various associated social rituals, and its role as a reflection of the

social status of families in the community” (175). Since archaeologists and anthropologists rarely

study actual food artifacts because they decompose or are consumed, researchers seek alternative

sources and artifacts besides the actual foods for their studies. These sources are cooking- or

eating-related tools and furniture (Hastorf 139). Moran suggests that adults carry an awareness of

food’s medicinal, cultural, and economic value because they learn to associate food with health,

longevity, status, and ceremonial functions as children. Accordingly, food integrates itself into

all aspects of everyday life, which establishes, reinforces, and accepts or rejects a culture

(Parasecoli 417). Even today, food and table manners are ways people influence others’

behaviors, or conflict arises because of cultural differences around food. Consequentially,

archaeologists and anthropologists limit their study of food to that which exists in social rituals

of food service, food preparation, and etiquette established by social norms, not in non-

traditional food settings (Hastorf 1-3).

Culinary historians use similar research methods as their fellow cultural historians,

including historical publications in their source materials and relying on primary archival sources

such as medical texts, cookbooks, published philosophies, economic activities, recorded rituals,

and visual representations in paintings and illustrations (Flandrin, Montanarie and Sonnenfeld

16; Vester 34). They use literature produced by contemporary writers who publish informational

segments of a specific time, place, and culture—in which food is a popular topic. Consequently,

culinary historians have source materials going back hundreds of years, with the earliest

publication about food dating from 1545 A.D. (an early publication circulated in the Ottoman

empire as a treatise on gluttony and drunkenness) (Dursteler 211). Their earlier research typically

converges on food practices from an aesthetic perspective rather than analyzing class, gender,

race, and other cultural values (Albala 114).

However, more recent studies are utilizing interdisciplinary approaches that draw

connections between the practices and social roles of food (Anderson, Brady and Levkoe 4). An

excellent example is Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern

History, which traces how a single food substance, sugar, transforms modern history and culture.

Other writers are transitioning from strictly historical research to nonfiction writing about food,

such as food journalism. These nonfiction works prove infinitely beneficial as primary sources

for cultural history studies within the social sciences of food studies because food journalists

investigate historical and cultural information to write inspirational, humorous, or memoir-driven

works (Rosner, Hesser and Amanda 89). Publications such as Pulitzer Prize finalist Edward

Achorn’s The Summer of Beer and Whiskey: How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and

a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America’s Game provide an abundance of academic

research within an engaging story about food. The method of the historical investigation of food

offers a wealth of information regarding food’s role in specific times and places which is

valuable to my food thing analysis.

Several food studies books and articles include fiction and food, combining culinary

history, rudimentary cultural analysis, and literary criticism. For example, noted Midwestern

author and journalist Roger and Linda Welsch wrote Cather’s Kitchens: Foodways in Literature

and Life (2002). The Welsches compare references to food in Cather’s fiction (a primary literary

source) to period cookbooks (primary historical sources) with ethnic traditions (cultural studies).

Other researchers follow the Welsches’ method, combining historical, cultural, and literary

analysis, such as Marjorie Brown, who wrote her essay “The Feast Hall in Anglo-Saxon Society”

for Food and Eating in Medieval Europe, in which she analyzes Beowulf, a heroic poem in Old

English literature, to illuminate the role of food in the feast hall. Brown fixates on Old English

words and meaning, revealing descriptions of people and their relationships. For instance, Brown

highlights the word hlaford, the title for the lord of the feast hall, which is a derivative of hlaf-

weard, or “bread-guardian” (2). The title means the lord of the feast hall is duty-bound to feed

the people (M. Brown 2). As a result, Brown analyzes food’s social and cultural role by marrying

literary and historical primary sources, language, and culinary history.

Recognizing that food is a fundamental element of human existence and a driving force

of social development explains why it permeates many different disciplines and underwrites food

studies’ body of knowledge. The interest in food on both an academic and a popular level

continues to explode into the present day, with an increasing number of food-related books and

articles seeking meaningful connections between society and culinary history. As of this

dissertation’s writing, significant scholarly, professional, and popular publications about food

history are crossing academic boundaries and appealing to popular readers. My concern is the

absence of different explorations of food studies, which is why my analysis of food things is

relevant.

The unique phenomenon of food things requires a flexible approach across academic

disciplines, utilizing primary fictional sources along with relevant historical and cultural

resources. Thing theory provides the most reasonable theoretical framework for identifying and

analyzing food things. Reading fiction through thing theory assists in collecting food thing

examples by closely reading the texts and identifying the food’s narrative setting and

consumptive acts, while also researching the historical context in which the food appears and

relevant author experiences. Thing theory also has an elasticity, through the idea of slippage, that

allows for logical extension to include foods as objects for study and a body of knowledge that

allows us to consider literature, history, and material culture in the analytical process.

A Recipe for Research

American literature published between 1860 and 1945 exhibits a diversity in authorship,

characters, and places written in a realistic style, making them an excellent source for reading

food things because of uniquely recognizable patterns of food appearances. The first pattern is a

social pattern or appearance of repeated social actions in which the food’s consumption is

interrupted or rejected. The second pattern is strictly narrative: the presence of foods in non-

traditional food settings. These two distinctive qualifiers, 1) foods that remain un-consumed or

the consumption is interrupted, and 2) foods in non-traditional food settings, mirror thing

theory’s patterns of things: 1) broken, no longer able to serve their original purpose, 2) assert

themselves, found in places where similar objects do not exist. Foods that follow these two

patterns are food things and become the ingredients for the research. After collecting the food

things, the next step is to conduct a close reading of the food things and detail relevant historical

information, such as biographical information about the authors and the history of foods, to

provide context for interpretation. With this accumulated research, the food things are grouped

and interpreted as independent agents that mark specific moments of conflict.

American literature from 1860 to 1945 is a treasure trove of research for food things

because realism, naturalism, regionalism, and popular novels of this period tell stories of real

characters and places in contemporary times and build on the authors’ lives and knowledge. The

dissertation identifies, analyzes, and interprets food things in Little Women, The Awakening, My

Ántonia, “The Open Boat,” A Farewell to Arms, The Naked and the Dead, Bread Givers, Giants

in the Earth, and Christ in Concrete. The assortment of authors and literary themes exposes an

American reading experience spanning various literary genres, themes, subjects, regions, and

audiences unusually collected and analyzed together through the appearance of food things.

Using thing theory, I identify the food samples from the literature as ‘broken’ because the

foods are not consumed or the consumption is interrupted. The literature review demonstrates

that while scholars have examined many foods in fiction written by women, focusing on

consumption or nonconsumption, the lack of consumption of the limes in Alcott’s Little Women,

the bonbons in Chopin’s The Awakening, and the mushrooms in Cather’s My Ántonia has

escaped analysis. Alcott describes the teacher ordering Amy to throw the limes away through the

window, preventing her from eating the limes. Chopin writes that Mrs. Pontellier gives away her

bonbons without eating any herself. Lastly, Cather depicts the sincere gifting of dried

mushrooms from Mrs. Shimerda to Mrs. Burden, which Mrs. Burden burns rather than eats. Each

author’s choice to write about uneaten and discarded foods is exceptional by itself.

However, combined with the second qualifier for food things, their assertion in non-

traditional food settings, the foods become material markers. Food studies and literary scholars

of women’s domestic fiction typically identify and analyze foods set in private spaces, such as a

kitchen or dining room, that mirrors the historically gendered division of society. Despite the

implications from the literature review, female authors do not limit foods to these private

spaces—they write foods in public and semi-public places. In Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

writes about Amy discussing pickled limes with her sisters on the street. Afterward, Amy takes

the pickled limes to her classroom and ends with throwing them away out a window. Kate

Chopin illustrates in The Awakening that Mr. Pontellier sends his wife a box of friandises

through a public delivery service. Additionally, Mrs. Pontellier gives away her bonbons while

sitting on the front porch. Finally, in My Ántonia, Willa Cather describes the storage place for

Mrs. Shimerda’s dried mushrooms, a trunk instead of a pantry, and the gifting of the mushrooms

to Mrs. Burden in the communal space of Shimerda’s home. Chapter 2’s food things from

female-authored fiction anchor the initial pattern identifying thingness in food.

The third chapter explores food samples in men’s war fiction. Contrary to women’s

fiction and food, academic research largely ignores analyzing food or food consumption in men’s

fiction. Chapter 3 addresses this oversight by examining examples of interrupted consumption,

such as the scene in A Farewell to Arms, where a cold pot of macaroni and cheese is interrupted

by a mortar explosion. Red’s meal in The Naked and the Dead is also interrupted, which causes

him to discard his remaining ration tins. However, Cook’s interrupted dialogue about food in

“The Open Boat” establishes another dynamic for classifying the act of food consumption.

Chapter 3’s study of food settings gets more complicated because the literature review shows

that studies of male-gendered spaces and food are scarce. However, Katharina Vester’s A Taste

of Power: Food and American Identities establishes the norm for male spaces and food, which

fixates on campfire cooking as an outdoor kitchen. I identify several non-traditional food settings

by comparing the fictional scenes to established norms in works written by male authors about

war. Norman Mailer writes about Red, a soldier in The Naked and the Dead who attempts to eat

while other soldiers spread out and eat their solitary meals without a campfire. Similarly, Ernest

Hemingway describes a scene in A Farewell to Arms where ambulance corpsmen partially

consume an unheated pot of macaroni and cheese without campfire or eating utensils. The final

example is a scene from Stephen Crane’s short story, “The Open Boat,” which features several

men in a lifeboat rowing for the shore—again, no campfire or heat source.

While the gender of the authors divides Chapters 2 and 3, the fourth chapter features

fiction by authors of both genders who are immigrants. Scholars frequently fixate on food in

immigrant fiction because these foods are readily identifiable. Identifying ‘broken’ immigrant

foods is significantly more challenging because the authors rarely write about unconsumed foods

or instances where consumption is interrupted. However, several immigrant novels contain rare

examples of food unconsumed or consumption interrupted, such as the hunter-style sandwich in

Christ in Concrete, the undrunk tea and jelly in the Bread Givers, and the interrupted

consumption of the troll food in Giants in the Earth. Because these instances are rare, it makes

their occurrences more profound.

Immigrant fiction also proves that the analysis and interpretation of food things are not

restricted to gendered spaces since the sample literature features both female and male authors.

This section examines the slippage-of-space and hybridizations of non-traditional and traditional

food settings, which is common in immigrant literature. The hunter-style sandwich scene in

Christ in Concrete mirrors the outdoor kitchen space discussed in men’s war fiction; however,

the setting is urban and lacks certain critical elements. Similarly, the undrunk tea and jelly in

Bread Givers appear in the home's private space, which performs many different functions.

Finally, the interrupted consumption of the troll food in Giants in the Earth also appears in a

single room whose function overlaps with many others.

The literary samples provide the ingredients for the study, but a comprehensive research

method for analyzing and interpreting food things is absent from the scholarly literature; thus, a

new recipe for research develops. Close reading is required to analyze the food things within the

narrative for social context. By closely examining the individual words, the composition, and the

way the authors lay out social behaviors within a scene, I can investigate the patterns of social

actions and compare them to the authors’ historical and biographical information to provide

social context. Using Debra Lupton’s research on experiential memory, I establish that authors

translate aspects of their world into their fictional world, and these aspects are socially

constructed and shared. To understand the authors’ world views and shared experiences, I

include secondary academic research sources and biographies about the select authors. I also

research primary historical sources such as newspapers, pamphlets, recipe books, medical

journals, and other historical archives. These are applied to provide historical and cultural

connections between the authors and their society or culture and food histories. Some non-peer-

reviewed and sometimes uncited sources, such as food blogs and food tourism web brochures,

are minimally included to provide more background about specific cultural foods. As a result,

food things serve the analysis better when grouped by authors’ similar experiences leading to a

cohesive interpretation of the phenomena.

The authors’ history and shared experiences form the basis for grouping food things into

analytical chapters. The above authors all wrote in the style of realism, naturalism, regionalism,

and popular fiction, such as romance, adventure, historical, crime, and Western novels, a fact

which proves essential to this research. Writers who practice realism take pains to describe the

surroundings in which their characters interact and use words in ways that are “aesthetically

satisfying and true to their sense of the world” (Baym, Levine and Franklin 10). Some scholars

consider naturalism an alternative to realism because, though the characters are in a realistic

setting, they also find themselves in situations beyond their control (Baym, Levine and Franklin

11). Regional writing, also known as ‘local color,’ is another format of the realist style where

writers create narrations designed to capture the natural, social, and linguistic characteristics of

local inhabitants and their environs (Baym, Levine and Franklin 13). Though nostalgia is often

regionalism’s downfall, it does not negate the details recorded in a particular time and place.

‘Lowbrow’ popular fiction is also rooted in specific regions and continues the realistic writing

style that provides a smorgasbord of food things (Baym, Levine and Franklin 17).

The fiction written during this time was contemporary or realistic about current events

that the authors directly engaged, which mirrored the writing styles of the period. Additionally,

the industrial revolution introduced mass-produced literature from writers of diverse gender and

ethnicity who invited readers into the world from their unique perspectives. Due to author

diversity, American literature began to incorporate racial and cultural questions mirroring the

growing racial and class tension in the United States, which compounded as immigrants settled

in their new country and published their own experiences.

The literature prior to the 1860s is not suitable for reading food things since the fiction

predominately features stories written by male authors, and narrative themes and styles are

limited to early settlement and a developing country pushing the westward boundaries (B.

Anderson 47). Additionally, U.S. publishing houses had a deeply rooted white, male-oriented

labor history reflected in the publications, limiting the diversity of author points-of-view

(Janssens 6; Laughran 80). Moreover, reading of food things stopped following World War II’s

aftermath since it marked a dramatic turn in literary styles and social roles. After 1945, American

writers reexamined the predominating literary styles to embrace innovation and reject traditional

forms, which reshaped what literature meant to accomplish, thus impacting the analysis of food

things. Consequently, American literature before 1860 and after 1945 is not included in the

research.

The authors’ experiences and close reading assist in analyzing the human-object

relationship between characters and foods by providing the foundational information for

interpretation. The interpretation is complicated because typical cultural interpretative methods

for food in social environments do not include non-traditional settings or the lack of food

consumption. Because I seek to understand each food’s human-object relationship within the

story’s historical context, I develop a different interpretive method paradigm for revealing the

author’s invested meaning of the food thing as material markers of conflict—objects in which

intersecting social actions and cultural meaning occur. Interpreting the food thing requires

identifying and clarifying the two intended human-object engagements prior to the intersection

and re-interpreting the meaning of the food thing at the moment of collision. As a result, food

things interpretations are not limited to literary symbols but reveal complex meanings through

social engagements enriched by American historical and cultural contexts. Understanding the

food’s intended role and how that role changes through human interaction is critical for

interpreting the thingness of the food and revealing the material marker.

Let’s Get Cooking: What’s Next

The following three chapters detail the food things research, including the author’s

shared experiences, culinary history, and the food’s thingness, leading to the grouping of

interpretive analysis within each chapter. The analysis begins with the interpretation of food

things in novels written by white female authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth

centuries, which determines that food things are objects of conflict relating to social power

dynamics. The following chapter turns to male authors who experienced and wrote about war in

the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and demonstrates that food things are objects of

conflicting realities in moments of mortality crisis. The final analysis from immigrant and first-

generation immigrant authors of the early twentieth century in different areas of the United

States determines that the food things are objects of conflict between immigrant identities and

the intrusion of Americanization.

The final chapter summarizes the research, analysis, and interpretation of food things. It

reinforces that scholars do not typically analyze these chosen authors and texts together because

of variations in themes, literary periods, and writing styles. However, I collect these seemingly

disparate texts through the interpretive analysis of food things. I also demonstrate that each

author intentionally places food things outside the traditional narrative setting of food but within

a crucial plot where consumption is non-existent or interrupted. As a result, the food becomes a

material marker, a signpost of precise moments when differing social and cultural meanings

intersect and coexist through human-object interactions. The examples in the forthcoming

chapters highlight the significance of the food thing and how meaning changes to reveal conflict.

CHAPTER 2

THE SOCIAL POWERS OF FOOD

The phenomenon of food things appears in specific women’s narrative fiction, such as

Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, and Willa Cather’s My

Ántonia, and exhibits conflict of social power, which is the power of influence or the potential to

effect change in an individual (French Jr. and Raven 247). Each author’s work features foods in

traditional narrative settings bound by the norms of food rituals, and foods in non-traditional

narrative settings where human-object engagements differ from established norms. The selected

foods exemplify the definition of food things because they are unconsumed and exist outside

food’s traditional narrative settings. Pickled limes appear on a public street and in a semi-public

classroom, only to be discarded out the window before Amy and her peers eat them in Alcott’s

Little Women. Mrs. Pontellier does not eat the bonbons publicly delivered and consumed by her

friend on her front porch, a semi-public space, in Chopin’s The Awakening. Lastly, a trunk,

rather than a pantry, is the storage place for the Shimerdas’ precious mushrooms, gifted to Mrs.

Burden, who burns them in Cather’s My Ántonia. Food things are material markers that illustrate

social power conflict through several interactions between characters and food objects.

Some examples of social power influence occur when individuals change their beliefs,

attitudes, behaviors, or emotions to achieve social status (French Jr. and Raven 247). Within

social power theory, there are six types of power relationships defined by social psychologists

John R. P. French and Bertram Raven, who divided the distinct forms of social power based on

their 1959 study. The six types of power relationships are reward power, coercive power,

legitimate power, referent power, expert power and information power (French Jr. and Raven

242). Each food thing exhibits two different social powers acting simultaneously, creating

conflict. The literary selections below identify the food thing and anchor it within the narrative of

a particular time and place for context. An analysis of the close reading follows, including

historical and biographical information to better understand the significance and ensure the food

is not a mere literary prop subject to symbolic interpretation. At the conclusion of the analysis,

an interpretation of the food thing’s social power dynamics follows, outlining the conflict within

the material marker. The section concludes with a brief review of other scholarly work regarding

the food, the selected literary works, and discussing the new perspectives regarding the research

outcome.

Twenty-Four Delicious Limes

Louisa May Alcott first wrote the pickled limes into existence when the March sisters,

Amy, Jo, and Meg, discuss the limes on a public street—well outside the parameters of

commonplace food settings, especially in nineteenth-century literature. The pickled limes make

another appearance later in the chapter in a different non-traditional setting, a school classroom.

Additionally, in this latter chapter, the teacher, Mr. Davis, instructs Amy to throw the limes out

the window, and Amy complies. The street and the classroom are public and semi-public places

where nineteenth-century authors and readers do not traditionally place or read about food. The

limes’ appearance in public and semi-public settings and their eventual discarding before

consumption features a critical aspect of conflicting nineteenth-century social engagement. As a

result, the limes exhibit characteristics of thingness subject to further analysis.

The pickled limes appear in Little Women, a story of the March family’s four sisters,

Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. The story takes place in a neighborhood similar to Concord,

Massachusetts, where the author, Louisa May Alcott, lived. Alcott informs readers that the

March patriarch is away from home, serving as a chaplain in the American Civil War. The

contemporary scene, urban New England between 1860 and 1865, anchors the story’s time and

place within the historical and social context, since the novel was written and published in 1868.

While their father is away and due to their genteel poverty, the sisters and their mother retain

responsibility for keeping the home. The novel traces the sisters’ development from children to

young women who marry (in the cases of Meg, Jo, and Amy) as well as the early death of Beth.

Each sister has distinctive characteristics and desires that move the novel forward. Amy March is

the youngest of the four sisters, with an artistic interest and appreciation for aesthetics. Amy’s

attitude differs from her sisters’, and she appears shallow and selfish. Her actions emphasize her

desire for popularity, and she despises appearing impoverished. The scene with Amy and the

pickled limes establishes her personality as she discusses the limes with her sisters near a public

street where “Laurie clattered by on horseback with a flourish of his whip as he passed” (Alcott,

Little Women 36).

The appearance of the limes, even via a conversation, on a public street in a nineteenth-

century novel is an example of an object asserting itself as a thing. An overly simplified

approach to identifying foods in non-traditional narrative settings is to reverse the idea of

traditional food settings, such as private areas in the home that follow narrative logic (kitchens

and dining rooms). The resulting non-traditional food setting becomes a space outside the home,

like a public street. Scholars have not typically interpreted public spaces through a female gender

lens. Helen Taylor makes an interesting point about the difficulty of interpreting women in

public and urban spaces in her article, “Walking through New Orleans: Kate Chopin and the

Female Flâneur.” Taylor states that interpreting women in public in the nineteenth century is

difficult because the city is “defined and organized around male mobility, work, pleasure and

sexuality” (22). Reading women “on the street” often leads to them being interpreted through the

lens of prostitution or being without virtue; understanding the March sisters and the limes this

way, through the male gaze, is inappropriate. Thus, Alcott’s depiction of the March sisters

discussing limes on a public street instead emphasizes the food’s non-traditional setting.

The limes later appear in another non-traditional food setting—the school classroom, a

semi-public area with restricted access. Rather than appearing just in dialogue, the limes are the

focal object in the classroom. The intent to eat the pickled limes is the initial source of

engagement for Amy and her peers. However, the teacher, Mr. Davis, thwarts the intention when

he discovers the limes and forces Amy to throw them away before the students can consume

them. The limes’ nonexistent consumption thus fulfills the definition of a ‘broken’ object since

the limes do not provide nutritional value or serve their original social intention.

Having successfully identified the pickled limes as food things, close reading and

historical analysis are necessary to interpret the material marker. A close reading of the text

outlines the pickled limes’ social value, through nuances in words and actions the author

describes, to support the food thing analysis. A close reading begins with the limes in Little

Women, Chapter Seven, “Amy’s Valley of Humiliation”:

[…]

“I need it so much. I’m dreadfully in debt, and it won’t be my turn to have the rag

money for a month.”

“In debt, Amy? What do you mean?” And Meg looked sober.

“Why, I owe at least a dozen pickled limes, and I can’t pay them, you know, till I

have money, for Marmee forbade my having anything charged at the shop.”

“Tell me all about it. Are limes the fashion now? It used to be pricking bits of

rubber to make balls.” And Meg tried to keep her countenance, Amy looked so

grave and important.

“Why, you see, the girls are always buying them, and unless you want to be

thought mean, you must do it too. It’s nothing but limes now, for everyone is

sucking them in their desks at schooltime, and trading them off for pencils, bead

rings, paper dolls, or something else, at recess. If one girl likes another, she gives

her a lime. If she’s mad with her, she eats one before her face, and doesn’t offer

even a suck. They treat by turns, and I’ve had ever so many but haven’t returned

them, and I ought for they are debts of honor, you know.”

“How much will pay them off and restore your credit?” asked Meg, taking out her

purse.

“A quarter would more than do it, and leave a few cents over for a treat for you.

Don’t you like limes?”

“Not much. You may have my share. Here’s the money. Make it last as long as

you can, for it isn’t very plenty, you know.”

“Oh, thank you! It must be so nice to have pocket money! I’ll have a grand feast,

for I haven’t tasted a lime this week. I felt delicate about taking any, as I couldn’t

return them, and I’m actually suffering for one.”

Next day Amy was rather late at school, but could not resist the temptation of

displaying, with pardonable pride, a moist brown-paper parcel, before she

consigned it to the inmost recesses of her desk. During the next few minutes the

rumor that Amy March had got twenty-four delicious limes (she ate one on the

way) and was going to treat circulated through her ‘set’, and the attentions of her

friends became quite overwhelming. Katy Brown invited her to her next party on

the spot. Mary Kinglsey insisted on lending her watch till recess, and Jenny Snow,

a satirical young lady, who had basely twitted Amy upon her limeless state,

promptly buried the hatchet and offered to furnish answers to certain appalling

sums. But Amy had not forgotten Miss Snow’s cutting remarks about ‘some

persons whose noses were not too flat to smell other people’s limes, and stuck up

people who were not too proud to ask for them’, and she instantly crushed ‘that

Snow girl’s’ hopes by the withering telegram, “You needn’t be so polite all of the

sudden for you won’t get any.”

A distinguished personage happened to visit the school that morning, and Amy’s

beautiful drawn maps received praise, which honor to her foe rankled in the soul

of Miss Snow, and caused Miss March to assume the airs of a studious young

peacock. But, alas, alas! Pride goes before the fall, and the revengeful Snow

turned the tables with disastrous success. No sooner had the guest paid the usual

stale compliments and bowed himself out, than Jenny, under the pretense of

asking an important question, informed Mr. Davis, the teacher, that Amy March

had pickled limes in her desk.

Now Mr. Davis had declared limes a contraband article, and solemnly vowed to

publicly ferrule the first person who was found breaking the law.… The word

‘limes’ was like fire to powder, his yellow face flushed, and he rapped on his desk

with an energy which made Jenny skip to her seat with unusual rapidity.

“Young ladies, attention, if you please!”

At the stern order the buzz ceased, and fifty pairs of blue, black, gray, and brown

eyes were obediently fixed upon his awful countenance.

“Miss March, come to the desk.”

Amy rose to comply with outward composure, but a secret fear oppressed her, for

the limes weighed upon her conscience.

“Bring with you the limes you have in your desk,” was the unexpected command

which arrested her before she got out of her seat.

“Don’t take all.” Whispered her neighbor, a young lady of great presence of mind.

Amy hastily shook out half a dozen and laid the rest down before Mr. Davis,

feeling that any man possessing a human heart would relent when that delicious

perfume met his nose. Unfortunately, Mr. Davis particularly detested the odor of

the fashionable pickle, and disgust added to his wrath.

“Is that all?”

“Not quite,” stammered Amy.

“Bring the rest immediately.”

“With a despairing glance at her set, she obeyed.

“You are sure there are no more?”

“I never lie, sir.”

“So I see. Now take these disgusting things two by two, and throw them out the

window.”

There was a simultaneous sigh, which created quite a little gust, as the last hope

fled, and the treat was ravished from their longing lips. Scarlet with shame and

anger, Amy went to and fro six dreadful times, and as each doomed couple,

looking oh, so plump and juicy, fell from her reluctant hands, a shout from the

street completed the anguish of the girls, for it told them that their feast was being

exulted over by the little Irish children, who were their sworn foes. (Alcott, Little

Women 36-38)

Alcott introduces the social engagement of the pickled limes in a conversation between

the sisters, Amy, Meg, and Jo, where she presents the limes as a form of social currency and

validation among peers. Amy’s statement, “I owe at least a dozen limes,” initiates the

explanation regarding the social value of the limes (Alcott, Little Women 36). Alcott uses the

word ‘owe’ in conjunction with the limes to establish an expectation or an obligation that

requires payment. Amy further explains that pickled limes are a way of validating social status.

Amy states, “If one girl likes another, she gives her a lime. If she’s mad with her, she eats one

before her face, and doesn’t offer even a suck” (Alcott, Little Women 36). The girls who ‘treat,’

meaning girls who gift the limes, display power over their peer group and reinforce their social

status. Furthermore, the girls treat in turns, so they also receive limes which means a girl is part

of the ‘set’ or the fashionable circle. Not receiving a lime is an act of social exclusion. Amy

maintains social validation as part of the ‘set’ because she has collected “at least a dozen pickled

limes” in the past (Alcott, Little Women 36).

However, Amy cannot fully participate in the validation ritual because she is poor and

cannot take a turn treating. Amy is on the verge of social exclusion when she begs her sisters for

money to purchase pickled limes. After Amy receives Meg’s money to buy the limes, Amy says,

“I’ll have a grand feast for I haven’t tasted a lime this week” (Alcott, Little Women 36). The fact

that Amy has not received a lime for a week indicates that she is being excluded from the set and

denied social acceptance by her peers. Amy ends her explanation to her sisters with the statement

that she was “suffering” for a lime (Alcott, Little Women 36). Alcott’s choice of the word

‘suffering’ is read in two different ways. The first is that Amy is physically craving the taste of

the limes. The second meaning is that Amy is the subject of unpleasant peer interactions because

her peers deny her access to the set.

To counteract the exclusion, Amy plans to use the limes to regain social status and finally

participate in the social validation ritual from a position of power to validate or exclude her

peer’s social status. The trouble begins when Amy arrives with her parcel of pickled limes, and

gossip circulates that Amy intends to treat her peers. A peer of Amy’s, Jenny Snow, attempts to

gain favor, leading to Amy initiating her plan. She informs Jenny not to bother sucking up as

Amy does not intend to give Jenny a lime. Amy states, “You needn’t be so polite all of a sudden,

for you won’t get any” (Alcott, Little Women 36). Amy is retaliating against Jenny, who

previously disparaged Amy and her lack of limes.

Rather than accept Amy’s execution of social exclusion, Jenny retaliates by tattling to the

teacher, Mr. Davis, that Amy has pickled limes, which are “contraband” in the classroom

(Alcott, Little Women 37). Mr. Davis assumes Jenny’s information is correct and Amy has

broken his rule. He commands Amy to bring the limes to the front of the classroom. Amy

attempts to hide some of the limes, but Mr. Davis suspects subterfuge and asks if Amy has more

limes. Amy does not lie and admits there are more limes. Mr. Davis orders her to “take these

disgusting things two by two, and throw them [the limes] out the window” (Alcott, Little Women

37). Amy follows Mr. Davis’s commands, which serves as an example of his rules and power.

The human-object interactions between Amy, her peers, Jenny, and Mr. Davis with the

limes illustrate social behaviors relevant to the later nineteenth-century New England area among

teenage girls and their male teacher. Mr. Davis’s response to the pickled limes mirrors those of

adults during this period, who united in their disgust with the pickled limes and youth obsession

with the fad food. Historical evidence written in 1869 by a Boston physician states that pickled

limes were among the “unnatural and abominable” foods consumed by children (Ziedrich 2315).

This was a viewpoint Alcott would have been aware of because her tutor, Charles Lane, also

deemed the limes “highly suspect as an exotic, tropical, and non-native fruit that would have

been cultivated by slave labor” (Pelletier 199). Lane reasoned that the pickled limes were a

product of “worldly corruption” and that his students needed to avoid consuming them to prevent

their own corruption (Pelletier 200). As a result, Lane banned specific foods with a strictness that

mirrors Mr. Davis; like Amy, Alcott and her sisters defied the rigidly enforced dietary rules by

Mr. Lane whenever they could (Pelletier 199). Alcott’s experience under the tutelage of Lane

mirrors that of Amy with Mr. Davis, anchoring the social behaviors to a specific time and place.

A rudimentary examination of Alcott’s life and experiences reveals several interesting

facets essential to the analysis. As seen above, Alcott’s life experiences and exposure to the

importance of food culture contribute to the relevance of the research. Transcendental Wild Oats,

published in 1873, is Alcott’s autobiographical work in which she depicts her life and the lives of

her family through pseudonyms while they lived at Fruitlands, which Alcott describes as a “new

experiment” with “very queer” people living an “ideal” (69). The Alcott family lived at

Fruitlands in Harvard, Massachusetts, for seven months, where Mr. Charles Lane used food as a

teaching tool (Dolan 42). This information proves essential to connecting the pickled limes to

Alcott’s personal experiences. Alcott’s education also provides a secondary aspect contributing

to her illustration of the gender and age dynamics of her characters.

Despite Alcott’s social status as a white woman in the early nineteenth century, Alcott’s

father, Bronson Alcott, believed that his daughters’ “moral worth” depended on intellect.

Bronson was also a Transcendentalist philosopher interested in childhood education to support

the “moral and intellectual development of his daughters” (Pelletier 192). His daughters’

education provided them a privilege that separated them from the labor or service class, who

were often “illiterate or, if they were literate in their native tongues, could not read or write

English” (Maibor 65).

A third aspect of Alcott’s life experience that is a relevant theme in her novel directly

relates to economics. While many biographers remark that Alcott grew up “poor” or “in

poverty,” Alcott’s family could sustain a middle-class status by relying on family and friends for

financial assistance between spotty employments. Alcott wrote about her experience in the

service industry in “How I Went Out to Service” (1874), initially published in the Independent.

The writing exemplifies Alcott’s class privilege in which she writes of her employment

experiment as a service employee for a month and three additional unplanned weeks. At the end

of Alcott’s service experiment, her employer provided the sum of her wages, a “paltry” four

dollars, which “went back” to her employer (Alcott, “How I Went Out to Service” 819). Alcott’s

ability to quit the job and send back her pay demonstrates her middle-class position, which

sharply contrasts with labor-class individuals who had no choice but to keep working despite

being treated like a “galley slave” (Alcott, “How I Went Out to Service” 815). Throughout

Alcott’s life, she held various other occupations, such as a nurse during the Civil War, a

seamstress, a companion, and a teacher. Ultimately, Alcott was able to parlay her education and

writing to maintain her financial independence.

Alcott wrote these life experiences, including the limes, into the human-object

engagements in Little Women, substantiating that Alcott chose limes intentionally as material

markers rather than literary props. Alcott was aware of pickled limes' social role among juvenile

girls and educated adults, which she demonstrated in Little Women. Researcher Linda Ziedrich

follows the historical trail of the pickled limes in her canning book, The Joy of Pickling. Her

research established that during Alcott’s time, pickled limes were sold individually in the United

States “from glass jars on top of the candy-store counters” (Ziedrich 2315). These limes were

“packed whole in seawater or fresh-made brine and shipped to the northeastern U.S. ports in

barrels” (Ziedrich 2315). Late nineteenth-century shipping records to Boston clearly show the

abundant arrival of pickled limes. There are records of shipping magistrates’ complaints as they

strove to keep the pickled limes from being classified as fruit or pickles to keep tariffs at a

minimum, thus allowing them to profit on as little as one cent per lime (Ziedrich 2315). The lime

sales historical record matches Alcott’s description of Amy’s purchase. Amy receives twenty-

five cents from Meg and buys twenty-five limes. She eats one on the way to school, leaving her

with twenty-four limes in her parcel when she arrives. Alcott wrote contemporary literature and

was aware of the social role the pickled limes played among juvenile girls and educated adults in

late nineteenth-century New England.

Research and reviews of the lime’s culinary history prove that the story of Alcott’s

pickled limes is unique to her time and place. Limes’ precise origin remains unverified, though

some sources indicate that limes came from Southeast Asia, and explorers brought them back to

Europe when the Portuguese completed their voyage around the southern tip of Africa (Scora

370). Others argue that limes were first harvested in Persia, as written by Alexander the Great’s

scientific staff accompanying his Macedonia army in approximately 310 B.C., describing them

as “the apple from the lands of the Medes” (Scora 370). Limes travel worldwide through trade as

various cultural cuisines included the ingredient and other uses develop. Around 1150 A.D., the

Arab nations began trading different citrus fruits with civilizations in Northern Africa and Spain.

There are records of recipes and images proving that limes were well integrated into native

Middle Eastern and South Asian cuisines (Scora 370). There are many other references to

pickled limes as being commonplace in Indian cooking, and the inclusion of limes in meals

evolved and was shared as they passed from country to country.

The Crusades were what brought Europeans into contact with the fruit. From Europe to

the New World, limes and other citrus fruit traveled across the Atlantic via the cargo of Italian

explorer Christopher Columbus, who brought the seeds to Haiti and the islands of South Carolina

in 1577. By the late 1500s, citrus fruits became popular staples aboard maritime vessels when

people discovered that eating them prevented scurvy. The discovery of limes’ medical value

increased their popularity. John Woodall, the Surgeon at Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital in

London in 1616, was the first person to prescribe citrus, such as limes, for the medical treatment

of scurvy. In his book, The Surgeon’s Mate (1617), Woodall thought that scurvy “was a disease

of the spleen and attributed its development to lack of cleanliness and the eating of salted

provisions” and prescribed limes as the remedy (Barker 50). Due to this recommendation and to

the British naval forces’ prominent use of limes at sea, they were called “Limey” by U.S. sailors

(Barker 45). Discovering limes’ varied history and uses emphasizes the uniqueness of Alcott’s

pickled limes.

Alcott inserts the limes as material markers when they become integrated into the social

power structure of American teenage girls of the 1860s. The chapter featuring the pickled limes

in Little Women illustrates simultaneous conflicting social values, which Alcott witnessed as a

female living in nineteenth-century New England. As a result, pickled limes are Alcott’s food

things because they are material markers of conflict regarding power and authority, including 1)

social power between peers and 2) authority between teacher and student. The human-object

interactions between the limes and the students demonstrate a combination of power

relationships, reward power and coercive power. Reward power is when a person or group can

provide a reward or positive incentive. On the other hand, coercive power is when the

influencing agent uses threat or punishment. Mr. Davis, as the students’ teacher, demonstrates

legitimate power, which occurs when a person has a formal position and implements rules based

on their title.

Amy participates in her peers’ social power structure when she implements her reward

and coercive power with the pickled limes. As a result, Alcott introduces the human-object

power relationship between Amy and her peers, the set, with the dialogue between the sisters on

an open street. As Amy bemoans not having any money to buy the limes, Alcott demonstrates

that the limes are social currency. Amy is in social debt because she has not reciprocated the

gesture. Furthermore, Alcott illustrates that the object of social currency changes from peer

group to peer group, as indicated when Meg speaks of rubber balls previously being the fashion

versus the limes. The object of social value, such as the pickled limes, maps the changes in social

power based on Alcott's depiction of the characters' actions.

An example of Amy’s reward power is the “overwhelming” amount of attention afforded

to Amy once she gets the money to buy the limes and tells her peers she intends to treat her set

(Alcott, Little Women 36). Thus, Amy wants to reward friendships by gifting the limes.

Contrarily, Amy demonstrates coercive power towards Jenny Snow because Jenny “twitted”

Amy and made fun of her lack of limes (Alcott, Little Women 36). Amy retaliates by excluding

Jenny from the gifting, resulting in Jenny’s denied social access to the set. Thus, the limes are a

form of social punishment. Amy explains this reward/coercive power relationship to her sisters,

stating, “If one girl likes another, she gives her a lime. If she’s mad with her, she eats one before

her face and doesn’t offer even a suck” (Alcott, Little Women 36).

Interestingly, the social power structure of reward and coercive power with the pickled

limes changes because the limes are not consumed as intended. The negated consumption alters

the lime’s social power structure when Amy’s teacher orders Amy to throw away the pickled

limes. Therefore, the set is not gifted limes by Amy, and Jenny is not denied limes. The human-

object relationship changes with the insertion of the teacher’s legitimate power, who controls his

class and students. Jenny knows Mr. Davis’s rule that limes are a “contraband article” with

severe punishment if caught and uses his legitimate power to subvert Amy’s coercive power. Mr.

Davis completes the disruption of consumption when he orders Amy to throw the limes away,

resulting in contrasting human-object relationships.

When Mr. Davis commands Amy to throw away her limes, he asserts his legitimate

power and interrupts Amy’s social power participation. Alcott depicts the fictional character, Mr.

Davis, as a portrait exemplifying an educated man with strict rules and guidelines designed to

exert control of the classroom, like Alcott’s former tutor, to display his legitimate power (Laird

276). Additionally, Alcott draws connections between Mr. Davis as a “liberal” or classics

educator, rather than a transcendental reformed educator, and his need to control the classroom

by designating fad items as contraband (Laird 277). Alcott characterizes his education when she

states, “Mr. Davis knew any quantity of Greek, Latin, Algebra, and ologies of all sorts, so he was

called a fine teacher, and manners, morals, feelings, and examples were not considered of any

importance” (Alcott, Little Women 37). The type of man Mr. Davis represents is well-educated,

expecting others to abide by his direction because of his knowledge—much like the period

doctor who wrote that the limes were “unnatural and abominable” foods and recommended that

parents ban children from consuming the limes (Ziedrich 2315)—advice that Mr. Davis follows.

It is important to note that though Mr. Davis asserts his power and interrupts Amy’s

social intent, Mr. Davis’s legitimate power does not negate the social meaning of the limes from

Amy's and her peers' perspectives. The limes remain a source of contraband from educated

men’s perspective and a fad consumer object from nineteenth-century teenage girls' perspective.

As a result, the pickled limes assert themselves as material markers in which several definitions

of social power coexist, the reward/coercive power between peers and the legitimate power

between a teacher and his students.

While my analysis highlights the limes as material markers of social power dynamics, the

majority of research regarding Alcott and Little Women overlooks the limes’ importance, their

unique connection to Alcott’s history and United States history, and their connections to social

engagements. Much of the research composed about Alcott and Little Women is through a

literary lens; any analysis focused on food symbolism and consumption revolves around

traditional food settings. Rather than the limes, the bread in Alcott’s story is a focus of study for

Kathryn Dolan and Sarah Sherman. Sherman mentions in “Sacramental Shopping: Little Women

and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism” that bread in Alcott’s novel symbolizes the Victorian

consumer culture and addresses religious or moral questions. Meanwhile, Dolan’s article, “Her

Daily Bread: Food and Labor in Louisa May Alcott,” focuses on scenes of bread baking in the

kitchen, which Dolan interprets to symbolize the literary concept of a “domestic world of women

shaping and forming society” (42).

Dolan’s article is critical because it is one of the few that focuses on foodstuffs within the

context of a gendered society. Specifically, nineteenth-century kitchens were considered female

domains; thus she examines bread’s social and cultural construct within the context of the novel

and the author’s history. Dolan’s research outlines the history of bread in America to actualize

the relationship between women and the labor of making bread. Furthermore, Dolan ties the

relationship of bread and female labor to various symbolisms within Alcott’s novel. Dolan’s

ultimate argument is that Alcott’s Little Women is a work with multiple layers of meaning and

metaphors in her writing, which Dolan attributes to Alcott’s experiences.

While Dolan’s and Sherman’s analysis reveal food symbolism, other studies are less

literary and cover a more interdisciplinary perspective with specific focus on the socioeconomic

implications of the limes. Yvonne Pelletier’s essay “Strawberries and Salt: Culinary Hazards and

Moral Education in Little Women” focuses on the social rituals of eating and the presence of food

to highlight many instances of food rituals in the novel. Of particular note is Pelletier’s

discussion of Amy’s limes, in which she draws parallels between the Alcott and the March

family, who are both poor genteel, which results in Amy striving to present herself as ‘better’

than the socioeconomic reality she currently exists in. Pelletier devotes critical attention to the

scene where Amy borrows the quarter from Meg to buy the limes. Thus, my earlier analysis that

the limes are a form of social currency is valid. Dolan also targets the power shift when Jenny

uses the limes to punish Amy; however, she fails to recognize Mr. Davis’s role in the power

change.

Meanwhile, Susan Laird recognizes the role Mr. Davis plays versus Amy. Laird briefly

mentions the limes as an example of Mr. Davis’s identity as a “liberal” educator, educated in the

classics but not in the humanity of being an educator. For Laird, the limes exhibit Mr. Davis’s

inability to maintain decorum in the face of “a common classroom situation” (278). While she

draws connections to his educational temperament, Laird fails to make connections between his

actions and similar beliefs espoused by other educated individuals during the same period. In

addition, neither of these scholars examine the role of social power in the exchange between

students and teachers, choosing to focus on only one rather than both.

With regards to inclusion of author experiences, both Dolan and Pelletier draw several

parallels from Amy’s limes and Alcott’s personal accounts. For instance, Alcott’s father,

Bronson, had progressive ideas about education, especially concerning corporal punishment,

which he condemned. The scene of Amy’s physical punishment, being struck on the palm, was

considered normal within the bounds of nineteenth-century education and discipline. Pelletier

connects Bronson Alcott and Marmee through their actions and beliefs condemning corporal

punishment. Marmee’s vehement response to Mr. Davis physically punishing Amy relates to the

Alcott family’s reformist practice, which disavows institutional rules. Dolan and Pelletier also

reference Alcott’s life experiences about the lime scene and suggest that Alcott is parodying the

education Alcott received at Fruitland.

The above articles approach foods, and specifically the limes in Little Women, from

various cultural and literary perspectives, with literary critics leading the research and a notable

complete absence of thing theorists. These publications exemplify a tendency to locate and

examine foods that are readily accessible using both narrative logic and gendered spaces. Little

Women is full of food scenes in traditional narrative settings, starting as early as Chapter Two,

“A Merry Christmas,” where the sisters descend the stairs to the table, “eager for breakfast”

(Alcott 9). Alcott lists the contents of the breakfast as “cream and the muffins” with buckwheats

and bread “piled into one big plate” (Little Women 10). Later the March family eats “bread and

milk for breakfast” (Alcott, Little Women 10). Other references to food that follows narrative

logic occur later in the chapter when the maid requests that the sisters “walk down to supper,”

where a table is set up with “ice cream, actually two dishes of it, pink and white and cake and

fruit and distracting French bonbons” (Alcott, Little Women 13). Another appearance of food is

in Chapter Twenty-Eight’s aptly titled “Domestic Experiences,” which describes Meg’s desire to

fill her “storeroom stocked with homemade preserves” (Alcott, Little Women 147). Though

cooking and making currant jelly in the kitchen is described as a disaster by Alcott, readers still

expect to see food in this setting. Like the dining room, the kitchen and pantry are other settings

where readers expect to see food, food-associated furniture (the table), and tools (plates and

dishes). It is relatively easy to identify the foods in Little Women that follow narrative logic and

consider gendered spaces, especially since scholars argue that Alcott wrote her stories when

female-gendered spaces were readily defined.

Recognizing and understanding Alcott’s limes as food things alters the landscape of food

studies and other academic disciplines with minor and major contributions. Identifying the limes

through thing theory recognizes foods as things, a source sorely lacking academic research

among theorists. Since the limes are more than literary props and identify as objects that retain a

specific history within a particular time and culture, they reinforce the cultural and historical

food studies. Additionally, the limes from a novel collaborate the information about the limes

from primary historical sources while affording a more ethnographic retelling of the human-

object engagements. Lastly, the study of the limes reveals an untapped research area of food

studies in literature, which repeats throughout the dissertation. By investigating food things, like

the limes, new unifying methods for studying authors develop.

Thing theory is essential for recognizing and rationalizing foods in non-traditional

narrative spaces that remain unconsumed. Without thing theory, scholars have difficulty

analyzing the scene and the limes. A later chapter in Little Women provides enough

characteristics of food thingness for me to test the methodology. Alcott describes Jo going to the

market to pick up necessary dinner ingredients, such as a “young lobster, some very old

asparagus, and two boxes of acid strawberries” (Little Women 64). The purchases occur in a

market, an area that is outside the home and initially reads as a non-traditional setting. The

ingredients are later prepared in the kitchen and served in the dining room, both areas that follow

narrative logic for food. However, much of the food served at the dinner remains uneaten

because of Jo’s poor cooking. The unconsumed nature of the food causes me to consider the

foods as possible food things.

Despite their unconsumed status and the initial appearance of the foods in public, I

determine upon close reading that the meal ingredients do not fulfill the parameters of food

things because the foods reveal no significant social action within the scene. The lobster,

asparagus, and strawberries are not material markers, but literary props within the narrative. The

only food in Jo’s failed meal with any substantial role is the salt sprinkled on the strawberries

instead of sugar. Alcott uses this action and setting to demonstrate Jo’s incompetence with

cooking. In this instance, the salt is insignificant as a material marker because Alcott is using the

substance of salt rather than the historical context or social engagement of the salt. The salt’s role

in the story is grounded in its chemical and nutritional content. Foodstuffs that are props without

cultural connections are relevant to literary critics examining symbolism but not for food and

culture studies. Food things, like the limes, are material markers that change how I interpret

literary foods. The failure of previous scholars to consider food and thing theory led to a gap in

scholarly works that neglects the relevance of unconsumed foods in non-traditional narrative

settings.

Studying Alcott and the literature of Little Women through the limes presents a new

opportunity to link authors and texts that are not customarily studied together. Scholars often

group Alcott with Transcendentalist writers or domestic fiction, and her work, Little Women, is

often considered a children’s novel (Thacker and Webb 33). As a result, Alcott’s literature is

rarely studied collectively with Cather’s and Chopin’s because their styles and subject matters

are different. However, through thing theory and the limes, I correlate Alcott’s memories and

experiences with other white, well-educated female writers who financed their livelihood

through their writing. Alcott’s life experiences contribute to the analysis compared to the other

authors in this chapter. Several fundamental factors connect the authors and their creation of

food things in fiction. Alcott is a white female writer. Additionally, her father encouraged her

education and intellectual growth. She was considered middle-class and earned a living that

supported herself and her family. Alcott also never married and supported herself financially as

an independent woman. These life experiences contribute to Alcott’s understanding of the wider

world and provide an individual perspective regarding power relationships (Cheever xiv; Reisen

66). Several of these life experience characteristics repeat in the analysis of Kate Chopin and

Willa Cather, and their similarity binds the analysis and interpretation of food things. The

attentiveness and inclusion of social power dynamics in Alcott’s fiction via the limes present a

new avenue for collectively studying texts and authors.

Additionally, literary and cultural research improves by recognizing the author’s history

and life experience in creating food things. Identifying and analyzing the limes as material

markers also shows that literary foods contribute to cultural and historical food studies. Before

this analysis, a review of the research for Little Women shows that food is typically studied in

traditionally gendered spaces or interpreted through the lens of gender studies. The thingness of

the limes proves that gendered spaces are not the sole determinant for food interpretation because

the limes appear in both public and semi-public spaces, which are either gender-neutral or

designated male. As a result, the limes in Little Women, a domestic fiction written by a female

author, are not restricted to a gendered analysis.

Analyzing the limes leads to understanding the role of the limes and the corresponding

social actions of teenage girls in nineteenth-century New England and their educated adults,

reinforcing social and cultural understanding of power and social roles. Through the limes,

Alcott reveals the ever-evolving relationship of fad items among teenagers with the discussion

between Amy and Meg. The dialogue indicates that the fashionable object changes from year to

year, as Meg explains that pricked rubber balls were the fashion when Meg was a schoolgirl.

Alcott uses the exchange to educate readers about the social value of fad objects among

teenagers and children. Though some primary historical records exist about the limes, Alcott

ethnographically exhibits the limes and their relationship with teenage girls to illustrate their

awareness of their power and ability to manipulate and maneuver through social actions. The

acknowledgment and analysis of juvenile female power dynamics contribute to adolescent

studies, which is challenging to gather primary historical information.

Recognizing the fictional limes as material markers contributes to the source material of

food history research and literary studies. The history of the limes proves that they had a

changing role throughout human history. To understand the lime as an artifact is to know its

story and how it changed over time through human interactions. The limes’ object-human

relationship requires investigating the history of the object as well as the history of the person

who wrote the object’s materialism into existence. Without Alcott writing the limes into being,

history and cultural researchers have limited to no records of an ethnographic study of social

actions with the limes. Thus, the limes would continue to exist as a symbol or a prop rather than

as an artifact. Studying the limes via thing theory also expands the research in literary studies,

introducing a new theme to study authors and their works collectively.

BonBons in Abundance

Like Little Women, the bonbons assert their thingness in several scenes in Kate Chopin’s

The Awakening, beginning with the delivery of a box of friandises from Mrs. Pontellier’s

husband and ending with the realization that Mrs. Pontellier does not eat the bonbons occurring

in an unusual non-traditional narrative placement for food. The bonbons’ arrival occurs in a

semi-public place, at the Pontellier’s front porch, where Mrs. Pontellier and two other individuals

are sitting. While Chopin describes the process of someone choosing and consuming the

bonbons, there is no description of Mrs. Pontellier’s selecting or eating the bonbons. The

combination of unconsumed bonbons by Mrs. Pontellier and their unusual narrative placement

identify the bonbons as food things exposing conflicting social engagements.

The Awakening is set in Grand Isle, near New Orleans on the Louisiana Gulf coast,

towards the end of the nineteenth century. The contemporary novel was published in 1899 and

explores personal self-discovery through the relationships between Mrs. Pontellier and her

husband, her friend Adele, and her suitor, Robert. The Pontellier family is vacationing with Edna

Pontellier and her children residing on the island. At the same time, Mr. Pontellier is absent

frequently because he is a doctor who ferries back to New Orleans for work. The story centers on

Mrs. Pontellier’s character, specifically her unorthodox behaviors and views regarding

motherhood and femininity, which are contrary to traditional social expectations of the late

nineteenth-century American South. The scene with the friandises, or bonbons, marks the

beginning of Mrs. Pontellier’s catalyst for self-discovery, which starts as passive subterfuges

between a wife and her husband.

Chopin sets the scene with Madame Ratignolle seated in the rocker, Robert sitting on the

porch steps, and Mrs. Pontellier sitting on the “upper step, leaning listlessly against the post”

(Chopin 52). The porch is a semi-public space because it is on private property but accessible to

the public, such as visitors and guests, and viewable from the street. Additionally, Mr. Pontellier

mails the bonbons, and the postal service delivers the treats. The bonbons appear in public and

semi-public through transport and delivery. Their public delivery and appearance on the

Pontellier’s front porch are also viewable from the street and accessible to neighbors’ eyes. The

gifting of the bonbons is not a private gesture, but a public one that utilizes public services in

public spaces allowing everyone in the community to see the type of package that arrives.

Historical evidence indicates that the boxes used to package and deliver bonbons were readily

identifiable (Woloson 53). Thus, the bonbons appear in an unusual non-traditional narrative

placement for food.

The thingness of the bonbons extends when Chopin intentionally does not show Mrs.

Pontellier consuming the bonbons; instead, she willingly gives them away. On several occasions,

Chopin explains that Mrs. Pontellier chooses to be “very generous with the contents of such a

box” of bonbons (50). However, there is no indication through several chapters that Mrs.

Pontellier takes even a nibble of the bonbons. The bonbons are either “passed around” to the

ladies of Grand Isle or the children accept “what she chose to give them” (Chopin 50 & 52).

Chopin describes the interaction with the bonbons with Mrs. Pontellier on the porch, who offers

them to Madam Ratignolle: “Besides her was a box of bonbons, which she held out at intervals

to Madam Ratignolle” (52). Madam Ratignolle deliberates her choices and finally decides “upon

a stick of nougat” (Chopin 52), while Mrs. Pontellier eats none. Since the bonbons are food

things, further analysis is necessary for interpretation. A close reading proves necessary because

attention to what is not described is often as significant as what is described when analyzing the

food thing. A close reading of the bonbons begins in The Awakening, Chapter IIV:

[…]

A few days later a box arrived from Mr. Pontellier from New Orleans. It

was from her husband. It was filled with friandises, with luscious and toothsome

bits—the finest of fruits, pates, a rare bottle or two, delicious syrups, and bonbons

in abundance.

Mrs. Pontellier was always very generous with the contents of such a box;

she was quite used to receiving them when away from home. The pates and fruit

were brought to the dining-room; the bonbons passed around. And the ladies,

selecting with dainty and discriminating fingers, all declared that Mr. Pontellier

was the best husband in the world, Mrs. Pontellier was forced to admit that she

knew of none better. IV

[…]

In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman. The mother-women

seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering

about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary,

threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children,

worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as

individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.

Many of them were delicious in the role; one of them was the embodiment

of every womanly grace and charm. If her husband did not adore her, he was a

brute, deserving of death by slow torture. Her name was Adele Ratignolle…

Madame Ratignolle was very fond of Mrs. Pontellier, and often she took

her sewing and went over to sit with her in the afternoons. She was sitting there

the afternoon of the day the box arrived from New Orleans. She had possession of

the rocker, and she was busily engaged in sewing upon a diminutive pair of night-

drawers…

Robert was there, seated as he had been the Sunday before, and Mrs.

Pontellier also occupied her former position on the upper step, leaning listlessly

against the post. Beside her was a box of bonbons, which she held out at intervals

to Madame Ratignolle.

That lady seemed at a loss to make a selection, but finally settled upon a

stick of nougat, wondering if it were not too rich; whether it could possibly hurt

her.

[…] V

They formed a congenial group sitting there that summer afternoon—

Madame Ratignolle sewing away, often stopping to relate a story or incident with

much expressive gesture of her perfect hands; Robert and Mrs. Pontellier sitting

idle, exchanging occasional words, glances or smiles which indicated a certain

advanced state of intimacy and camaraderie…

The youngsters came tumbling up the steps, the quadroon following at the

respectful distance which they required her to observe. Mrs. Pontellier made them

carry her paints and things in the house. She sought to detain them for a little talk

and some pleasantry. But they were greatly in earnest. They had only come to

investigate the contents of the bonbon box. They accepted without murmuring

what she chose to give them, each holding out two chubby hands scoop-like, in

the vain hope that they might be filled; and then away they went. (Chopin 50-55)

Chopin introduces the bonbons as uniquely ‘other’ with the delivery of the friandises,

which Chopin establishes is French because it is italicized and draws attention between the food

object and the characters. The friandises contain “the finest fruits, pates, a rare bottle or two,

delicious syrups, and bonbons in abundance” and arrive following an episode of marital discord

(50). Mr. Pontellier attempts to apologize through a social transaction, such as ‘buying’ his

wife’s forgiveness or affection with the bonbons. Moreover, Chopin establishes that Mr.

Pontellier has a habit of gifting bonbons, and his wife is “quite used to receiving them” (50).

Before Mr. Pontellier gifts the bonbons, he “reproached his wife with her inattention, her

habitual neglect of the children” (Chopin 48). Chopin describes the following morning when Mr.

Pontellier leaves for New Orleans, and he “has regained his composure” and decides to send the

box of treats to his wife (Chopin 49). An in-depth reading of the scene reveals that Mr. Pontellier

knew Mrs. Pontellier was upset by his remarks, since she did not return to bed after he made

them, resulting in Mr. Pontellier’s attempt to assert his affection through social food transactions.

The need for Mr. Pontellier to buy affection or forgiveness occurs with some regularity—

so much so that Chopin writes Mrs. Pontellier is rather nonchalant about the arrival of the

sweets, simply saying, “A few days later a box arrived” (Chopin 50). However, from a late

nineteenth-century regional perspective, the ‘box’ is integral to the bonbon’s identity. Historians

identify the ‘box’ as a container imported from Germany and France because “the United States

lacked the artisanal structure to support the manufacture in quantity of such fine handmade

goods” (Woloson 53). Like the box, the bonbons were imported or created in New Orleans

confectionaries and shipped in specialized boxes to identify the contents. As a result, the type of

box and its contents are readily identifiable by everyone who saw it—from the delivery persons

to the neighbors witnessing the delivery, as well as any visitors when the recipient accepts the

box. Thus, the delivery of the bonbons is not only a desire to communicate the affection of a

husband to his wife by gifting sweets or a husband buying his wife’s forgiveness; it is also a

socially demonstrative act witnessed by the community.

However, rather than accept the public transaction of affection offered by her husband,

Mrs. Pontellier parlays the bonbons’ social currency by distributing the bonbons to the ladies of

Grand Isle, who are “mother-women” (Chopin 52). Throughout the novel, Chopin uses this

combination of words several times to describe the ideal Southern lady’s role within the

nineteenth-century Creole community. These mother-women “idolized their children” and

“worshiped their husbands” (Chopin 50). Chopin further states that the mother-women are

“delicious in the role” (Chopin 50). The specific use of the word “delicious” is interesting

because it connects the women’s role through several layers of meaning. Delicious means being

highly pleasant to taste, yet taste refers to several attributes. Taste generally refers to the

sensation of flavor, but it also means the ability to discern quality and standards. When Chopin

states that the ladies of Grand Isle are “delicious” in their roles as mother-women, she implies

that they conform to specific standards of feminine expectations and recognize the same

characteristics in others. However, Chopin describes Mrs. Pontellier as “not a mother-woman”

because she does not express a nineteenth-century wifely personality for a woman of her race

and class, nor particular maternal affection for her sons—a fact recognized by her husband.

Mrs. Pontellier is buying her social acceptance with the bonbons despite not being a

mother-woman. Chopin describes the ladies of Grand Isle’s actions, “selecting with dainty and

discriminating finger” (50). Chopin implies that the discriminatory nature of the ladies extends

beyond their selection of bonbons to the peers allowed into their social circle. By consuming the

bonbons, the ladies accept Mrs. Pontellier in their social group despite her lack of social norms

and their “discriminating” taste. As the discriminating ladies selected their bonbons, they “all

declared that Mr. Pontellier was the best husband in the world,” emphasizing their role as

mother-women who worship their husbands (Chopin 50). In response, Mrs. Pontellier “was

forced to admit that she knew none better” (Chopin 50). Chopin’s use of the word “forced” is

circumspect because it means to be coerced or without options. Thus, Mrs. Pontellier feels

compelled to agree that there is no better male or husband than her own because of his public

display of affection through the very public delivery of the bonbons. To deny that her husband is

the “best husband” requires Mrs. Pontellier to reveal her unhappiness as a married Southern

Victorian woman and mother, which would negatively impact her place within society. Mrs.

Pontellier uses the bonbons to present a mirage of a generous hostess with a doting husband,

which mirrors the social and cultural standards of white, middle-class Southern Victorian society

while circumventing social intent by not consuming the bonbons herself (Taylor 22).

Primary historical research supports the bonbon’s value as a social currency, especially

regarding ethnic affiliations recorded in history. Dix and Piatti claim that the bonbons, by their

taste, appearance, and importation from France (instead of from the American candy industry),

“embodied memories of French history and geography, offering Creoles relief from degraded

experiences of U.S. modernity” (55). Historical evidence in New Orleans period newspapers also

recorded the ethnic association of bonbons and Creole culture. There are written accounts of

Creoles attending French language drama theaters and acting like French patrons by eating

“bonbons and ices and drinking of light beverages between the acts” (Dix and Piatti 55). Primary

historical evidence suggests the deliberate consumption, purchasing, and/or eating of bonbons by

Creole or French descendants in New Orleans and other Louisiana areas established their “ethnic

affiliation” (Dix and Piatti 55). Chopin’s experience as a cultural observer incentivized her to

write about traditional Creole behaviors and traditions through a local color lens unique to her

specific time and place.

Chopin also witnessed the transactional behaviors of the bonbons among men and

women, which historical evidence supports. Historians and gender studies scholars trace the

consumption of bonbons through gender associations. Jane Dusselier wrote “BonBons, Lemon

Drops, and Oh Henry! Bars: Candy, Consumer Culture, and the Construction of Gender, 1895-

1920,” where she argues that as candy became popular in the United States, eating candy became

closely associated with female gender roles. She states, “As early as 1874, young women from

wealthy families were reported to be the “class of persons that more than others, purchase or

have purchased for them, the most elaborate style of French candies” (Dusselier 17). The

consumption of bonbons was determined to be a feminine activity best suited for women of

means. Dusselier further outlines the history of bonbons in the United States through

advertisements that showcase white middle-class women as indulgent and sometimes even

seductive bonbon consumers (18).

The 1899 Journeymen Bakers’ and Confectioners’ International Union of America

conducted research that determined their consumer audience was predominately female is further

historical evidence. As a result, the union issued an advertising label on the sweet boxes to

encourage men to purchase bonbons for women—advertisements that Chopin would have seen.

The label urged men to buy only candies from their union label, or “the fairer sex… would resent

it as an insult” (Dusselier 17). Furthermore, the advertisement told male consumers that buying

union-labeled bonbons could “open the road to [the] hearts of millions of proud beauties”

(Dusselier 17). The idea that a man could buy affection from a woman by purchasing and gifting

bonbons was well-established during Chopin’s time and reflected Mr. Pontellier’s actions.

Due to the ethnic and gender affiliations supporting the sale and consumption of bonbons

among Creole women, it is unsurprising that Chopin wrote bonbons into The Awakening. Chopin

lived in Louisiana, specifically Cloutierville and Natchitoches, for nearly fifteen years and

observed much about Louisiana’s regional culture, including the food and choice of sweets (Dix

and Piatti 54; Seyersted 58; Taylor 22). Incidentally, Chopin’s awareness of Creole culture began

earlier when she grew up in St. Louis in the 1850s and 1860s. Like New Orleans, St. Louis was

another area with a sizable Creole settlement (Walker 98). Nancy Walker believes that Chopin's

exposure to Creole culture made her descriptions of New Orleans’ Creole behaviors and beliefs a

“reliable one” (98). As a result, Chopin wrote of nineteenth-century Creole society as a cultural

subgroup of Catholics with strong familial ties sharing a common language (French) who were

sometimes in conflict or had little in common with Anglo-American society (Walker 97). Like

other local color writers, Chopin is also accused of nostalgia and romanticizing Creole culture;

however, Walker believes that Chopin faithfully presents the basic characteristics of Creoles and

accurately incorporates the environs and character engagements. Walker’s assessment is

supported by Larzer Ziff, who states:

The community about which she wrote was one in which respectable women took

wine with their dinner and brandy after it, smoked cigarettes, played Chopin

sonatas, and listened to the men tell risqué stories. It was, in short, far more

French than American, and Mrs. Chopin reproduced this world with no specific

intent to shock or make a point. Rather these were for Mrs. Chopin the condition

of civility. (99)

In Chopin’s personal writings, she documents the Creole culture in its urban and rural environs.

Additionally, Chopin’s ability to converse in French with Creole inhabitants allowed for a more

intimate and accurate understanding of South Louisiana society.

Chopin’s first trip to New Orleans occurred after her father’s death. She went with her

mother in 1869, where she “sampled the delights of cosmopolitan place: she dined with Mrs.

Bader, a German singer with whom she spoke French and German, and who sang for her

exquisitely; she drank ale and ate ices, and watched her mother flirt with a “gay, stylish and very

interesting fellow” (Taylor 23-24). Chopin returned to New Orleans for her honeymoon, where

she resided for several months in 1870. Chopin and her husband, Oscar, habitually walked

through the city, and she sometimes walked alone. During this time, Chopin kept a diary, and she

noted that it was an uncommon practice for women to walk through the city unaccompanied

(Taylor 24). While Chopin strolled independently or with her husband through New Orleans, she

wrote down notes and descriptions of the city, the people, the language, and their engagements,

which she used in her fiction.

From Chopin’s diaries and fiction, Taylor concludes that the rural life of Grand Isle was

not separate from the nineteenth-century urban society of New Orleans. Chopin wrote that Grand

Isle was “a locus of leisure for the white Creole community” deeply connected to the commerce

and culture of New Orleans (Taylor 25). Taylor states, “The city intrudes constantly into Grand

Isle life, as working husbands and daily newspapers arrive by boat along with boxes of bonbons

from Vieux Carre shops” (26). There was no stark division between the rural community and the

commercial city because the Creole culture crossed over through regular ferry travel. Chopin

parlays these behaviors and descriptions in her writing.

The historical research and the author’s writing style support the uniqueness of the

bonbons to Chopin’s time and place, building on the sweet’s origins. During the mid-nineteenth

century, candy eating became a part of American culture, and in the following two decades,

French imports, rather than the American candy industry, were the primary sellers of bonbons

(Dusselier 17). American consumers preferred French bonbons because the small confections

originated in France. Bonbons, a repeat of the French word ‘good,’ gained popularity in French

Royal Court during King Louis XIV’s reign, whose favorites were sugar or confection-covered

almonds (“France Today: The Best of France”). The popularity of the bonbons in France was

immediate; by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, bonbons were identified as small bun-

like, chocolate-covered treats. In France, it was tradition for visiting relatives and friends to gift

containers of bonbons very early on New Year’s Day (Hone 26). The traditional French bonbons

also had “mottos,” such as fortunes, included with each bonbon (Hone 26). Nowhere in the

history of bonbons in France were they gifted to a specific gender or used to buy affection or

forgiveness. American advertising and the confectioners' industry shaped the social value of

bonbons in the nineteenth-century United States, uniquely situating the bonbons as material

markers.

Additionally, much of Chopin’s ability to write about the cultures she encountered

stemmed from her upbringing. Unlike Alcott’s father, whose income was unreliable, Kate

Chopin’s father provided a steadily prosperous livelihood. Chopin’s father, Thomas O’Flaherty,

made his fortune in St. Louis equipping those seeking westward opportunities. He made several

profitable investments to achieve a genteel social position (Toth 5). O’Flaherty immigrated to

New York from Galway when Ireland was under British occupation. He sought to escape those

who “worked ruthlessly to keep the native Catholics poor, hungry, and illiterate” (Toth 4). His

experience explains much of O’Flaherty’s aspirations to achieve a strong social standing through

education for himself and his family. As a result, Chopin’s father passed on his drive and desire

for education to his daughter, exposing Kate to society outside of the normal bounds for a

female. Taylor recounts in her article that as a child, Kate was “taken down to the St. Louis levee

by her father and had climbed trees to see across the whole of the city, enjoying sights that more

ladylike and less adventurous girls would never behold” (23). Despite O’Flaherty’s somewhat

traditional values, he still supported Kate’s sense of individuality and willingness to view the

larger world.

Her spirit served her well when upon her husband’s death, Chopin discovered that Oscar

left her in debt, and she became financially responsible for her family (Seyersted 39). Chopin

worked to make the family plantation profitable again while resuming her writing. She used her

solitary treks and notes as inspiration. Like other writers of local color, readers welcomed and

appreciated Chopin’s short stories in the 1890s. Later, with her mother’s financial aid, Chopin

sold the plantation to return to St. Louis. However, her mother died the following year, and

Chopin once again needed an income. She was able to sustain herself and her family by writing

stories set in South Louisiana among Creoles (Seyersted 58; Taylor 28; Toth 10).

Chopin’s personal history, local color, regional writing style, and bonbon’s culinary

history imbed the sweets as artifacts of a specific time and place rather than a literary prop.

Chopin’s choice of bonbons is intentional to demonstrate the historical and cultural connection

of Creole society. Because Chopin was aware of the social value of bonbons presented in

Southern culture, she used the sweets as a material marker in The Awakening to highlight social

power conflict, including 1) between peers and 2) between a husband and wife. The bonbon’s

social role in the late nineteenth-century South changes when Mrs. Pontellier decides not to eat

them. The unconsumed bonbon’s human-object relationship transforms into a subtly passive

resistance against established power dynamics and social perceptions of Southern ladies,

motherhood, and wives. The findings indicate that Chopin uses the bonbons as material markers

to illustrate the social power dynamics between a husband and wife and among Mrs. Pontellier

and her peers, the ladies of Grand Isle. Mrs. Pontellier uses the bonbons among her peers to exert

coercive power, while Mr. Pontellier attempts to display referent power with his wife

(Hallenbeck 202).

The initial reading of the husband’s gifted bonbons is one of coercive power like Mrs.

Pontellier applies to the ladies of Grand Isle as if he is coercing his wife. However, since Mr.

Pontellier’s delivery of the bonbons is to garner affection and acts as an apology to his wife, it is

an example of referent power, which describes when a group or individual has exertive influence

over another individual due to them liking or having some affection for the influencing agent. In

the husband’s case, Mr. Pontellier is attempting to buy his wife’s affection or acceptance of

apology with the bonbons due to an earlier marital discord. Furthermore, he is making his bid for

affection known openly to the community through the public delivery of the bonbons. Mr.

Pontellier’s actions establish that the bonbons are a means of social currency in which a husband

and wife trade affection and forgiveness.

However, Mrs. Pontellier implements a bit of sleight-of-hand with the bonbons by

accepting the public delivery yet not consuming them. To the community around her who

witnesses the delivery, she appears to forgive Mr. Pontellier by accepting the bonbons.

However, Mrs. Pontellier applies subterfuge by accepting the delivery but not eating the

bonbons. Instead, Mrs. Pontellier uses her husband’s very public bribe for affection to apply

coercive power and integrates herself into a group of women who would otherwise exclude her.

Chopin sets up the conflict of the material marker illustrated in the interactions between

the resistive actions of referent power exerted by Mr. Pontellier, and Mrs. Pontellier’s coercive

power towards the ladies of Grand Isle. By refusing to consume the bonbons, Mrs. Pontellier

refuses to accept the bonbon’s role as a message of affection or apology from a husband to a

wife. Thus, Mrs. Pontellier imperceptibly resists the social norms of the time by choosing not to

participate in either her husband’s or peer’s power demonstration. Instead, Mrs. Pontellier

presents the guise of generosity and being a proper Victorian hostess who worships her husband

and his demonstrations of affection while maintaining a façade of Southern womanhood and

motherhood with the ladies of Grand Isle.

Recognizing and understanding Chopin’s bonbons as food things fulfills an element of

the unaddressed food studies and literature landscape. Scholars have viewed the bonbons through

sociopolitical, nutritional, economic, and feminist lenses without noticing the non-traditional

setting or unconsumed nature of bonbons. Many of these scholars noted that for a novel written

by a woman, The Awakening has surprisingly few meal preparation and dinner scenes. However,

the interpretation of the food thing reveals that Mrs. Pontellier participated in quiet resistance to

nineteenth-century expectations. Therefore, it is unsurprising that meal preparations and food

scenes are limited in the novel. That is not to say that no food scenes exist: A few scenes

available for analysis are lavish dinner parties in which descriptions of the tablecloth and flowers

reign rather than food. A scene in Chapter XXX features the drinks of “red wine” and cocktails

in “a tiny glass that looked and sparkled like a garnet gem” (Chopin 143-144). Food also appears

in traditional narrative spaces, such as the kitchen. Early in the novel, Chopin describes Robert

going “himself to the kitchen” and retrieving “a cup of bouillon” and “a flaky cracker or two on

the saucer” for Mrs. Ratignolle (Chopin 65-66). However, most of the analytical focus by other

scholars is on consumption practices, in order to provide feminist interpretations between a

husband and wife or ethnic comparisons between an Anglo woman and Creole women. Some

literary scholars (see, for example, Niewiadomska-Flis, Dix and Piatti) provide additional

analysis of the bonbons through a combination of symbolism and nutritional value, but these lack

a direct connection to cultural studies.

Several scholarly publications broadly analyzing the intent of Chopin’s writing derive

their study from scenes in which characters interact with food, with some specificity to The

Awakening and the bonbons. Literary scholars Lynn Bloom, Sanadra Roy, Misty Hill, and

Urszula Niewiadomska-Flis offer analysis of consumption practices that incorporate gender

studies. Niewiadomska-Flis’s “The Gastrodynamics of Edna Pontellier’s Liberation,” dining

rituals, both preparation and consumption, symbolizing gender roles. Niewiadomska-Flis

examines the traditional food spaces of kitchens and dining rooms as metaphors “for Edna

Pontellier’s search for female selfhood and, in broader perspective, as symbols of the major issue

of her own fiction—gender troubles in the South” (1). Niewiadomska-Flis recognizes the

bonbons’ importance in The Awakening and closely examines Mr. and Mrs. Pontellier’s

engagement with the bonbons.

Much of Niewiadomska-Flis’s, Dix’s and Piatti’s analysis lies in the bonbons’

ingredients, chocolate for Niewiadomska-Flis and sugar for Dix and Piatti. Andrew Dix and

Lorna Piatti’s “‘Bonbons in Abundance’: The Politics of Sweetness in Kate Chopin’s Fiction”

examines the bonbons and claims that the sweets are of cultural significance because of its

ingredient, sugar, substantiated by primary historical sources, such as newspaper accounts of

people eating sweets in the theater and The Creole Cookery Book, in which one hundred of 200

pages feature sugary recipes. Meanwhile, Niewiadomska-Flis draws connections between the

chocolate ingredient and Mr. Pontellier’s message to Edna and the community of Grand Isle

about his ability to provide as a husband.

While Dix and Piatti’s research includes literary studies and symbolism of ingredients,

they also delve into cultural relevance sociopolitical study of Creole culture in America and the

economics of gender roles along with Diane McGee. The results of Dix’s and Piatti’s analysis of

the sugar ingredient results in sociopolitical study of Creole culture in America that argues

sweets, in general, and bonbons, in particular, are objects of class and ethnic privilege. McGee

conducts similar research but does not focus on the ingredients. Instead, much of McGee’s

analysis is on consumption habits relating to gender roles and nineteenth-century expectations.

McGee focuses on the structure of meals to demonstrate “the difficulty of being both an artist

and a wife,” as presented by Chopin and other authors (v). McGee also argues that the bonbons

say more about Léonce Pontellier’s role as patriarch than his wife’s.

However, these academics fail to consider the bonbons’ cultural associations or explore

their role beyond their symbolic literary representations of gender. The remaining literary

academics focus on food consumption and traditional narrative settings within The Awakening,

which does not include the bonbons. However, their articles outline the typical interpretive

approach to Chopin’s work and food studies which includes focusing on food in gendered spaces

that follow narrative logic and the analysis is interpreted through views of traditional gender

roles (see, for example, Bloom “The Dinner Hour” and “Consuming Prose,” Roy, and Hill). The

scenes Hill and Bloom select to support their arguments are within the home and kitchen,

recognizable female-designated spaces, and traditional meal-prepping and servicing areas. Like

Alcott’s researchers, these scholars are more comfortable analyzing consumed foods in

traditional food narrative settings that follow narrative logic. This makes analyzing Chopin’s

bonbons an interesting object to study, affecting a cross-section of disciplines from literature to

society and history.

Thing theory analysis illustrates the subtle applied power dynamics of human-object

engagements with the bonbons between a husband and wife and the social values of women in

the late nineteenth-century Creole culture. Thus, thing theory’s identification of food things

highlights the public delivery and the semi-public porch, which are not gendered spaces, an

established norm for reading and analyzing food in women’s fiction. Thing theory’s analysis of

the bonbons proves that gender analysis is not the sole interpretive measure for the bonbons,

though that is the tendency of researchers.

More accurately, the bonbons illustrate dueling social relationships between individuals

of the same gender as well as between husband and wife—an aspect that social sciences have not

addressed. Interestingly, there is something still relatable about the social actions of the bonbons

even today. Gifting candies remains a tradition of showing affection or apologizing. Accepting

or rejecting sweets retains a similar message today as when The Awakening was published.

Because bonbons are material markers that have social and cultural meaning in the story’s

context, reflecting a real place and time, they are valid historical objects and accessible sources

of historical and cultural information. The bonbons are artifacts that supply evidence of

sociohistorical actions, revealing a deeper understanding of a woman’s worth and personal

identity that differs from the traditional ‘mother-wife’ ideals.

Finally, food things introduce literary scholars to a new thematic approach for collecting

authors not typically studied together. Early critics often regarded Chopin as a regional writer of

local color, reducing her writing to nostalgic or rose-tinted views of places and times (Pryse 67;

Taylor 21; Walker 95). Later scholars debated the writing style, arguing that The Awakening is

an example of early feminist writing due to the main character’s dismissal of social norms (Pryse

83). Meanwhile, Nancy Walker counters in her article “Feminist or Naturalist: The Social

Context of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening” that Chopin’s writing is not a feminist story but a

Creole story from a Puritan’s perspective. Others believe that Chopin is a naturalist writer

because she presents naturalist themes in her character Edna Pontellier. Mrs. Pontellier is a fated

individual whose “lack of command over her own feelings and actions” guides the story (Walker

103). Despite the arguments about the style and genre of Chopin’s The Awakening, there is a

definite lack of similarity between her novel and Alcott’s, except for their sentience of social

power dynamics unified through their presentation of food things in their fiction.

A Teacup Full of Dried Mushrooms

Willa Cather writes about Mrs. Shimerda gifting a small sack of dried mushrooms to Mrs.

Burden, which culminates with the intentional destruction of the mushrooms when Mrs. Burden

and Jim return home. In the first scene, Cather takes the time to describe where Mrs. Shimerda

originally stored the mushrooms. Rather than having them predictably stored in the kitchen or a

pantry, Mrs. Shimerda stores the mushrooms in a place where people typically keep treasured

objects, a “wooden chest” (Cather 56). The literal treasure chest is a sharp contrast to traditional

pantry storage in a kitchen and indicates the food is distinctive. Additionally, the chest resides in

a semi-private area of the house where guests are received. The semi-private space serves as an

entrance room but is not as well defined as a parlor since the Shimerda family lives in a dugout.

This entrance area is a communal space, private but open to guests and visitors. The combination

of non-traditional food settings and lack of consumption of the mushrooms identify the foods as

broken and asserting themselves within My Ántonia, necessitating further analysis.

My Ántonia is a story that delves into immigrant experiences based on Cather’s years in

the western frontier states. Cather created moving images of the dramatic environment of

Nebraska prairies and highlighted the interactions between European-American citizens and the

immigrant or Native-American families in the area (Stout 8, 10 & 223). Cather’s story, published

in 1918, highlights the contemporary immigration of Czech people to the Great Plains between

1870 and 1915. My Ántonia is told through the character Jim, an orphan boy who moves from

Virginia to Nebraska to live with his grandparents, the Burdens, towards the end of the

nineteenth century. Jim becomes friends with Ántonia, the eldest daughter of a Bohemian

immigrant family, the Shimerdas. Jim is new to the area and, though unfamiliar with farming or

the terrain, he has an advantage because he speaks English and understands the culture. The

Shimerdas are from Bohemia and do not speak the language of most of the Nebraskan settlers.

Jim and Ántonia initially bond over her desire to learn English. However, the Shimerda family

experiences great difficulty as immigrants and especially upon the suicide of Mr. Shimerda.

Food becomes an issue at a crucial phase of the story because the winter season is in full effect,

and the immigrant family does not possess a proper house nor enough food. The Burdens, Jim

and his grandmother visit the Shimerda family and bring a food basket. Mrs. Shimerda initially

despairs but becomes grateful for the Burden’s gift. In return, Mrs. Shimerda gifts Mrs. Burden a

teacup full of dried mushrooms.

The dried mushrooms are food things because they are destroyed by stove fire rather than

eaten and appear in a non-traditional food setting. Like many immigrant novels, there is no

shortage of typical kitchen and dining table descriptions with food in My Ántonia. In one scene,

Jim joins the Shimerda family for dinner at their “oilcloth-covered table,” where he is served

“meal mush out of an iron pot” with milk poured on it, “fresh bread and sorghum molasses, and

coffee with the cake” (Cather 90). These food placements at the dining table follow a clear

narrative logic and incorporate furniture and tools conventionally associated with food.

Additionally, Cather does not solely focus on the Shimerda family’s Bohemian food and meals.

She also includes native Nebraskan meal scenes, such as the kitchen breakfasts in the Burden

household and food cooking in Mrs. Harling’s home. In one scene, Cather describes Ántonia

“beating up one of Charley’s favorite cakes in her big mixing-bowl” while Jim rolls “popcorn

balls with syrup” (116). Understandably, scholars focus on food scenes such as these because

they follow narrative logic and overlook the dried mushrooms stored away from the pantry.

Although, it is an object asserting itself because Mrs. Burden does not eat the mushrooms and

does not recognize the magnitude of the gift, which means the mushrooms remain broken. Thus

the dried mushrooms are food things subject to further analysis and interpretation.

A close reading of Cather’s dried mushroom scene reveals that the food is a gift, and its

rejection alters its social value. Through dialogue and actions, Cather introduces the mysterious

dried mushrooms as a precious and misunderstood offering. Though Cather does not reveal that

the objects are dried mushrooms until the end of the scene, the dialogue and actions that the

author describes support the food thing analysis. A close reading of the mushrooms begins in My

Ántonia, “X”:

When I went downstairs in the morning, I found grandmother and Jake packing a

hamper basket in the kitchen.

“Now, Jake,” grandmother was saying, “if you can find that old rooster

that got his comb froze, just give his neck a twist, and we’ll take him along.

There’s no good reason why Mrs. Shimerda couldn’t have got hens from her

neighbors last fall and had a henhouse going by now. I reckon she was confused

and didn’t know where to begin. I’ve come strange to a new country myself, but I

never forgot hens are a good thing to have, no matter what you don’t have.”

“Just as you say, mam,” said Jake, “but I hate to think Krajiek getting a leg

off that old rooster.” He tramped out through the long cellar and dropped the

heavy door behind him.

After breakfast grandmother and Jake and I bundled ourselves up and

climbed into the cold front wagon-seat. As we approached the Shimerdas’ we

heard the frosty whine of the pump and saw Ántonia, her head tied up and her

cotton dress blown about her, throwing all her weight on the pump-handle as it

went up and down. She heard our wagon, looked back over her shoulder, and

catching up her pail of water, started at a run for the hole in the bank.

Jake helped grandmother to the ground, saying he would bring the

provisions after he had blanketed his horses. We went slowly up the icy path

toward the door sunk in the drawside. Blue puffs of smoke came from the

stovepipe that stuck out through the grass and snow, but the winds whisked them

roughly away.

Mrs. Shimerda opened the door before we knocked and seized

grandmother’s hand. She did not say “How do!” as usual, but at once began to

cry, talking very fast in her own language, pointing to her feet which were tied up

in rags, and looking about accusingly at everyone.

The old man was sitting on a stump behind the stove, crouching over as if

he were trying to hide from us. Yulka was on the floor at his feet, her kitten in her

lap. She peeped out at me and smiled, but, glancing up at her mother, hid again.

Ántonia was washing pans and dishes in a dark corner. The crazy boy lay under

the only window, stretched on a gunnysack stuffed with straw. As soon as we

entered he threw a grainsack over the crack at the bottom of the door. The air in

the cave was stifling, and it was very dark, too. A lighted lantern, hung over the

stove, threw out a feeble yellow glimmer.

Mrs. Shimerda snatched off the covers of two barrels behind the door, and

made us look into them. In one there were some potatoes that had been frozen and

were rotting, in the other was a little pile of flour. Grandmother murmured

something in embarrassment, but the Bohemian woman laughed scornfully, a kind

of whinny-laugh, and catching up an empty coffee-pot from the shelf, shook it at

us with a look positively vindictive.

Grandmother went on talking in her polite Virginia way, not admitting

their stark need or her own remissness, until Jake arrived with the hamper, as if in

direct answer to Mrs. Shimerda’s reproaches. Then the poor woman broke down.

She dropped on the floor beside her crazy son, hid her face on her knees, and sat

crying bitterly. Grandmother paid no heed to her, but called Ántonia to come and

help empty the basket. Tony left her corner reluctantly. I had never seen her

crushed like this before.

“You not mind my poor mamenka, Mrs. Burden. She is so sad,” she

whispered, as she wiped her wet hands on her skirt and took the things

grandmother handed her.

The crazy boy, seeing the food, began to make soft, gurgling noises and

stroked his stomach. Jake came in again, this time with a sack of potatoes.

Grandmother looked about in perplexity.

“Haven’t you got any sort of cave or cellar outside, Ántonia? This is no

place to keep vegetables. How did your potatoes get frozen?”

“We get from Mr. Bushy, at the post-office,—what he throw out. We got

no potatoes, Mrs. Burden,” Tony admitted mournfully.

[…]

Mrs. Shimerda grew more calm and reasonable before our visit was over,

and, while Ántonia translated, put in a word now and then on her own account.

The woman had a quick ear, and caught up phrases whenever she heard English

spoken. As we rose to go, she opened her wooden chest and brought out a bag

made of bed ticking, about as long as a flower sack and half as wide, stuffed full

of something. At sight of it, the crazy boy began to smack his lips. When Mrs.

Shimerda opened the bag and stirred the contents with her hand, it gave out a

salty, earthy smell, very pungent, even among the other odors of the cave. She

measured a teacup full, tided it up in a bit of sacking, and presented it

ceremoniously to grandmother.

“For cook,” she announced. “Little now; be very much when cook,”

spreading her hands as if to indicate that the pint would swell to a gallon. “Very

good. You no have in this country. All things for eat better in my country.”

“Maybe so, Mrs. Shimerda,” grandmother said drily. “I can’t say but I

prefer our bread to yours, myself.”

Ántonia undertook to explain. “This very good, Mrs. Burden,”—she

clasped her hands as if she could not express how good,—“It make very much

when your cook, like what my mama say. Cook with rabbit, cook with chicken, in

the gravy,—oh, so good!”

[…]

That night, while grandmother was getting supper, we opened the package

Mrs. Shimerda had given her. It was full of little brown chips that looked like the

shavings of some root. They were as light as feathers, and the most noticeable

thing about them was their penetrating, earthy odor. We could not determine

whether they were animal or vegetable.

“They might be dried meat from some queer beast, Jim. They ain’t dried

fish, and they never grew on stalk or vine. I’m afraid of ‘em. Anyhow, I shouldn’t

want to eat anything that had been shut up for months with old clothes and good

pillows.”

She threw the package into the stove, but I bit off a corner of one of the

chips I help in my hand, and chewed it tentatively. I never forgot the strange taste;

though it was many years before I knew that those little brown shavings, which

the Shimerdas had brought so far and treasured so jealously, were dried

mushrooms. They had been gathered, probably, in some deep Bohemian forest….

(Cather 53-58)

The dried mushrooms in the story are a two-fold gift from Mrs. Shimerda to Mrs. Burden.

The gift’s initial purpose is rooted in the Bohemian cultural tradition of giving dried mushrooms

to visitors as a sign of respect (Funda 5-6). The second aspect of the gift-giving is sacrificial,

since the Shimerdas cannot replace the mushrooms because they can no longer go mushroom

hunting in “some deep Bohemian forest,” making them culturally sacred (Cather 58). Mrs.

Shimerda's statement, “You no have in this country,” supports the sacredness of the mushrooms

and the sacrificial act when she admits that the dried mushrooms are not a food they can replace

(Cather 57). Cather takes time to describe Mrs. Shimerda’s actions and the placement of the

dried mushrooms, describing Mrs. Shimerda opening “her wooden chest” whence she “brought

out a bag” of dried mushrooms (Cather 56). Mrs. Shimerda’s storage location illustrates the

sacredness of the mushrooms. Precious is how Cather wants the mushrooms perceived, and her

description continues towards the end of the chapter, “…what the Shimerdas had brought so far

and treasured so jealously, were dried mushrooms” (58). Not only are the mushrooms special,

but they are also desirable for their unique and irreplaceable flavor. Cather describes Ántonia’s

brother “began to smack his lips” at the sight of the mushroom sack (Cather 57). Cather uses the

character’s physical reaction to emphasize the desirability of the mushrooms.

The sacredness of the mushrooms emphasizes Mrs. Shimerda “ceremoniously” offering

the dried mushrooms, something of great value due to their scarcity and an integral part of her

culture, to Mrs. Burden to express Mrs. Shimerda’s appreciation and respect (Cather 57). The act

of ‘ceremoniously’ presenting the mushrooms reinforces the idea that gifting is a social action.

When Mrs. Shimerda recognizes that Mrs. Burden does not understand the dried mushrooms’

value, Mrs. Shimerda attempts to help Mrs. Burden appreciate the value. Mrs. Shimerda specifies

that the mushrooms are for cooking and that though she is only giving a small “teacup” full, the

mushrooms will be “very much when cook” (Cather 57). Cather describes Mrs. Shimerda

stressing the point by “spreading her hands as if to indicate that the pint would swell to a gallon”

(57). With limited English, Mrs. Shimerda is trying to inform Mrs. Burden that Mrs. Shimerda is

not scrimping on her gift. Even though the offering of the mushrooms appears small, it is a gift

of significant value. Ántonia also realizes that Mrs. Burden does not understand the importance

of the mushrooms as a gift and repeats what her mother states with “clasped” hands, “as if she

could not express how good” the mushrooms are (Cather 57). Ántonia’s prayer-like pose is there

to accentuate the importance of the gift. Cather uses the physical posture of the characters to

express a sincerity of intent.

The final scene with the mushrooms proves that the Shimerdas’ assumptions are correct.

Once Mrs. Burden and Jim leave the Shimerdas and return home, they investigate the package of

mushrooms. Cather describes their inability to identify the object, writing that the Burdens

“could not determine whether they were animal or vegetable” or they “might be dried meat from

some queer beast” (58). Mrs. Burden does not recognize the food and does not recognize the

importance of the gift or where the Shimerdas stored the mushrooms. She states, “I shouldn’t

want to eat anything that had been shut up for months with old clothes and goose pillows”

(Cather 58). Mrs. Burden implies that there is a ‘correct’ place to store food, and it is not in a

wooden chest with the bedding. Mrs. Burden fails to recognize the importance of the food’s

placement and that the mushrooms are treasured. As a result of Mrs. Burden’s lack of

understanding regarding the gift and her fear of them, she destroys the mushrooms. She throws

the package in the stove fire and burns them because she is “afraid of ’em” (Cather 58).

Curiously, the dried mushrooms remain unnamed until the end of the relevant chapter, which

helps establish the food’s alienness.

Mrs. Burden’s and Mrs. Shimerda’s interactions with the mushrooms reveal much about

their cultural background in the early twentieth century, which Cather elaborates on in her story.

Historical and food scholars emphasize that mushroom hunting was and continues to be an

integral cultural activity in many areas of Eastern Europe and Asia, which is reflected in the

cultural cuisine of Mrs. Shimerda’s Bohemian traditions (Bertelsen 80; Funda 6; Kalac 2). In

Bohemia, where the fictional Shimerdas originate, hunting for wild mushrooms is a centuries-old

national pastime. Bertelsen describes the “quiet hunt” for mushrooms when “the countryside

pulsates with people ambling about with large baskets slung over their shoulders, seeking jewels

of the forest such as morels and chanterelles” (26). The most revered Czech mushrooms are the

Gypsy Mushroom, which grows alone rather than in a cluster. Some years they are abundant, and

in other years they are relatively scarce, which adds to their desirability. There are reports that

mushroom hunters “jealously guard” the location of their favorite mushroom spots and storage,

which echoes Mrs. Shimerda stowing the mushrooms in her trunk (Funda 6).

Historical evidence supports that mushrooms were so assimilated into Czech customs that

in 1909 Czech mycologists or mushroom scientists established a publicly funded Mushroom

Advice Center in Prague to “hold lectures and help amateurs identify their finds” (Funda 7).

Interestingly, the office is still active and remains publicly funded today. The office supports a

journal that has existed since 1919 and a mushroom society of upward to forty clubs throughout

the country with secret locations and recipes passed down from generation to generation (Funda

7). The custom of hunting and cooking with mushrooms is vital on a national as well as local

level. Traditional Czech cuisines call for mushrooms in their soups and meats (Funda 7). Every

home had sacks of home-dried forest mushrooms, essential to the Czech diet because they are a

reliable food source when meat is scarce, supporting Mrs. Shimerda’s actions (Funda 7).

Mrs. Burden’s reactions to the mushrooms also mirror her American colonial

background. Food historians suggest that prior to the French cultivation in the late seventeenth-

century, Europeans largely avoided regular consumption of the mushrooms for fear of them and

considered them the “devil’s food” (Bertelsen 11). The French philosopher Voltaire once

famously said, “A dish of mushrooms changed the destiny of Europe” (Bertelsen 7). Voltaire

was talking about the death of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, who may have died after

eating the mushroom amanita or "death cap” mushroom. His death led to the War of Austrian

Succession (Bertelsen 7). The early aversion to mushrooms was also a perspective shared by

European colonists in the Americas, despite or because native populations consumed

mushrooms. The European colonial mistrust of foods and people who are ‘other’ is translated by

Cather into Mrs. Burden's actions, reflecting the height of sociopolitical anxieties about mass

immigration that was reaching its peak in the United States between 1913 to 1918 (Tsank 39).

As a result, Cather intentionally includes dried mushrooms in the scene to illustrate the vital

social context connecting the mushrooms' cultural history.

Since Cather spent much of her formative years in the plains of Nebraska, where many

immigrant families settled, her transplantation exposed her to many immigrant traditions and

cuisines. In a 1913 interview with the Philadelphia Record, Cather explained that immigrants

and their distinct ethnic, cultural, and culinary identities were intimate parts of her early

formative years and inspired her fiction. When Cather was eight, her father moved the family

from Shenandoah Valley in Virginia west to Nebraska. Her grandparents moved to Nebraska

around the time she was born, and she considered them the “real pioneers” (Philadelphia

Record). Cather grew up in Nebraska on her grandparent’s “wild enough and bleak enough”

homestead just eighteen miles from Red Cloud (Philadelphia Record).

Cather states in the interview that her memories of Nebraska are so clear because of the

contrast between her former home in Virginia. She says being “jerked away from all these and

thrown out into a country as bare as a piece of sheet iron” also formed her early awareness of the

new country (Philadelphia Record). Cather’s experiences with displacement as a child

contributed to her ability to relate to the immigrant women she befriended. Cather stated in the

interview that she experienced intense homesickness and the desire for her childhood’s fresh

food and “mutton” (Philadelphia Record). Later in the interview, she stated that she had very few

American neighbors, primarily immigrants, and she liked them because they were kind to her.

Cather had a particular affinity for the “old women” because they understood her homesickness,

for they were homesick too (Philadelphia Record).

Cather’s writing stems from her time with the older immigrant women at their farms,

listening to their stories at their “baking or butter making” (Philadelphia Record). While visiting

the immigrant women in their kitchens as they prepared foods, Cather witnessed their culinary

culture and partook in their folklore. One such popular folklore is the story of Babička, the

Grandmother, who traveled Bohemia. One of the stories told by Babička is the origin of the

mushrooms. The folk tale begins with Jesus and Peter visiting a Bohemian village where a

wedding occurs. The wedding attendees invite Jesus and Peter, who agree to attend. Jesus tells

Peter only to eat bread and salt because the village is poor. However, Peter disobeys and takes

some pastries in his pocket when he and Jesus leave the wedding party. Peter trails behind Jesus

as they walk through the forest, eating pastries, but spitting out bites throughout the woods when

he thinks he is about to get caught. However, Jesus catches Peter, and Peter confesses. To give

back the stolen food to the community, Jesus transforms the uneaten morsels of pastries

throughout the woods into mushrooms that return year after year. Thus, the mushrooms were

called “the meat of the poor” (Funda 10). Whether or not Cather heard this particular folklore,

she was generally aware of Czech customs and the cultural importance of the mushrooms (Funda

10). A young Cather would have absorbed stories like these throughout her interactions with her

immigrant neighbors.

Because of Cather’s immigrant themes, I previously viewed My Ántonia as immigrant

fiction and planned to place the analysis of the mushrooms in Chapter 4 with other immigrant

fiction. However, I quickly realized while analyzing the narrative scene of the mushrooms and

the social interactions that the mushrooms do not fit the analysis and interpretation of foods from

immigrant fiction because Cather writes from a different set of experiences from immigrants.

Cather tucked away these early observations about cultural interactions while she grew up and

began her formative educational and professional years. Other experiences also contributed to

her understanding of her world, including her education. Cather worked for the Nebraska State

Journal newspaper while an undergraduate at the University of Lincoln. After graduating, Cather

left for Pittsburgh to work at the Daily Lender. After a short period, she left the newspaper but

remained in Pittsburgh to teach Latin and English at the Pittsburgh High School, where she

focused on writing short stories and novels. These stories led to her becoming McClure

Magazine’s associate editor and moving to New York, where the publication was headquartered

(Philadelphia Record). Like Chopin, Cather was also aware that she was white, middle class, and

a native rather than an immigrant. Thus she was writing from her own observations, which had

the potential for nostalgia and romanticism, like local color writers were prone to and strove to

be honest in her writing (Tsank 39). Cather also never married and continued to support herself

financially through her writings and as an English teacher (Stout 326).

Cather’s mushrooms show clearly that the meanings of food differ in immigrant fiction

written by immigrant authors than in immigrant fiction written from a white American woman’s

perspective. Cather wrote the mushrooms from the standpoint of non-immigrants observing

immigrants. The character, Jim, tells the story and embodies some of Cather’s early experiences.

Jim and Cather experienced unfamiliar territory in their own country and experienced heartache

and homesickness. However, Jim and Cather are American citizens who ‘speak the language.’

While the wilderness is different, the country is still the same. This position for Jim and Cather

allows them to occupy a unique position of observation that recognizes the alienness of the place

and people and sympathizes with the Shimerda family. As a result, Cather writes the unique

duality of the mushrooms between two contrasting women, not as a literary prop but as an object

with ties to a specific place and time.

After writing O Pioneers!, Cather was interviewed by a newspaper, the Philadelphia

Record, in 1913, where she discusses her writing and inspiration. Cather’s response to a question

about American writers and the “trouble with mediocre ones” was “… that the main thing always

was to be honest” (Philadelphia Record). She continues, “So many of the stories that come into

magazines are a combination of the genuine and the fake… I think a writer ought to get into his

copy as he really is, in his everyday clothes. His readers are thrown with him in a personal

relations, just as if they were traveling with him: and if he is not sincere, there is no possibility of

any sort of comradeship” (Philadelphia Record). When discussing her writing, Cather stated, “I

tried to tell the story of the people as truthfully and simply” (Philadelphia Record). During the

interview, Cather expounded on her deeply personal feelings about the immigrant families she

grew up with. Initially, Cather was reluctant to write about them because she feared that she

would romanticize them due to her childhood memories. She explained that she did not want to

write about her Scandinavian neighbors like other publications because she did not see them as

humorous “vaudeville dialect sketches” (Philadelphia Record). Instead, Cather wanted to write

about the “Swedish settler seriously” in all their grit and poorness (Philadelphia Record). As a

result, Cather endeavored to be honest about the people, the setting, and culturally significant

objects, like food.

The dried mushrooms in Cather’s My Ántonia are deeply entrenched in Bohemian

tradition and colonial wariness, which differs from the food’s historical lineage. Early

archaeological evidence shows people using mushrooms for religious and spiritual purposes due

to their hallucinogenic effects. According to a 14th-century, pre-Columbian accordion-folded

record called the Codex Vindobonesis Mexicanus I, religious leaders used hallucinogenic

mushrooms in ceremonies in ancient Central America. Records show that Siberian shamans and

Vikings have consumed the mind-altering fly agaric mushrooms during religious ceremonies

(Bertelsen 93). Roman Catholic priests also have observations and recordings regarding the

consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms by native peoples after the conquest of Mexico in

1519. They documented the visions of the future the natives discussed once the properties of the

mushroom had worn off (Hernandez-Santigo, Martinez-Reyes and Perez-Moreno 25). While

native populations regularly consumed mushrooms for various reasons, European colonial

territories and Western European nations did not incorporate mushrooms into their diet until

France started cultivating mushrooms about 1650 A.D. and selling them to restaurants. As a

result, the French word for fungi and molds is responsible for today’s word, mushroom

(Bertelsen 13). From there, the inclusion of mushrooms in cuisines was reserved exclusively for

haute cuisines supplied to upper-class citizens or restricted to those who could actively hunt for

mushrooms in their region, such as Bohemians (Bertelsen 44). Because the author uniquely

places the mushrooms within the narrative, they are material markers of conflict regarding power

and authority, such as 1) referral power between the women and 2) executive power between

immigrant and non-immigrant viewpoints.

The social power demonstrations revealed by the actions of Mrs. Shimerda and Mrs.

Burden in connection with the dried mushrooms expose the conflicting social powers at play.

The conflict arises around the dried mushrooms because both women have different views

regarding their culture's foods and ‘other’s’ cultural foods. Mrs. Shimerda applies legitimate

power by repaying Mrs. Burden’s gift of supplies with her equitable gift of dried mushrooms.

However, Mrs. Burden’s reaction to the dried mushrooms reflects expert power because she

believes Mrs. Shimerda’s gift has no value based on her standards. The differing views manifest

different social power engagements, which conflict while coexisting.

Mrs. Shimerda gifting the mushrooms is a form of legitimate power rooted in the idea of

reciprocation. In this instance, a person or group does something for an individual, and the

individual feels obligated to return the favor or that something is owed (French Jr. and Raven

255). Since Mrs. Burden arrives at the Shimerda’s residence to gift them a “hamper” of food to

support the immigrant family while they are experiencing hardships due to their immigrant

status, Mrs. Shimerda feels the need to reciprocate (Cather 54). However, the Shimerda family

has nothing of monetary value; otherwise, they would not need Mrs. Burden’s supplies.

Therefore, Mrs. Shimerda gifts Mrs. Burden the dried mushrooms, which are culturally valuable

to the Shimerda family. Though Mrs. Shimerda is reciprocating with only “a teacup full,” the gift

is a sufficient exchange for the hamper because the mushrooms are “very good,” as reinforced by

Mrs. Shimerda and Ántonia (Cather 57). Alcott thoroughly explains that the Shimerda family

consigns prominent cultural value to the mushrooms and that gifting the small portion is an

immensely sacrificial act equal to Mrs. Burden’s gift.

However, Mrs. Burden disagrees from her position of expert power. Expert power occurs

in social structures when a person or group believes they are experts, and others should believe

and obey the experts (French Jr. and Raven 247). Evident of Mrs. Burden’s revealing her expert

power begins with Mrs. Shimerda and her daughter, Ántonia, attempting to help Mrs. Burden

understand that the dried mushrooms are of equal or more value to the food basket Mrs. Burden

is gifting the Shimerdas. Mrs. Shimerda further states, “You no have in this country. All things

for eat better in my country” (Cather 57). With this statement, Cather illustrates Mrs. Shimerda’s

expert power in her declaration that Bohemian food is better than the food in the United States.

However, Mrs. Burden disagrees with Mrs. Shimerda and responds, “I prefer our bread to yours,

myself” (Cather 57). This conversation reveals the moment the food things in the social power

structure change from the social norms of gift-giving to a conflict of opposing expert views.

Mrs. Burden’s statement of preferring her American bread to Mrs. Shimerda’s is Mrs.

Burden’s resistance to Mrs. Shimerda’s expert power. Mrs. Burden feels threatened by Mrs.

Shimerda’s insistence that their food is better, highlighting Mrs. Burden’s fear and refusal to eat

or consume the mushrooms. Further, Mrs. Burden compounds her opposition when she throws

the dried mushrooms “in the stove” and burns them because she is “afraid of ’em” (Cather 58).

Immigrant and food scholars Paxton and Mughan argue that immigrants threaten the existence of

nationalized citizens because immigrants resist adopting “the cultural norms and lifestyle of their

new homeland” and often insist that their ways are better (549). As a result of these fears, Mrs.

Burden does not eat the dried mushrooms and destroys them, leaving the sacrificial gift

unfulfilled. Thus, the social power in which the food is gifted remains incomplete because Mrs.

Burden cannot appreciate the reciprocal gift of food nor Mrs. Shimerda’s opinion of her culture’s

food from her non-immigrant viewpoint. Through the human-object engagements of Mrs.

Shimerda, Mrs. Burden, and the mushrooms, Cather illustrates a ‘culture of fear’ that

nationalized citizens had of immigrants (Chung, Bemak and Ortiz 314; Paxton and Mughan

559).

Mrs. Burden’s actions mirror the historical fear standard in Western European and

America, where mushrooms were “ignored as ‘toadstools’” (Kalac 2). As a result, the dried

mushroom’s role changes from an unappreciated gift to the embodiment of Mrs. Burden’s fear

regarding immigrants. The human-object relationship of the mushrooms, initially established as a

gift by Mrs. Shimerda, an immigrant, to Mrs. Burden, a naturalized citizen, changes when Mrs.

Burden illustrates fear by destroying the gift. Writing from her experiences, Cather exposes the

social role of the mushrooms as a source of conflict between Bohemian immigrants and U.S.

citizens in My Ántonia. Mrs. Shimerda’s gift and Mrs. Burden’s destruction establish a social

conflict of power and authority unique to the material marker of mushrooms, anchoring the food

thing in Cather’s specific place and time.

My interpretation of the dried mushroom from Mrs. Shimerda’s message of gratitude

changes when Mrs. Burden refuses to consume the gift demonstrating that the food is a material

marker providing insight into the human-object engagements of a set place and time. While other

scholars have also analyzed the scene and pointed out that the mushrooms offer insight into

cultural behaviors and relationships between immigrant and natural-born citizens (see, for

example, Dixon, Funda, and Lindeman), none of the scholars considered the importance of the

setting or space in which the mushrooms appear. Mary Dixon and Evelyn Funda have even

focused on the social actions between the characters, such as the refusal to consume the

mushrooms, and discuss how the interaction highlights the social conflict between the two

female characters. All the scholars concentrate on the immigrant experience but do not attend to

specific foods (except for Funda), nor do they notice the narrative setting of the food.

Funda’s “My Ántonia and Czech Mushroom Folklore” provides valuable historical

information about the original publication of the novel and concludes that the mushroom scene

“suggests a subtle tension between the American and Bohemian” without delving deeper into the

intricacies of Mrs. Shimerda and Mrs. Burden’s interactions. Funda also provides a wealth of

research regarding the inclusion of mushrooms in Czech cuisine, the history of mushroom

hunting as a cultural pastime, and relevant folklore, which assists with my earlier analysis of the

food thing. Meanwhile, other scholars (see, for example, Dixon, Irving, and Tsank) engage with

more significant discourse between Cather’s novel and the mushrooms resulting in analysis

through cultural and literary lenses.

Dixon’s “Willa Cather’s Immigrants: An Aesthetics of Food Strategies in Negotiating

Displacement Anxieties” is a cultural study that analyzes Cather’s portrayal of immigrant

experiences through the characters’ relationships with food as they deal with homesickness and

the grief of being separated from their home. The mushrooms exemplify how the immigrant

characters deal with displacement anxieties and “disdain” for their culture and foods (Dixon

231). Dixon concludes that the mushroom scene emphasizes the alienation of the Shimerda

family by Mrs. Burden’s reaction to the gift.

Like Dixon, Stephanie Tsank and Katrina Irving also focus on the characters interactions

and observation without fully recognizing the importance of the social interactions with the

foodstuffs. However, their research combines literary criticism with social science. Tsank’s

article, “The Ideal Observer Meets the Ideal Consumer: Realism, Domestic Science and

Immigrant Foodways in Willa Cather’s My Ántonia (1918),” parallels literary realism with

domestic sciences to illustrate that Cather’s literary construction of Jim as an observer and

narrator benefits the white, middle-class reader who “perpetuates nativist ideologies” (40).

Additionally, Tsank believes that the food scenes in Cather’s story are designed to integrate the

characters with a palatable identity that the readers can understand. Tsank’s approach is similar

to Irving’s in “Displacing Homosexuality: The Use of Ethnicity in Willa Cather’s ‘My Antonia’”

(1990), which analyzes the mushroom scene to highlight a narrative technique rather than

cultural objects.

The identification and analysis of Cather’s mushrooms as food things deviate from the

above food research in several ways, namely that the mushrooms are the singular object of focus

driving the analysis. By using thing theory to identify the food thing, I join Cather’s work to the

writings of Alcott and Chopin, a grouping of novels and authors typically studied separately due

to their publication dates, regional differences, genres, themes, and narrative styles. Despite these

differences, I can group Cather with these authors due to their shared memories and experiences

depicting their food things as material markers of social power dynamics. The appearance of the

mushrooms and the associated human-object engagements presents an ethnographer’s view of

immigrant cultures among native citizens and the subtleties of those relationships, reinforcing

cultural and historical studies. Ultimately, recognizing the mushrooms as food things contributes

to the interdisciplinary studies of food history, literature, and thing theory.

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Closing

This chapter identifies Amy’s limes in Little Women, Mrs. Pontellier’s bonbons in The

Awakening, and Mrs. Shimerda’s mushrooms in My Ántonia as food things based on their non-

traditional settings and unconsumed nature, which characterizes the foods as ‘broken’ and

asserting themselves as material markers rather than props. Even though the authors do not

situate the food things within a traditional narrative setting or consumptive roles, the food things

are embedded in social practices, allowing for human-object interpretation. The interpretation

reveals that these fictional foods are more than props because the author cannot replace the food

with generic objects or other random foods and retain the same meaning. Additionally, the

human-object relationship with the food things has simultaneous coexisting and conflicting

social meanings due to character-food engagements, further identifying them as material

markers.

I initially grouped this chapter’s source fiction because the novels are domestic fiction

featuring females as protagonists. This assumption led me to exclude My Ántonia, since I viewed

the novel more as an immigrant story with Jim as the main narrator. However, the assumption

was incorrect because the material marker of food things reflects the authors’ experiences of

social conflict, specifically from the perspective of a white, educated, breadwinning woman, and

it is this which groups the source fiction. Thus, recognizing the material markers of foods is vital

because it reveals aspects of American culture and presents new avenues for academic studies.

Cultural and literary scholars have not examined the specified food material markers as

culturally significant objects independent of the narratives. Scholars have previously ignored the

pickled limes, bonbons, and dried mushrooms. The lack of research is mainly because food

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things are isolated from traditional interpretive approaches due to the atypical narrative setting

and lack of consumption. The resulting research brings together fiction and authors that are not

typically studied together, such as a children’s book, a feminist work of fiction, and an

immigrant novel, which now have commonality despite their writing styles.

While Chapter 2 covers material markers of power dynamics in female-authored novels

and uses food things to unify literary sources and authorships that are not typically studied

together, the chapter’s focus on female-gendered spaces and food raises questions about male-

gendered areas and food in narrative settings. Chapter 3 proves that food things are not restricted

to a specific gender of writers since it includes male authors. The following chapter further

defines food things’ narrative settings since all the food things in the next chapter appear outside

in nature rather than in civilization's various public and private spaces. The source literature for

the upcoming chapter is Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, Ernest Hemingway’s A

Farewell to Arms, and Stephen Cranes’ “The Open Boat.”

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CHAPTER 3

THE EVERYDAY REALITIES OF FOOD

The unorthodox backdrop of war combined with interrupted food consumption, an

example of slippage, transforms the food’s human-object relationship and highlights a moment

of mortality crisis in men’s war fiction in Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, Earnest

Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, and Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat.” From Chapter 2, it

would be easy to assume that food things only occur in fiction written by women; however, this

chapter extracts the phenomena of food things from male authors with shared warfare

experience, revealing foods as material markers of conflict between two realities of everyday

life: the everyday life at home and the everyday life at war.

In The Naked and the Dead, Mailer writes that Red begins to eat his ration of tinned egg

and ham before he decides to stop and throw away his rations. Thus, consumption is interrupted

by personal choice. In Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, the Tenente and ambulance drivers

begin to eat the macaroni and cheese but are interrupted by an explosion, an outside force. Both

instances show consumption beginning, and then the characters stop eating, leading to

interrupted consumption. The idea of interrupted consumption mirrors an in-between

consumptive existence, representing slippage. The consumption analysis in Crane’s “The Open

Boat” requires further definition because the scene of the Cook’s ham sandwich explores a

different understanding of food and consumption, since the foods are not “portable” objects

within the short story (B. Brown, “Thing Theory” 13). Instead, the ham sandwich arises in the

characters’ dialogue, expanding the definition of consumptive acts and interrupted consumption.

The food things in the selected fiction also reestablish the parameters for non-traditional food

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spaces in men’s fiction by recognizing traditional male food spaces like outdoor kitchens and

expanding the definition of food consumption.

The food things in this chapter appear outside, in nature, rather than within the dichotomy

of public and private spaces in civilization, redefining the traditional and non-traditional food

settings. Recognizing the slippage-of-consumption and experiencing interrupted consumption,

rather than a complete lack of consumption, is necessary to distinguish food things in men’s war

fiction. Despite the fiction of Mailer, Hemingway, and Crane spanning over fifty-eight years of

warfare history, their similar experiences result in uniquely placed food material markers subject

to specific places and times essential for my analysis and interpretation. The resulting research

rectifies the negligence of scholars who overlook food studies in men’s fiction in general and

war fiction in particular.

A Breakfast Ration of Tinned Ham & Eggs

There are numerous scenes in Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead where food

appears regularly in traditional settings, such as the mess hall and campfire cooking. However,

the scene of the soldier Red discarding his rations while on patrol is an unexpected moment of

interrupted consumption that triggers thingness. Red opens and partially consumes a tinned

ration of ham and eggs; he eats the rations cold and isolated from his platoon members. There is

no mention of a campfire, eating utensils, or communal mealtime experience. According to the

parameters established by Katharina Vester, the tinned eggs and ham ration does not appear in a

traditional narrative setting. Thus, the tinned eggs and ham are material markers of conflicting

realities revealing a crisis of mortality awareness.

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The Naked and the Dead takes place on Anopopei, a fictional island based on similar

islands in the South Pacific. Mailer’s novel traces an entire campaign including the American

forces arriving, driving out the Japanese, and the American military advancing in the Philippines.

His story focuses on a single platoon and its soldiers based on his experience and service. The

story begins with the men sitting around as they wait for orders and progress through the

invasion and patrols. Mailer reveals the characters’ personalities and motives through the

stressful experiences of extreme combat conditions. The food thing scene occurs towards the

novel’s end after the men lose several soldiers and their original platoon leader. They experience

extreme and unrealistic pressure from their harsh and cold-blooded platoon leader, Croft, which

leads Red to discard his rations.

The first step to understanding the food thing of the ration of tinned eggs and ham is

identifying the narrative space where the human-object engagement occurs, which differs from

the traditional food spaces established in Chapter 2. Katharina Vester recognizes men's

traditional food spaces as outdoor kitchens and companionship around campfires (66). However,

Red throwing away his rations is a scene in which Mailer depicts the opposite of Vester’s

definition of a men’s outdoor kitchen. There is no description of a heat source or conventional

furniture, tools, or cutlery associated with food—nothing to indicate an outdoor kitchen setting,

not even companionship.

The second characteristic of food things is the lack of consumption. In Chapter 2,

characters throw out, give away, or destroy the food things. A similar action occurs when Red

throws the rations away behind him. However, unlike in the previous chapter, Red partially

consumes the breakfast ration. As Red is eating the contents, his consumption is interrupted by

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an internal force. Red has difficulty swallowing the ration of ham and eggs and cannot finish his

breakfast due to the strength of his emotions. He throws away the partially consumed tinned ham

and eggs along with all the other unopened rations in his pack. This is an act of interrupted

consumption and evidence of consumption slippage. Slippage-of-consumption is significant in

the analysis and interpretation because it identifies the tinned ham and eggs as a food thing

embodying conflicting meanings.

A close reading of the chapter indicates that Mailer brings significant attention to the

contents of a soldier’s meal through characters’ actions and Red’s internal thoughts, revealing

different everyday realities as well as a realization of his mortality. The close reading of the

ration of tinned ham and eggs comes from The Naked and the Dead, “Chapter 13”:

[…]

“All right, men, we’re gonna move out in half an hour, so don’t be fuggin

around.” A chorus of mutterings and grumblings answered him, but he preferred

to single out none of them. He was extracting the last marrows of his will. He was

exhausted himself and his unwashed body itched unbearably.

When they did get over the mountain what could they do? There were

only seven of them left, and Minetta and Wyman would be worthless. He watched

Polack and Red, who munched their food dourly, glaring back at him. But he

forced these considerations away. He would worry about the rest of it once they

had crossed the mountain. Now that was the only important problem.

Red watched him for several minutes afterward, noticing every move with

a dull hatred. He had never loathed any man so much as Croft. As Red picked at

the breakfast ration of tinned ham and eggs, his stomach rebelled. The food was

thick and tasteless; when he chewed there was a balance between his desire to

swallow it and his desire to spit it out. Each lumpful remained heavy and leaden

for an interminable time in his mouth. He threw the can away at last, and sat

staring at his feet. His stomach pulsed emptily, sickeningly.

There were eight rations left: three cheeses, two ham and eggs, and three

beef and pork loafs. He knew he would never eat them; they were merely an

added load in his pack. Aaah, fug this. He took out the ration cartons, slit the tops

of each with his knife and separated the candy and cigarettes from the food tins,

the crackers. He was about to throw the food away when he realized that some of

the men might want it. He thought of asking, but he had an image of passing from

man to man with the cans in his hand, having them jeer at him. Aaah, fug ‘em, he

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decided, it’s none of their goddam business anyway. He threw the food into some

weeds a few feet behind him. For a time he sat there, so enraged that his heart was

beating powerfully, and then he relaxed and began to make up his pack. That’ll be

lighter anyhow, he told himself, and his rage began again. Fug the Army anyhow,

fug the goddam mother-fuggin Army. That stuff ain’t fit for a pig. He was

breathing very quickly once more. Kill and be killed for this lousy goddam food.

So many images blurred in his mind, the mills where they stamped and pressured

and cooked the food that went into the tins, the dull thwopping sound of a bullet

striking a man, even Roth’s shout.

Aaah, fug the whole goddam mess. If they can’t feed a man, then fug’em,

fug’em all. He was trembling so badly he had to sit down and rest.

He had to face the truth. The Army had licked him. He had always gone

along believing that if they pushed him around too much he would do something

when the time came. And now… (Mailer 690-691)

Mailer introduces the ration of tinned ham and eggs as an object of two different realities

through the actions of platoon leader Croft and the soldier, Red. The food scene begins after a

confrontation between the “cold” Croft and two soldiers (Mailer 689). After Croft belittles the

soldiers, Croft tells the remaining platoon members, “All right, men, we’re going to move out in

half an hour. So don’t be fuggin around” (Mailer 690). This example of orders and actions

follows a pattern established by Mailer throughout the novel. Mailer sets up an everyday reality

of military life during combat consisting of a series of orders over the most basic functions.

Those in charge, such as platoon leader Croft, are responsible for establishing and keeping

specific routines that dictate when to stop, go, piss, sleep, and eat. Routines are essential to the

everyday life functions of the front lines.

For this reason, the evening before the soldiers slept, Croft orders one-hour watch during

the night despite the knowledge that “it was virtually impossible there would be any Japanese on

the mountain” (Mailer 683). Croft’s orders contrast with his knowledge that the soldiers need

“extra rest” (Mailer 683), and he recognizes that he is making decisions that are not in the best

interest of his soldiers. However, Croft “felt it more important not to break routine” (Mailer 683).

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Mailer again emphasizes the need for “routine,” which is essential in combat situations because

orders require obedience when instincts rebel against perilous circumstances. Commands and

routines are programmed into the soldiers to the point that resisting orders is “foreign” to them,

and they “shied away from it” (Mailer 687). Croft controls every facet of everyday life in combat

and provides an illusion of normalcy in an otherwise chaotic and uncertain setting. Croft orders

them to eat and get ready as the men on patrol wake from sleep. He watches two soldiers, Polack

and Red, “who munched their food dourly, glaring back at him” (Mailer 690). Red, a soldier,

“picked at the breakfast ration of tinned ham and eggs” while glaring back at Croft (Mailer 690).

Mailer demonstrates that despite Red and Polack’s desire to ignore Croft’s orders, they are still

compelled to obey.

Following the compulsion, Red has trouble eating his tinned ham and eggs, though he is

hungry for his “stomach pulsed emptily” (Mailer 690). However, his stomach “rebelled” as he

eats (Mailer 690). Mailer implies that Red’s stomach is rejecting the food like he wants to refuse

Croft’s orders. Mailer further describes Red’s feelings about the food: “The food was thick and

tasteless, when he chewed there was a balance between his desire to swallow it and his desire to

spit it out” (690). Mailer’s description of the food is interesting because it emphasizes the lack of

flavor, which is very unappetizing. Later Red reiterates his contempt for the food, stating, “That

the stuff ain’t fit for a pig” (Mailer 691). Following the bland description of the food, Mailer uses

the word “balance” to describe Red’s two conflicting desires, “to swallow” and “to spit it out”—

to consume or not to consume (690). Red feels this conflict while staring at Croft, the man

ordering him to eat when he does not feel like eating. Mailer writes that Red gives into the desire

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not to eat and “threw the can away” (Mailer 690). Ultimately, Red’s breakfast consumption is

interrupted by his inability to eat.

As a result, Red chooses to discard the tinned ham and egg ration. That act leads to him

dumping the remaining rations from his pack. Mailer describes Red mentally counting the

remaining rations, of which there are eight. Red then lists each ration's contents: “three cheeses,

two ham and eggs, and three beef and pork loafs” (Mailer 690). Red itemizes these packages of

food and their weight. Believing that he will “never eat them” and that they are an “added load in

his pack,” Red decides to throw the food away (Mailer 690). Red “threw the food into some

weeds” behind him and hides the act from the other men in the platoon (Mailer 690). Red thinks

about offering the extra rations to his fellow soldiers but chooses not to because he believes they

will “jeer at him” (Mailer 690). If the soldiers were social companions, then Red need not fear

being ‘jeered’ for offering his rations. Instead, Mailer reveals that the soldiers, especially Red,

are not eating breakfast together around a fire. They are sitting alone, socially isolated from each

other. Through Red’s actions, Mailer communicates the disdain Red feels for Croft and the lack

of camaraderie with his fellow soldiers in this scene.

After Red throws away his food, he reflects on his action through internal dialogue about

the rations. Red once again comments on the disgusting nature of the food before stating, “Kill

and be killed for this lousy goddamn food” (Mailer 691). Mailer’s use of the words ‘kill’ and

‘killed’ has more to do with life rather than death. To “kill” for food is to live because the soldier

needs food to survive. To “be killed” for food means the soldier dies, but someone else lives.

This thought about living and dying for food preludes a second, similar statement. Red

ruminates, “So many images blurred in his mind, the mills where they stamped and pressured

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and cooked the food that went in the tins, the dull thwopping sound of a bullet striking a man”

(Mailer 691). Mailer contrasts the life-giving factory production of rations with instant death

through visual and auditory descriptions. Furthermore, Red’s imagining the “mills” reflects a

reality of home. In contrast, the visual of a gunshot mirrors the reality of war.

Mailer connects his personal experiences of home and war through the tinned ham and

eggs and translates them into Red’s thoughts and actions. The association between the U.S. food

and canning industry and the K-ration is not unexpected. Several U.S. food companies produced

the K-ration during World War II (Koehler 107). One such company was The Hills Brothers

Company in New York City, near where Mailer grew up. Additionally, Mailer became intimately

familiar with rations as a reconnaissance patrolman and a cook in the 112th Calvary Regiment

during the Philippines Campaign in 1941 (Foster 8). Mailer was well acquainted with a breakfast

unit of tinned ham and eggs included in K-rations during World War II as detailed in the

Quartermaster Crops Manual’s U.S. Army Support Assault Combat Rations and Supplements.

Additionally, ham and eggs were historically appropriate ingredients, since the combination was

considered a staple of “an old-fashioned American breakfast” (Palmatier 168). Thus, Mailer’s

inclusion of the ration tinned ham and eggs is unique to the story’s particular time and place,

making the food a historical object, not a literary prop.

The history of the food supports this assertion, because the trend of including culturally

appropriate food for a nation’s soldiers began after World War I when soldiers complained about

the limited menu of the food sent to the front. Thus, armies from different countries started to

create tinned rations of culturally specific foods (Zeide 19). The French Army issued canned

foods such as coq au vin, beef bourguignon, and vichyssoise. Meanwhile, the Italian Army

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issued ravioli, spaghetti Bolognese, minestrone, and pasta e fagioli. Prior to the K-Ration, the

United States produced only three types of tinned rations: the Reserve, Trench, and Emergency

or Iron ration.

Initially, I did not expect to identify the rations as foods with cultural context. However,

extensive research on military rations reveals that combat food has a long history. Before World

War I, “garrison rations” were standard among European and colonial nations, consisting of meat

or salted fish, bread or hardtack, and vegetables (Zeide 204). However, food supply logistics

arose, causing the amounts and types of food rationed to vary greatly, with an extensive list of

substitutions to account for supply interruptions. In the early 1800s, tinned food emerged in

Europe. The tin can process of preserving food was developed by Frenchman Philippe de Girard,

who patented his idea in 1810. Donkin Hall and Gamble Company bought the patent and further

developed packaged food into sealed, airtight cans made of tinned wrought iron. The main

buyers of this type of food were the British Army and the Royal Navy (Zeide 203). In 1812,

Robert Ayars established the first American canning factory in New York City. He changed the

canning method, using improved tin-plated wrought-iron cans to preserve oysters, meats, fruits,

and vegetables (Zeide 57).

Wartime periods significantly increased the demand for canned foods; thus, the number

of factories grew. Contemporary canning and food companies, such as Underwood and Heinz,

got their start during the wartime eras (Zeide 159). Many food processing companies were able

to achieve success due to large-scale twentieth-century wars. During World War I, the demand

for canned food increased astronomically as military strategists sought vast quantities of cheap,

high-calorie foods to feed their multitudes of soldiers. These foods had to survive being

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transported safely to war zones, survive trench conditions of poisonous gas warfare, and not spoil

while being transported or stored for extended periods (Zeide 56).

Because Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead is devoted to realism rather than romanticism,

the meal and food scenes within the narrative are available for social interpretation. The

authenticity results from Mailer recording his experiences as a reconnaissance patrolman, which

is the foundation of the novel, recounting a long patrol behind enemy lines. Interestingly, Mailer

began his military career as a typist at a regimental headquarters and later became a wire

lineman. His initial assignment was a result of his educational background. Mailer graduated

from high school in 1939 at sixteen and went to Harvard, earning a BS in aeronautical

engineering. While earning his degree, Mailer wrote regular contributions to the Advocate and

worked on a novel (Foster 8). In 1941, Mailer won his college’s annual fiction contest, and Story

magazine published his work. Shortly after graduation in 1944, the Army drafted Mailer and

posted him in the Philippines as part of the 112th Cavalry (Foster 9). While serving in the

Philippines and later in Japan, Mailer wrote his wife daily letters. These approximately 400

letters of everyday life on the front are the reference records used to write The Naked and the

Dead (McKinley 28).

Using his letters, Mailer exploited his memories to create everyday realistic interactions

between the soldiers and the food or rations, which are significant in understanding the conflict

of the material markers. Additionally, the fact that his experiences are written into the food

supports the argument that substituting the rations with another food type or object would not fit

the narrative intent or the historical time, place, and action. Therefore, the rations are not a

literary prop or foil for Red’s character. Instead, the rations contain their historical development,

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and Mailer, aware of their history, creates a unique human-object engagement between Red and

the rations entrenched between two different everyday realities.

While Mailer’s narrative excerpt does not immediately indicate a wartime setting, Croft

demonstrates some of the realities of war when he issues commands to the men around the most

basic functions of life, such as sleeping and eating. Regimenting basic human functions is used

in the military to reinforce “obedience,” one of the virtues of the military’s regulative ideals and

“often claimed to be one of the most important” (Wolfendale 77). Wolfendale explains,

“Obedience, it is argued, is not only necessary for swift and efficient military action but is also a

character trait that demonstrates trust in one’s superiors and in the legitimacy of military

demands” (77). Military officers and personnel train to cultivate obedience by continuously

implementing orders to prepare for stressful situations in combat, so that when these situations

occur, soldiers will not hesitate to follow commands. Mailer’s description of Croft commanding

his men to eat before they start their patrol and Red feeling compelled to eat even though he does

not want to exemplify the military’s practice of obedience and the realities of war existence.

Red’s obedience to Croft's command to eat is interrupted when Red begins to focus on

the food and his inability to eat. While Red is thinking about the rations, he also begins to think

about the food’s origins, and where they were cooked and packaged. These are thoughts of home

intruding into his everyday wartime existence. Mailer does not write about Red experiencing

homesickness like his other characters periodically experience, because he ran away from his

family and girlfriend and lost contact with them all. Thus, Red is the man who has the fewest

connections to home and is the least likely to experience homesickness or strong affiliations

toward home (Matt 481-482). Yet, in this scene, the food becomes a connection to home.

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Because of Red’s lack of relationships, it should be easy for him to exist in combat

situations without fear or awareness of death. However, immediately following his thoughts

about factory food, Red does think about death. The two thought patterns merge, and Red

compares the industry of factory food to the industry of war—the killing of men. The food’s

design is to keep the soldiers going and provide the nutrients and calories to stay alive—thus, an

industry of life. Yet, the soldiers' continued existence means that other men would die. The

moment Red’s thoughts remind him of home while experiencing combat conditions is the

moment when Red confronts his mortality and decides to throw away the remainder of his

rations. Mailer’s pivotal scene with the food things illustrates a soldier confronting a social crisis

of mortality and conflict between everyday life on the homefront and everyday life on the front

lines.

The analysis and interpretation of Mailer’s rations is the first of its kind, no matter how

deep or broad the search parameters. The rations and other foods in The Naked and the Dead

escape scholarly scrutiny, resulting in a severe lack of research and publications for comparisons.

The void of research mirrors the scarcity of research regarding men, food, and fiction, evident in

the literature review and revealing a considerable hole in academic studies. This is a missed

opportunity because, throughout the novel, there are approximately nineteen different scenes

where the rations appear. The soldiers discuss the taste of the rations, itemize the weight of the

rations they carry, and sometimes remark about the ingredients. For example, the soldier

Dalleson begins to experience cramps and suspects he might get diarrhea. His illness leads him

to think about the “blue K ration” of “tinned cheese” that he will eat to “bind him up” (Mailer

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650). A similar comment about the ‘binding’ nature of the tinned cheese ration from a different

soldier appears earlier in the novel (Mailer 505).

Additionally, meals and mealtimes regularly appear throughout the novel. Before the

platoon sets out, Mailer depicts mess hall scenes or flashback scenes of the soldiers eating at

home. One of the early meal scenes takes place in Chapter 3 and is an excellent study of classism

between the enlisted soldiers and the officers. Mailer describes the “average meal” of the enlisted

men as “pretty bad” (74). Meanwhile, the officers receive “pie or cake, and once there had been a

salad when a crate of tomatoes was purchased from a merchant ship” (Mailer 74). Mailer

explains the difference between the foods offered to the officers versus the enlisted. Officers pay

for their meals out of a food allowance, which makes them “bitter” because they pay for their

food (Mailer 74). Meanwhile, the enlisted men do not have the opportunity nor the funds to

purchase better food. These food scenes are excellent ethnographic sources for historical and

cultural studies overlooked in contemporary food and historical studies.

The most revealing aspect of this research is the gross neglect of food studies in men’s

fiction, suggesting that more scholars need to study food in men’s fiction, especially war fiction.

The majority of articles about The Naked and the Dead focus on Mailer as a writer and debate

his writing style (see, for example, Chelliah, Foster, Lennon, and Sutherland). S. Chelliah, a

literary scholar, explores the novel through social criticism and argues that Mailer uses The

Naked and the Dead to “represent the conflict between mechanistic forces of system and

individual integrity” (123), which mirrors a parallel discussion in the food thing analysis when

viewing the tinned ham and eggs as products of factory production at home and the machinery of

war. While Chelliah recognizes there is social conflict in the story, they delve into the soldiers'

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struggle against the physical conditions of war and the limitations of autonomy as a soldier,

rather than food. They close their paper with the reasoning that the social institutionalization of

war contributes to the loss of human values and identity, which mirrors American society during

that time (Chelliah 126).

Rather than food studies and social or historical studies, the bulk of literary criticism

focuses on defining the novel’s genre (see for example, Foster, Lennon, and Sutherland). Some

scholars view The Naked and the Dead as an example of “creative non-fiction” or New-

Journalism, a genre that uses factual experiences within literary fiction (Lennon 91). Other

scholars argue that the novel is a form of popular fiction, the war novel (Foster 5). Sutherland

differentiates The Naked and the Dead from 1970s war fiction, which suffers from “innumerable

falsifications” (108), whereas war fiction of the 1940s exhibits the “truest reflection” of war and

Mailer, specifically, strove to present a “naturalist” treatment of war and shied away from the

headlines, propaganda, and romantic views of war and combat (108). Foster, Lennon, and

Sutherland’s consensus that The Naked and the Dead is a war or military fiction that accurately

portrays combat supports the research in this dissertation. Yet, Mailer and his work are not

studied together with other war fictions, such as Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms or Crane’s

“The Open Boat.”

The research involving the ration of tinned ham and egg suggests that food things

demonstrate a wealth of information available for inquiry across several disciplines. For instance,

the psychological impact of war interpreted through food things, narrated from a solitary

soldier’s point of view, is significant. Thing theory also legitimizes the author’s experience,

contributing to the development of fiction. As a result, Mailer’s realistic usage and thought

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process about the rations in The Naked and the Dead are historically relevant, contributing to

food studies, history, and literary thought.

Cold Cooked Macaroni & Cheese

Like Mailer’s tinned egg and ham, Ernest Hemingway’s macaroni and cheese appear in a

non-traditional narrative scene in A Farewell to Arms because it does not follow the narrative

logic of men’s food spaces established by Vester. In the crucial scene, the ambulance drivers

take shelter while bombs explode around them as they eat cold macaroni and cheese on the dirt

floor from a single pot without utensils. While the companionship of the men is present, the

scene lacks a food heating source and eating utensils to qualify it as an outdoor kitchen, and there

is no semblance of civilized eating etiquette. Additionally, Tenente and the ambulance drivers

experience interrupted consumption due to an explosion. The analysis and interpretation reveal

that Hemingway introduces the food thing, the macaroni and cheese, into the narrative as an

object of two everyday realities which develops into a material marker of the mortality crisis.

The novel, A Farewell to Arms, is set during the Italian campaign of World War I and

features Frederic Henry, aka the “Tenente” for Lieutenant, an American ambulance driver for the

Italian Army. Hemingway was also an ambulance driver on the Italian front during World War I,

and the novel mirrors some of his wartime experiences. His fictional story centers on the

relationship between Tenente and an English nurse, Catherine, during this time of war.

Catherine, the English nurse, calls Frederic Henry ‘Henry’, while the men in the ambulance

corps call him Tenente. The novel includes descriptive prose of military combat, the morale of

soldiers and non-combatants, as well as Hemingway’s ideas about the essence of ‘men.’ The

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section of the story featuring the food thing revolves around the ambulance drivers, whom

Tenente leads and who are exhausted and hungry.

Much of the food Hemingway writes about in A Farewell to Arms appears in traditional

narrative food settings. Like the food in women’s fiction, Hemingway mentions foods appearing

in private spaces where food traditionally is stored, prepared, and served, such as kitchens,

cellars, and dining rooms. In Chapter 27, Tenente and some fellow ambulance drivers are getting

ready to leave the house they are staying in. Before they go, the men eat “in the kitchen,” where

they sit “around the table” and consume “a basin of spaghetti with onions and tinned meat

chopped up in it” (Hemingway 166). They then fill their “plate with the spaghetti and meat”

(Hemingway 166). Hemingway writes food within a private space that is a traditional setting for

food. In the next chapter Tenente and the ambulance drivers come upon an abandoned

farmhouse. They stop to eat and find a cellar with cheese, wine, and apples—“a good breakfast”

(Hemingway 174). The cellar is another example of traditional storage space for food.

Hemingway is capable of writing food in traditional settings, making the appearance of

macaroni and cheese unique since the setting is non-traditional. The food is cold since there is no

heat source or campfire to warm the food. All food-associated furniture is absent since the men

sit on the floor to eat. Finally, there are limited tools—simply the pot containing the cold

macaroni and the dirty knife used to slice the cheese. There are no utensils, and the men resort to

eating with their fingers. Thus, the food thing’s setting is non-traditional. While the men begin

the consumptive act, eating cold food from a single pot with their fingers, their consumption is

interrupted. As Hemingway’s ambulance drivers start to eat their food, the shell explosion causes

the dugout to collapse on them, killing one of the men and injuring the Tenente. In contrast to

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Red’s internal influence in Mailer’s novel, here the external influence causes the slippage-of-

consumption, which, when combined with the non-traditional setting, lends the macaroni and

cheese to further analysis and interpretation.

A close reading of the unfolding scene exposes a series of actions and conversations

highlighting the macaroni and cheese as an object embodying two realities and inserting an

awareness of mortality. The food thing indicates a need for additional research, beginning with a

close reading which begins from A Farewell to Arms, “Chapter 9”:

[…]

“What about eating, lieutenant? We won’t get a chance to eat after this

thing starts.”

“I’ll go and see now,” I said.

“You want us to stay here or can we look around?”

“Better stay here.”

I went back to the major’s dugout and he said the field kitchen would be

along and the drivers could come and get their stew. He would loan them mess

tins if they did not have them. I said I thought they had them. I went back and told

the drivers I would get them as soon as the food came. Manera said he hoped it

would come before the bombardment started. They were silent until I went out.

They were all mechanics and hated the war.

[…]

It was dark outside and the long light from the search-lights was moving

over the mountains. There were big search-lights on that front mounted on

camions that you passed sometimes on the roads at night, close behind the lines,

the camion stopped a little off the road, and officer directing the light and the

crew scared. We crossed the brickyard, and stopped at the main dressing station.

There was a little shelter of green branches outside over the entrance and in the

dark the night wind rustled the leaves dried by the sun. Inside there was a lights.

The major was at the telephone sitting on a box. One of the medical captains said

the attack had been put forward an hour. He offered me a glass of cognac. I

looked at the board tables, the instruments shining in the light, the basins and the

stoppered bottles. Gordini stood behind me. The major got up from the telephone.

“It starts now,” he said. “It has been put back again.”

I looked outside, it was dark and the Austrian search-lights were moving

on the mountains behind us. It was quiet for a moment still, then from all the guns

behind us the bombardment started.

“Savoia,” said the major.

“About the soup, major,” I said. He did not hear me. I repeated it.

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“It hasn’t come up.”

A big shell came in and burst outside in the brickyard. Another burst and it

the noise you could hear the smaller noise of the brick and dirt raining down.

“What is there to eat?”

“We have a little pasta asciutta,” the major said.

“I’ll take what you can give me.”

The major spoke to an orderly who went out of sight in the back and came

back with a metal basin of cold cooked macaroni. I handed it to Gordini.

“Have you any cheese?”

The major spoke grudgingly to the orderly who ducked back into the hole

again and came out with a quarter of white cheese.

“Thank you very much,” I said.

“You’d better not go out.”

Outside something was set down beside the entrance. One of the two men

who had carried it looked in.

“Bring him in,” said the major. “What’s the matter with you? Do you want

us to come outside and get him?”

The two stretcher-bearers picked up the man under the arms and by the

legs and brought him in.

“Slit the tunic,” the major said.

He held a forceps with some gauze in the end. The two captains took off

their coats. “Get out of here,” the major said to the two stretcher-bearers.

“Come on,” I said to Gordini.

“You better wait until the shelling is over,” the major said over his

shoulder.

“They want to eat,” I said.

“As you wish.”

Outside we ran across the brickyard. A shell burst short near the river

bank. Then there was one that we did not hear coming until the sudden rush. We

both went flat and with the flash and bump of the burst and the smell heard the

singing off of the fragments and the rattle of falling brick. Gordini got up and ran

for the dugout. I was after him, holding the cheese, its smooth surface covered

with brick dust. Inside the dugout were the three drivers sitting against the wall,

smoking.

“Here, you patriots,” I said.

“How are the cars?” Manera asked.

“All right.”

“Did they scare you, Tenente?”

“You’re damned right,” I said.

I took out my knife, opened it, wiped off the blade and pared off the dirty

outside surface of the cheese. Gavuzzi handed me the basin of macaroni.

“Start in to eat, Tenente.”

“No,” I said. “Put it on the floor. We’ll all eat.”

“There are no forks.”

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“What the hell,” I said in English.

I cut the cheese into pieces and laid them on the macaroni.

“Sit down to it,” I said. They sat down and waited. I put thumb and

gingers into the macaroni and lifted. A mass loosened.

“Lift it high, Tenente.”

I lifted it to arm’s length and the strands cleared. I lowered it into the

mouth, sucked and snapped in the ends, and chewed, then took a bite of the

cheese, chewed, and then a drink of wine. It tasted of rusty metal. I handed the

canteen back to Passini.

“It’s rotten,” he said. “It’s been in there too long. I had it in the car.”

They were all eating, holding their chins close over the basin, tipping their

heads back, sucking in the ends. I took another mouthful and some cheese and a

rinse of wine. Something landed outside that shook the earth.

“Four hundred twenty or minnenwerfer,” Gavuzzi said.

“There aren’t any four hundred twenties in the mountains,” I said.

“They have big Skoda guns. I’ve seen the holes.”

“Three hundred fives.”

We went on eating. There was a cough, a noise like a railway engine

starting and then an explosion that shook the earth again.

“This isn’t a deep dugout,” Passini said.

“That was a big trench mortar.”

“Yes, sir.”

I ate the end of my piece of cheese and took a swallow of wine. Through

the other noise I heard a cough, then came the chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh—then there

was a flash, as when a blast-furnace door is swung open, and a roar that started

white and went red and on and on in a rushing wind. I tried to breathe but my

breath would not come and I felt myself rush bodily out of myself and out and out

and out and all the time bodily in the wind. I went out swiftly, all of myself, and I

knew I was dead and that it had all been a mistake to think you just died. Then I

floated, and instead of going on I felt myself slide back. I breathed and I was

back. The ground was torn up and in front of my head there was a splintered beam

of wood. In the jolt of my head I heard somebody crying. I thought somebody was

screaming. I tried to move but I could not move. (Hemingway 41-47)

Hemingway introduces the macaroni and cheese through a series of circumstances and

dialogue that reflects the food object’s dual realities. After a long day on the front, Hemingway’s

character, Tenente, seeks food for himself and his fellow ambulance drivers from his superior,

the major. The initial exchange between Tenente and the major carries an undercurrent of tension

because Tenente is attempting to procure food for his men, and the major is negligent about the

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food. Initially, Tenente asks, “About the soup, major,” and has to repeat himself before being

heard, only to learn that it is not ready (Hemingway 44). Tenente presses forward, asking the

major, “What is there to eat?” and the major responds with, “a little pasta asciutta,” which

translates to dry pasta or pasta without sauce (Hemingway 44). The major is not withholding

food, because he clearly states the soup is not ready yet. However, the major is also not actively

providing food, since he does not tell the Tenente about the pasta until directly asked. Only

when Tenente says, “I’ll take what you can give me,” does the major relent to provide Tenente

with a “metal basin of cold macaroni” (Hemingway 44). Once Tenente receives the pasta, he

asks for a specific ingredient, some cheese. Asking for the cheese proves that Tenente is familiar

with the classic macaroni and cheese meal and a quick reference to life before the war. The

major “grudgingly” provides the cheese (Hemingway 44). The interaction between Tenente and

the major about the food demonstrates the scarcity of food experienced at the front lines of

combat.

Following the food procurement, Hemingway writes his characters exposing themselves

to danger to bring food to the remaining ambulance drivers. After Tenente receives the cold

macaroni and the wheel of cheese, he and another ambulance driver, Gordini, run to the dugout,

where the remaining ambulance corps are waiting for dinner. They run across the courtyard

despite the apparent danger of a "shell burst short near the river bank" (Hemingway 46). At one

point, a shell bursts close by as they run, causing both men to lie flat on the ground. Regardless

of their perilous position, the men retain a firm hold on the food. Once they judge it relatively

safe, both men get up and run for the dugout with the Tenente "holding the cheese, its smooth

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surface covered with brick dust" (Hemingway 46). Hemingway demonstrates their desire and

need for food at any cost, even their lives, through the characters’ actions.

Hemingway continues to cement the distinctiveness of macaroni and cheese through

men’s willingness to expose themselves to danger to procure, retain, and consume it by weaving

in several nuances of war and civility. Once Tenente and Gordini reach the shelter, the soldiers

are unsafe and dwell in dangerous surroundings because the dugout is not very deep. However,

the danger does not discourage the men from eating. The scene outlined by Hemingway is where

war follows a rhythm of normalcy. Tenente acknowledges the dangerous conditions when he

remarks, “…something landed outside [the dugout] and shook the earth,” yet Tenente and the

other men “went on eating” (Hemingway 47). Despite bombs exploding around the ambulance

drivers, they gather around the pot on the floor, hungry and ready to eat. Tenente uses his knife

to cut the cheese “into pieces and laid them on the macaroni,” thus making a cold macaroni and

cheese while he gathers the men (Hemingway 46). He puts the pot on the floor and states, “We’ll

all eat” (Hemingway 46). His statement signals all the men to begin eating.

It is a significant moment because one of the characters recognizes a lack of civility when

he interjects, “There are no forks” (Hemingway 46). The statement indicates that they should not

eat because there are no utensils. Despite the primitive conditions surrounding the corpsmen,

certain ingrained Western everyday life behaviors remain, such as eating with utensils (Mallery

and O.T.M 197-198; Visser 14-17). In response to not having eating utensils, the Tenente “put

thumb and fingers into the macaroni,” “lifted it to arm’s length,” and “lowered it into the mouth,

sucked and snapped the ends, and chewed, then took a bite of cheese, chewed” (Hemingway 46).

According to Western standards, these mannerisms are unclean and reflect ignorance or

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uncivilized behavior of an individual or group (Visser 58). The ambulance drivers, led by

Tenente, relinquish civility and embrace necessity by eating with their hands.

Once one set of table rituals fall to the wayside, such as using utensils to eat their food, so

do others. Returning to the arrival of Tenente and Gordini at the dugout, Tenente prepares the

macaroni and cheese by taking out his knife and “wiped off the blade and pared off the dirty

outside surface of the cheese” (Hemingway 45). The knife is unclean, something the Tenente

carries in his pocket, and not a proper kitchen tool. However, he uses it to prepare the cheese for

consumption. Additionally, the cheese is also unclean, as a result of being carried through a

warzone. The cheese’s “smooth surface covered in brick dust” does not diminish the desirability

of the food to the ambulance drivers (Hemingway 46). The men are hungry, and despite the lack

of civility, consuming food is paramount during wartime.

Before Tenente and the ambulance drivers can satisfy their hunger, the macaroni and

cheese consumption is interrupted by the bomb’s nearby explosion. Hemingway writes, “[T]here

was a flash, as when a blast-furnace door is swung open, and a roar that started white and went

red and on and on in a rushing wind” (Hemingway 47). The trench mortar shell explodes and

forces the Tenente and other men to stop eating, thus interrupting consumption during a ‘normal’

wartime meal. Tenente soon learns that the explosion has taken two ambulance drivers’ lives.

Later, Tenente learns he is being awarded the bronze medal for being “gravely wounded”

(Hemingway 55). The orderly tells Tenente he can get “a silver” medal if he does something

“heroic.” The orderly commands Tenente to describe what happened and how Tenente received

his injuries. Tenente replies, “I was blown up while we were eating cheese” (Hemingway 55).

The macaroni and cheese exist in the dual realities of war and home.

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Like Mailer, Hemingway also connects his experiences of war and home through food.

Much of the plot outlined mirrors the life and experiences of Ernest Hemingway, who was not a

soldier but experienced war when he enlisted as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front during

World War I, much like Tenente. When Hemingway arrived in Kansas City in the fall of 1917,

he signed up with the National Guard, the closest he could get to enlisting. Hemingway’s “poor

eyesight” physically hindered him from serving (Dearborn 53). Hemingway got the idea to

become an ambulance driver from fellow reporters who enlisted with the American Field

Service, and he spent four months driving an ambulance in France. The American Red Cross was

similarly looking for ambulance drivers for the Italian front, and “they were allowed to recruit

only men otherwise ineligible for the armed services” (Dearborn 53). Hemingway and his friend

promptly signed up. During Hemingway's period of service, a mortar explosion injured him,

which Dearborn describes:

Around midnight on the 8th, Ernest was making his way to a listening post

between the trenches and the Austrian line when the shelling began. A trench

mortar sounds, “chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh,” from the Austrian side. As the

Minnenwerfer impacted, Ernest experienced an explosion he later compared to a

furnace door blasting open. When the air cleared, there were sounds of screaming

and machine gunfire. Ernest saw that one of the men beside him was dead, and

another had his legs blown off. Ernest’s legs, bleeding from shrapnel, staggered

hundred-fifty yards to the Red Cross dugout while carrying a badly wounded

soldier. (59)

His wartime experiences became the setting for his novel, A Farewell to Arms, and his

experiences with the people and the food translate into the narrative.

The appearance of macaroni and cheese as a historical object rather than a prop is

significant because several biographies proclaim the macaroni and cheese to be a favored meal of

Hemingway’s. He grew up in the Midwest, which published an astonishing variety of macaroni

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and cheese recipes in the mid-1800s. Hemingway writing the character Tenente asking for

cheese for the macaroni exhibits an awareness of the ingredients and indicates the author’s

familiarity with the dish. The simple dish reveals additional cultural diversities replicating the

different nationalities involved in World War I when the story takes place. A Farewell to Arms

takes place in Italy, where the dish originated.

As a dish, macaroni and cheese has an interesting historical evolution and development

within American culture and history, which both primary sources and Hemingway’s novel

capture well. Historical evidence shows that macaroni and cheese’s earliest recorded recipe is

from southern Italy in the late thirteenth-century. The Liber de coquina, written in Latin by a

person familiar with the Neapolitan court under the reign of Charles II of Anjou (1238-1309),

published a recipe called de lasanis, which some scholars call the first variation of ‘macaroni and

cheese’ (Capatti and Montanari 48-58). It is a pasta and cheese casserole, and instead of elbow

noodles, it was lasagna sheets tossed with grated parmesan cheese. The Liber de coquina is the

oldest medieval cookbook in existence (Capatti and Montanari 144). From Italy, the dish spread

to other European countries and eventually to the United States.

Whether true or apocryphal, several scholars attribute the introduction and popularity of

macaroni and cheese in the United States to Thomas Jefferson. Aside from Italy and England,

macaroni and cheese was widespread in eighteenth-century France. Thomas Jefferson and his

slave and personal chef, James Hemings, partook of macaroni and cheese while visiting Paris

and brought the recipe back to the United States. Hemings’ recipe included instructions for

making the macaroni pasta, “Mouilly a macaroni” (McLaughlin 229). Jefferson enjoyed

macaroni and cheese so much that he commissioned William Short in 1793 to purchase a

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machine to make macaroni pasta (McLaughlin 230). Furthermore, an 1802 account reports that

Jefferson served a “pie called macaroni” at a state dinner attended by the Reverend Manasseh

Cutler, who did not enjoy the dish because it “tasted very strong, not agreeable” (Buice 6).

Another dinner attendee, Mrs. Lewis, informed the Rev. Cutler that it was an “Italian dish”

(Buice 6).

Following Jefferson’s introduction of macaroni and cheese in the United States, more and

more recipes for macaroni and cheese continued to appear throughout history and the country. In

1824, Mary Randolph included a recipe in her cookbook, The Virginia Housewife, which

required the ingredients to be mixed and baked in a hot oven. The editor of the reprint, Karen

Hess, calls Randolph’s cookbook the most influential of the nineteenth century—one in every

“proper Victorian lady’s home” (Randolph 3). Additional recipes for macaroni and cheese

appear in Hand-book of Useful Arts (1852) and Godey’s Lady’s Book (1861). The popularity of

primary sources tracing the widespread meal up to Hemingway’s novel supports the conclusion

that Hemingway was well acquainted with the dish and brings the food full circle from the

United States back to Italy through the actions of Tenente.

As a result, the macaroni and cheese is a material marker embodying the cultural and

physical landscape of A Farewell to Arms. The primary historical sources demonstrate that the

recipe for macaroni and cheese evolved and developed throughout several countries, all

represented in Hemingway’s novel. Tenente is an American; the ambulance corpsmen are

Italian; Catherine’s fiancé, now Tenente’s love interest, was killed in France; and the Italian

army is allied with French soldiers. Hemingway’s choice of macaroni and cheese as a food thing

best represents the cultural depiction within the literary landscape. As a result, the macaroni and

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cheese is not a prop that is replaceable by another food or object that would have the same

meaning.

Additionally, the macaroni and cheese is a material marker embedded in the two narrative

realities: the everyday life at home and the everyday life at war. Hemingway also describes a

unique conflict of needing to obtain and eat the macaroni and cheese despite the danger around

the characters, which ends up mirroring a conflict concerning awareness of mortality. There are

several moments during the procuring and consuming of food in which thoughts or habits of

home insert themselves into war settings. However, those moments are brief and quickly pushed

aside in an effort to focus on the task of eating despite the dangers that surround the men.

Hemingway’s narrative excerpt differs from Mailer’s in that the everyday life of war is

most noticeable in his descriptions of mortar shells launching and exploding around

encampments and the searchlights illuminating enemy territory. Hemingway focused much of his

description on setting, reinforcing the perilous wartime conditions that the soldiers and

ambulance drivers exist. He also writes about the military hierarchy and the relay of orders. For

instance, the ambulance drivers ask the lieutenant about food, who in turn asks the major about

food. The major tells the lieutenant that the stew will be coming soon, and then the ambulance

corps can eat. The lieutenant relays the information to his men. However, when the promised

meal is not provided as expected, Tenente and a companion set out to procure food for the men.

While procuring the meal, Hemingway writes the first reference to home in the war scene

when Tenente asks for the cheese to go with the cold macaroni. Hemingway could have written

any number of other ingredients, such as sauce or meats, to go with the pasta, but chose to have

Tenente ask for cheese, a key component for macaroni and cheese and a strong tie to memories

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of home. The second appearance of home emerges as ingrained mealtime behavior. After

Tenente returns to the dugout with the ambulance drivers and sets the pot down for everyone to

eat, one of the drivers remarks that they do not have forks—the initial implication being that they

cannot eat the food because they do not have the appropriate utensils. Men at war quickly squash

these moments when homelife inserts itself into wartime realities in favor of survival.

An extension of these survival behaviors is the ambulance drivers’ ability to keep eating

as shells explode around them, proving that danger is a regular occurrence and not a reason to

stop. Tenente and the ambulance drivers continue to eat and ignore the “cough, then … the chuh-

chuh-chuh-chuh” that signals a nearby bomb getting ready to explode (Hemingway 47). Though

there are moments when civility arises, such as asking about forks, the ambulance drivers

demonstrate that wartime behaviors are becoming ingrained into their everyday life despite brief

moments when memories of home or civilized manners interrupt. The macaroni and cheese

scene concludes with the men eating despite the threats surrounding them, until an explosion

forces them to stop.

Hemingway uses the interrupted consumption of the macaroni and cheese to present

conflicting realities of the dangerous combat conditions and safe civility that the Tenente can no

longer ignore. The food thing of macaroni and cheese is an intersection of conflict between

everyday situations on the Italian front and the realities of everyday life back home. The

ambulance drivers embrace eating macaroni and cheese without forks, which shows that they

choose to ignore the behaviors of domesticity and instead exist in their current reality on the

Italian front. Tenente, especially, is shown resisting the dangers of his present surroundings on

the Italian front when Tenente and the ambulance drivers continue to eat and ignore the warning

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of a nearby bomb about to explode. Once the trench mortar shell explodes and takes two

ambulance drivers’ lives, however, Tenente can no longer ignore the realities of combat

conditions and the dangerous setting. Thus, macaroni and cheese is a material marker indicating

conflicting realities and the moment of mortality awareness.

While I focus on a specific food, the macaroni and cheese, for analysis, several other

scholars focus on the range of food in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. The availability and

variety of articles about Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, and food stands in sharp contrast to

Mailer’s section, though it still lacks the breadth of research available for the texts discussed in

Chapter 2. Principal scholarship studying the macaroni and cheese argues that the macaroni and

cheese acts more like a prop than a material marker (see, for example, Camastra, Justice, Meyers,

Rashid, and Sloan). Scholars have failed to recognize that food in Hemingway’s literature is an

object embedded with meaning unique to its place and time, rather than a prop as argued by

literary critics. While Hilary Kovar Justice, Jerry Meyers, Akm Aminur Rashid, and Gary Sloan

pinpoint the appearances of macaroni and cheese as scenes to study, they interpret the section

differently and do not include cultural or historical relevance to a designated time and place,

preferring to research foods in Hemingway’s novels through the lens of literary symbolism of

food civilizations and connections to the author’s experience.

Sloan’s article, “‘A Farewell to Arms’” and the Sunday-School Jesus,” focuses on the

scene with Fredric Henry, which Sloan argues reenacts a version of the Lord’s Supper with the

macaroni and cheese (450). Another interpretation of the macaroni and cheese is found in Akm

Aminur Rashid’s article, “When Frederic Henry is Disillusioned about His Identity: Alienation

in A Farewell to Arms: A Critical Analysis,” which explores Fredric Henry’s emotional isolation

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or dissociation from the other characters as a participant in the war (121). Meanwhile, Justice’s

“The Consolation of Critique: Food, Culture, and Civilization in Ernest Hemingway,” makes

arguments relevant to the analysis in the close reading of the macaroni and cheese as food things

studies by viewing the food within Hemingway’s novels through a semeiotical lens

encompassing “gastronomy, agronomy, and hospitality” within the rules and relevance of human

civility (Justice 17). However, Justice’s conclusion suggests that the macaroni and cheese, or any

food within Hemingway’s fiction, could be replaced with a different type of food and retain the

same symbolic meaning. This is an argument mirrored in Meyers’ “Hemingway’s Feast” with

the addition of entrenching the analysis within Hemingway’s experiences (426). These scholars

devote particular attention to food scenes that fall within traditional narrative food spaces. My

concern is the lack of recognition regarding food as artifacts and of a general acknowledgment of

food in men’s fiction, much less war fiction.

With regards to food studies publications and Hemingway, Nicole Camastra’s article “‘I

was made to eat’: Food and Brilliant-Savarin’s Genesiac Sense in A Farewell to Arms,” is

illuminating as a study in the gastronomical subtext of Hemingway’s novel. Camastra focuses on

Frederic Henry’s (Tenente) approach and enjoyment of food via his senses (86). The article is an

excellent example of a physiological exploration of food that borders on literary sensationalism.

Though Camastra researches many different meals and foods, macaroni and cheese is not

analyzed, which is disappointing as I would have liked to read her analysis of the scene.

As Camastra notes, food generally is quite prevalent in A Farewell to Arms. Throughout

the novel, various characters consume cheese, wine, and bread in food storage cellars and

kitchens. Some foods also appear in traditional public food spaces, such as the café in

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Switzerland. Hemingway writes many examples of foods in private and public spaces within

traditional settings that remain largely unexplored by scholars. Hemingway also speaks of

traditional mess meals: “That night in the mess after the spaghetti course, which everyone ate

very quickly and seriously, lifting the spaghetti on the fork until the loose strands hung clear then

lowering it into the mouth, or else using a continuous lift and sucking into the mouth, helping

ourselves to wine from the grass-covered gallon flask” (Hemingway 6).

Like in Mailer’s The Naked and the Death, there is a disparity between the different

soldiers and what they eat. In a conversation between Gino and Tenente, they discuss what

various soldiers eat and do to obtain food. Austrian soldiers planted potatoes in this area of Italy

to prevent starvation. Gino states, “You know when we came here we found fields of potatoes

the Austrians had planted” (Hemingway 160). Learning about the potatoes prompts Tenente to

ask about the scarcity or abundance of food. Gino replies, “The mess is average. The regiments

in the line get pretty good food but those in support don’t get so much” (Hemingway 161). The

food access disparity mirrors Mailer's discussion of food disparity between officers and soldiers,

except Hemingway's distinction is between soldiers and support. Gino notes this inequality:

"Something is wrong somewhere. There should be plenty of food” (Hemingway 161). The

supports are the ones who “have eaten all the Austrians’ potatoes and chestnuts from the woods”

(Hemingway 161). Despite these many food scenes, there is a disconcerting lack of research

regarding food in A Farewell to Arms compared to the abundance of research in the previous

chapter.

Examining the macaroni and cheese through thing theory allows for a more dynamic

interpretation that reinforces traditional food settings in men's fiction, further identifying non-

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traditional spaces. The study of food things in A Farewell to Arms also unites its survey with

those of fellow military or war fiction authors that are not usually studied together because they

are rooted in different periods and embrace different writing styles. The collective analysis of the

food things in war fiction introduces a new element of research to the landscape of food studies,

history, culture, and literary academics.

Thinking about Ham Sandwiches

This last example of a food thing in men's war fiction comes from Stephen Crane’s “The

Open Boat.” It differs from the previous examples in that the ham sandwich expands the

definition of consumption and the thingness of food, because the food is not a tangible object to

the characters. While all the characters exist in a lifeboat setting, without food or water, Cook

continues to engage in aspects of his everyday life as if still safely aboard the main ship or back

home by planning meals, such as ham sandwiches. Crane’s unique placement of the ham

sandwich and distinctive description of interrupted consumption helps characterize the food’s

thingness. Further analysis and interpretation prove that the ham sandwich is a material marker

of conflicting everyday realities.

“The Open Boat” is a short story set in a lifeboat where the men are named based on their

occupations aboard the ship. The four principal characters are Correspondent (who is also the

narrator), Oiler, Cook, and Captain. The story tracks their hours on a small boat after their ship

has sunk as they attempt to make their way to shore and safety. The captain is injured from the

shipwreck and cannot help row the lifeboat to shore. The task is left to Oiler and Correspondent,

who face difficulty because the boat is taking on water. Additional dangers arise from the sharks

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swimming about the boat and the perils of traversing the waves to get to the shore. Each man

eventually swims for the coastline, and Oiler, identified later as Billie, dies on the beach. A topic

of concern within the story is the lack of food and fresh water after thirty hours of being in the

lifeboat. Despite the dire situation shared by Cook and the other occupants of the lifeboat, he

thinks about food, specifically a ham sandwich.

The ham sandwich as a food thing is easy to identify because the story takes place in a

lifeboat, not a foot patrol or a dugout on land. Since the setting of a lifeboat lends itself to a non-

traditional narrative setting of food storage, preparation, or service, it appears that any food

mentioned within the story would automatically be considered a food thing. However, the

thingness of the food is more nuanced in “The Open Boat.” The characters in “The Open Boat”

are not able to set up camp, because they are on the water. There is also no possibility of a heat

source or cooking tools. Thus, the setting epitomizes non-traditional narrative settings in men's

fiction, and it is here where the ham sandwich asserts itself.

During the identification process of food things in this story, the definition of

consumption expands to include food engagement beyond physical consumption to include the

act of talking about food which subjects the ham sandwich to further analysis and interpretation.

Regarding consumption, Crane’s food things differ from the macaroni and cheese and the tinned

ham and eggs, because the ham sandwich appears in the story’s dialogue rather than actual

objects. In the short story, the ham sandwich is not a physical food for conventional

consumption. It is an intangible object within the story, existing in the dialogue between Cook,

Oiler, and Correspondent, which voids the traditional definition of consumption because there is

no conventional act of food preparation nor a possibility of actually eating the ham sandwich.

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Rather than limiting the definition of consumption to eating food, Crane’s ham sandwich

expands the definition to include the act of talking about food. As a result, the characteristics of

interrupted consumption extend to include the act of stopping the discussion of food. Cook

initiates the conversation about food with the ham sandwich while Oiler and Correspondent

prevent him from continuing to talk about the food by interrupting him and ordering him to stop

talking about food.

Through close reading, Crane provides evidence via Cook that the ham sandwich

embodies his knowledge as a cook on a military vessel and memories of home, both examples of

different realities. Though this excerpt is the shortest of the nine examples, Crane demonstrates

conflicting realities and awareness of mortality through simple actions and dialogue. Most

interesting to the analysis is the fact that the ham sandwich is not a tangible object to the

characters. Crane writes the food into existence through dialogue between the characters,

expanding the definition of food consumption and substantiating a need for further historical and

biographical research. A close reading of the ham sandwich begins in “The Open Boat,”

“Chapter VI”:

[…] The cook’s head was on a thwart, and he looked without interest at the

water under his nose. He was deep in other scenes. Finally he spoke. “Billie,” he

murmured, dreamfully, “what kind of pie do you like best?”

“Pie,” said the oiler and the correspondent, agitatedly. “Don’t talk about those

things, blast you!”

“Well,” said the cook, “I was just thinking about ham sandwiches, and—”

(Crane 146-147)

Crane introduces the ham sandwich by separating the cook from his current reality. Cook

asks Oiler, or Billie, “What kind of pie do you like best?” (Crane 146). However, Crane

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describes the Cook asking the question “dreamily” (146). The Cook may not be fully aware of

the direness of his situation in his dream-like state. ‘Dreamily’ also means being preoccupied

with something else. Cook is distracting himself from the uncertain realities of the lifeboat and

focuses on routine matters, such as food. Crane intensifies Cook’s tendency to think about food

when he becomes hungry after thirty hours in the lifeboat. Cook talking about food in this life-

threatening setting aboard a lifeboat creates a sense of normalcy in the situation.

Cook’s dialogue mirrors a matter-of-fact rhythm devoid of tension while the other

characters row seeking a safe harbor after their ship sinks. Because the Cook is hungry, he thinks

about the foods he wants to eat or prepare. He states, “I was just thinking about ham

sandwiches,” and asks the two characters rowing the lifeboat their pie preferences as if he is

mentally planning a menu (Crane 147). Despite the dangerous conditions, the Cook separates

himself from the current reality by thinking like a cook aboard a military ship or even about

cooking at home. However, when Cook asks his question to the other men, both Oiler and

Correspondent tell the Cook, “Don’t talk about those things” (Crane 147), meaning foods, such

as ham sandwiches and pies. Oiler and Correspondent vehemently reject the Cook’s attempt to

discuss food. Cook endeavors to explain his thought about pie and how it started with thinking

about a ham sandwich, but Oiler and Correspondent resolutely cut him off.

Initially, I struggled to link Crane and the ham sandwich until I discovered that New

York baseball games only served ham sandwiches (before being surpassed by the hotdog). The

information prompted me to wonder if there is a connection between Crane and baseball. While

reading several of Crane’s biographies, I found no mention of his love of baseball and the game's

influence on his writing. However, a simple journal article search through academic databases

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led to several articles expounding the role of baseball in Crane’s fiction. According to one

reporter, Crane “lived for baseball” and began playing the sport at eleven when the family moved

to Asbury Park, New Jersey (Burns M3). That first summer, Crane “roamed the seaside resort

playing pickup baseball.” By eighteen, Crane was the captain of a men’s and boys’ team from

Asbury Park that won a 9-0 game against the Atlantic City team. A former teammate of Crane

said the “5-foot-6, 125-pound Crane played baseball “with fiendish glee”” (Burton, “The Author

of 'Red Badge' Loved the Game More than His Studies”). Crane professed a desire to become a

professional baseball player but was directed by his family to “go to college first” (Burns M3).

He was a Syracuse University varsity baseball team member in 1891, and scholars

suggest that his time on the baseball team influenced themes in his first novel, The Red Badge of

Courage. These baseball-related articles also led to the discovery that Crane was involved in a

unique extracurricular club called the Toothpick Club, an eating group. Unfortunately, more

information about the club or Crane’s role in the club is not currently available, but it does

indicate that Crane exhibited an awareness of food, likely including ham sandwiches. Historical

evidence proves that ham sandwiches became so popular in the late nineteenth century that they

were the only food sold in New York baseball parks in 1894 (“Ball Fans Must Eat” XX2). Since

Crane was an avid baseball fan and player connected to ham sandwiches, it is evident that he

wrote from his own experiences of home life and wartime.

Interestingly, scholars have not drawn direct correlations between the ham sandwich and

Crane’s affinity for baseball, yet they recognize that Crane’s experience with the U.S.S.

Commodore contributes to his short story. Plenty of scholars classify “The Open Boat” as a war

story; though some discredit noncombatants from having war experience, others recognize that

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war experience is not exclusive to soldiers. Ian Isherwood wrote Remembering the Great War:

Writing and Publishing the Experiences of World War I and remarks that the knowledge of war

is shared by soldiers and noncombatants alike. Even Samuel Hynes admits that war is a

compound experience and to understand the war experience is to “understand what war is like,

and how it feels, we must turn away from history and its numbers, and seek the reality in the

personal witness of the men who were there” (“Prologue”), not just the soldiers but war

correspondents like Stephen Crane.

Crane was well educated, coming from a Methodist parsonage family, and at fourteen

years old was sent to Pennington Seminary in New Jersey. In the middle of the third year, Crane

transferred to Claverack College and Hudson River Institute. These educational institutions were

semi-military Methodist schools and introduced him to strict orders and routines. Crane

continued his education in college with a year at Lafayette College and soon transferred to

Syracuse University (Cazemajou 7). Jonathan Crane, a well-known journalist, East Coast

correspondent for the New York Sun, the New York Tribune, and the Associated Press in Asbury

Park, and the older brother of Crane, influenced much of Crane’s writing career (Cazemajou 9).

Though Crane is best known for the war fiction The Red Badge of Courage and its “imaginative

reconstruction of a Civil War battle,” the novel precludes any of Crane's real-life experiences

with war (Cazemajou 10). However, the success of serially printed The Red Badge of Courage

led to assignments as a reporter out West and in Mexico. Crane's success as a reporter led him to

accept a commission “to report the insurrection in Cuba against Spanish rule.” It became the

basis of first-hand experience with active military engagement (Cazemajou 10). His experience

began in 1896 when he traveled to Cuba aboard the SS Commodore, which later sank off the

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coast of Florida (Cazemajou 11). Crane drifted with other SS Commodore men for thirty hours in

a dinghy. His experience with the ordeal became the basis for Crane’s short story, "The Open

Boat" (Cazemajou 11).

Though Crane was not a soldier, he was able to write from the perspective of

experiencing war. Jean Cazemajou describes Crane's literary drive as an intentional desire to

keep Crane "in close touch with the life of his country, and he explored slums and battlefields

with unabating eagerness, seeing wars in two brief conflicts in 1897 and 1898" (5). Additionally,

literary scholars classify Crane as a naturalist writer; naturalism is a literary realism genre that

attempts to represent fictional stories truthfully and realistically. Crane wrote his experiences and

thoughts into the story and dialogue, such as Cook’s critical question: “What kind of pie do you

like best?” However, there is no discussion of a specific type of pie. The food Cook mentions

explicitly is the ham sandwich, not a pie.

As the question implies, there are many different types of pies. Primary sources deliver

an extensive history of pies with numerous cultural associations. For instance, the pie is

considered “the most traditional American dessert” and has become such a part of American

culture that the phrase ‘as American as apple pie’ became commonplace (Socha 6). However,

without an exact type of pie mentioned here, cultural associations cannot occur. On the other

hand, the ham sandwich is one of the earliest recorded closed-face sandwiches. In 1850, at least

seventy London street vendors sold ham sandwiches to customers (Atkins 33). In the United

States, the first record of the ham sandwich appeared in Eliza Leslie’s Directions for Cookery

(1837), which listed the ham sandwich as a supper dish (283). Several years later, a variation of

the ham sandwich added cheese for a ham and cheese sandwich. Despite the ham sandwich's

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historical lineage, the specific ties to baseball connect the food’s cultural history to the author,

defining it as a material marker rather than a literary prop.

Though Crane’s material marker of a ham sandwich only exists in conversation, it reveals

much about everyday life and psychology in a military setting during wartime conditions.

Crane’s narrative scene, a lifeboat, automatically introduces elements of stress and conflict

despite the reader not knowing how the men came to be on the lifeboat, only that they are trying

to survive. Meanwhile, the cook daydreams about food, which ties to his profession aboard the

ship. While in the lifeboat, the men are confronted with the possibility of death and actively seek

to disregard thoughts of their mortality.

Crane sets the scene with Cook asking Oiler and Correspondent, “What kind of pie do

you like best?” Rather than answer, Oiler and Correspondent reject the question, stating, “Don’t

talk about those things, blast you!” Cook’s inability to finish his discussion about the pie in

conjunction with Oiler and Correspondent’s rejection of the conversation is a refusal to

participate in food consumption even through dialogue. Much like the conventional interrupted

food consumption in Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms,

the interrupted discussion highlights an important question: Why do Oiler and Correspondent not

want to talk about the pie they like best? I would argue that they do not want to talk about their

favorite pie because it brings back memories of home. For men at war, food is associated with

memories of home. They are memories of everyday life without constant peril in a lifeboat, front

lines, or patrols. At home, daily life is not a state of constant fear or awareness of death (Favret

612). In combat situations, meanwhile, men in conflict become desensitized to recognizing

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possible or imminent death. However, thoughts and memories of home would reawaken them to

the harsh realities of their life (Favret 612).

The interference of memories from home during wartime is significant enough during the

Civil War, a time when Crane first started researching war and its effects, that doctors at the time

recommended soldiers cut back on their correspondences. Certain songs like “Home! Sweet

Home!” were banned because of the associated memories (Matt 483). Civil War doctors

recognized that soldiers yearned for home and determined that the yearning endangered them in

combat situations (Matt 483). As a result, military leaders encouraged the men in these situations

to actively ignore thoughts of home. By disengaging from activities that remind the men of

home, they limited the possibility of acknowledging the uncertainty of their current reality.

When Cook asks about their favorite pie, Oiler and Correspondent have an answer, but they

resist answering because they are resisting their memories of home. They attempt to interrupt the

memories when they tell Cook, “Don’t talk about those things, blast you!” (Crane 147). They are

mentally battling memories of home, choosing instead to think only of the situation in which

they currently reside. Additionally, Oiler and Correspondent interrupt Cook’s consumption of his

food memories as he thinks about a ham sandwich. The ham sandwich is a gateway into Cook’s

memories of everyday life at home, which mirrors Crane’s own experiences.

The Cook’s thoughts and desires for a ham sandwich lead to him engaging his fellow

lifeboat passengers in a discussion about food via his question about favorite pies. Discussing the

foods creates a crisis of awareness because those thoughts acknowledge their future uncertainty

and the possibility of death. The food things mark the moments when aspects of ‘normal’

everyday life from home inserted themselves into the everyday life of war, which marks a

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conflict of memories, behaviors, and values. The scene of Cook’s ham sandwich illustrates an

intersection of contrasting thoughts, behaviors, and routines regarding human-object relations to

the food and the active resistance to acknowledging the perils of war.

Though the food excerpt in Crane’s short story is brief in comparison to other passages in

this dissertation, I am able to disclose substantial analysis and interpretation regarding food as a

material marker. Incidentally, my study and focus on food in Crane’s short story also reveals a

significant absence of academic research that analyzes food in Crane’s fiction, especially in

connection to “The Open Boat.” One crucial publication that does address food in Crane’s fiction

is Stanley Greenfield’s article “The Unmistakable Stephen Crane,” which pinpoints several

different foods. Greenfield’s analysis of “The Open Boat” discusses the story from a survival

perspective. Greenfield states, “Survival, after all, is uppermost in the shipwrecked men’s minds,

and survival at its most elementary level demands not only safety but food and water” (564). He

references food and water as objects necessary to live, echoing earlier discussions about

identifying the ‘function’ of food in terms of thing theory. In Greenfield’s argument, he

correlates that food ‘works’ when it provides nutrients and substance. In response to their

survival, the men in the lifeboat desire food and water, and Cook “dreams of pie and

sandwiches” (Greenfield 564).

However, the statement is not entirely correct, because Cook does not dream of

“sandwiches”; Cook rather thinks about a specific sandwich—a ham sandwich. Greenfield also

interprets Oiler and Correspondent as ‘mocking’ Cook when they tell Cook to stop talking about

food. Greenfield’s reading of the scene differs from mine. Throughout his remaining analysis of

other food scenes in more of Crane’s fiction, Greenfield’s examination of Crane’s food is mainly

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symbolic interpretation. Greenfield’s attention to food in Crane’s fiction exemplifies literary

studies’ approach to foods as props, whereas thing theory’s approach emphasizes the foods as

objects of historical studies.

Utilizing thing theory creates the paradigm for analyzing the food thing of the ham

sandwich, revealing the connection between the author's experiences, the cultural history of the

food, and material meaning as an object of conflict. The conflict is between thoughts of everyday

life at home and the confronting reality of war. Crane writes the ham sandwich as a cultural

marker exhibiting conflict between nostalgic thoughts of home, which equals safety and plenty

of food and water, and the reality of being in a dangerous lifeboat that lacks food and water.

Analyzing the ham sandwich through thing theory expands the interpretation to reveal additional

information contributing to several disciplines—for instance, the psychological impact of war

interpreted through food things within a group setting.

The ham sandwich from “The Open Boat” also expands literary studies for Crane as an

author. The food thing correlates to existing research about baseball and its influences or

appearances in Crane’s writings. Since baseball is an influencing phenomenon in The Red Badge

of Courage and “The Open Boat,” baseball may influence more of Crane’s work (see, for

example, Burns, Burton and Finkel, Gedetsis). The research also exposes the text to further

comparisons with other wartime fiction not typically considered together despite their thematic

similarities. Additionally, the inclusion of “The Open Boat” expands the resources for food

studies as well as gender studies since the above research divulges that food in men’s and war

fiction remains grossly underresearched.

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Closing

Reading the above texts through thing theory helped me identify neglected source

material and allows me to group male authors of war fiction together across several different

writing styles, periods, and perspectives within combat situations, negating the prevailing

assumption that men do not write about food. Additionally, the characteristics of consumed

foods and interrupted consumption furthers the definition of food things with a re-evaluation of

food consumption. All three food things exhibit slippage-of-consumption, traditionally described

as eating and then stopping; however, the third example, Crane’s ham sandwich, explores a

different definition, since the consumptive act involves discussing the food rather than eating it.

The slippage-of-consumption is an essential aspect of the material markers in men’s war

fiction. All three stories feature food things that serve as points of engagement in which home

life briefly injects into the current reality of combat and survival. The cheese and ham ration,

macaroni and cheese, and ham sandwich illustrate the moment of contrasting thoughts,

behaviors, and values between those of everyday life on the home front against the war front.

The different foods enter their respective stories as remnants of a home either in memory,

recipes, or sources and exits as food things highlighting the intersection in which a person

acknowledges the dual possibilities of life and death, home and war.

The food things in this chapter also reinforce prior research regarding traditional narrative

food spaces, which changes from private kitchen spaces within homes to public outdoor kitchen

spaces such as campsites to conform with traditional food narrative spaces in men’s fiction. This

identification is crucial in identifying space slippage in the following chapter. Chapter 4 proves

that food things are not restricted to a specific gender of writers, whether male or female, but are

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based on experiences by authors of both genders. The following chapter further defines food

things through slippage-of-space and consumption. The source literature for the upcoming

chapter includes Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers, Ole Rölvaag’s Giants in the Earth, and Pietro

di Donato’s Christ in Concrete.

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CHAPTER 4

CULTURAL TRADITIONS OF FOOD

Food things are not bound to the lens of gender when examining immigrant fiction

written by first and second-generation immigrants. Instead, the food demonstrates strong cultural

ties to the immigrant author’s heritage and conflicting feelings towards Americanization, as seen

in Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers, Ole Rölvaag’s Giants in the Earth, and Pietro di Donato’s

Christ in Concrete. These fictions exhibit slippage of the narrative setting of foods, which causes

the food things to appear in narrative scenes straddling the line between traditional and non-

traditional food settings within both male and female spaces. Understanding the slippage

between traditional and non-traditional narrative spaces is necessary to distinguish food things in

immigrant fiction.

Each food material marker in the novel repeats the identity conflict between American

and immigrant ideologies, further emphasized by unconsumed foods or interrupted consumption.

In Yezierska’s Bread Givers, Bessie, one of the Smolinsky daughters and a Jewish-Polish

immigrant, has the opportunity on two different occasions to partake of the treat of jelly with tea

but is unable to consume them due to the strength of her feelings regarding the current situations.

In the second example from Rölvaag’s Giants in the Earth, Beret and the children, who are

Norwegian immigrants, begin to consume a stew but quit once Beret learns the stew is made

with badger meat instead of bear meat, making the stew “troll food” (Rölvaag 215). The final

selection, from di Donato’s Christ in Concrete, features Italian immigrant bricklayers, and there

are three times when consumption is interrupted. The first occurs when they give away parts of

their lunch to a young boy who has recently lost his father. The second episode of interrupted

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consumption happens when the boy eats some of the food and then decides to stop eating and

save some food for his family. The third and final moment is when the whistle calls the workers

back on shift and signals the end of the lunch break. My analysis begins by researching the

authors’ experiences and reconciling their cultural traditions with their new country’s

expectations. Although the three immigrant authors’ stories differ in location, characters’

ethnicity and religion, time, and style, the food things in each story are material markers

asserting themselves as objects of an identity crisis.

His Loaf-of-Bread Sandwich in the Hunter’s Style

The hunter-style sandwich, a traditional Italian sandwich, in Pietro di Donato’s Christ in

Concrete is a material marker of conflicting ideologies. Furthermore, Nazone’s hunter-style

sandwich scene is an example of slippage-of-space, in which the setting straddles elements of a

traditional male-gendered space for food but lacks nature’s atmosphere. Additionally, the lunch

scene has several instances in which one or more of the men’s meal consumption is interrupted.

Further analysis and interpretation substantiate that as a result of the hunter-style sandwich

asserting itself in the narrative, the sandwich embodies conflicting engagements and ideologies.

Christ in Concrete is a story about Italian-American construction workers, told from

different character perspectives and written by a second-generation Italian immigrant. The

analysis of the food thing comes within the novel's second section, where a young boy, Paul,

loses his father in a construction accident early in the book. Upon his father’s death, Paul takes

on the mantle of providing for his family, mother, and siblings. Paul tries to appeal to charity

from the church but is unsuccessful. As a result, he decides to take up his father’s vocation as a

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bricklayer. The employers hire Paul but do not pay him sufficiently because the employers see

him only as a young boy. Paul ends up working too hard and becomes ill. Later, Paul finds a

better job as a bricklayer but suffers a loss when his friend and mentor Nazone falls to his death

at a job site. Nazone and the men he works with are the first to accept Paul and teach him the

skill to be a bricklayer and provide for his family. Nazone also shares his hunter-style sandwich

with Paul, which staves off Paul’s hunger.

The sandwich scene opens with the men gathering at a job site and sitting down to eat

their various lunches. As they gather, a bricklayer “carried shavings and split lime barrel staves”

and “elbowed his way into the center of the circle and lit a fire in a mortar tub” (Donato 65).

Furthermore, Nazone, an older bricklayer, “toasted his lunch on barrel wire over the fire”

(Donato 65). In men's fiction, Vester establishes the outdoor campfire in the wilderness as a

traditional narrative space of food. However, here Nazone and the other brick layers gather and

eat in an urban industrial environment in the city surrounded by concrete, brick, and steel.

Another characteristic of Vester’s campfire is the evidence of a heat source, which di Donato

includes. Nazone and the workers attempt to make their outdoor kitchen by lighting a fire in a

“mortar tub” and toasting their lunches “on barrel wire over the fire” (Donato 65). Nazone’s

hunter-style sandwich scene is an example of slippage-of-space because, although the men

gather around a fire to eat their lunch, the outside cooking and eating spaces are not in nature.

Furthermore, di Donato contrasts the immigrant and American eating spaces to highlight

their differences. The Italian immigrants eat their lunch in their urban outdoor kitchen, while the

“American engineers and scientists” eat their lunch “in a shed,” “huddled at a plan table, lunch

half eaten, … pipe and sandwich in hand” (Donato 68). The “American” food setting di Donato

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displays with the engineers eating in a shed at a table fulfills the characteristics of traditional

food spaces. Meanwhile, the immigrant workers utilize a facsimile of an outdoor campfire

kitchen, further emphasizing the disparity of food settings and the assertation of the food thing.

The second characteristic of thingness is either lack of consumption or interrupted

consumption, and the hunter-style sandwich scene is fraught with interrupted consumption. The

first occurs when Nazone sees Paul’s hunger while eating and stops to share part of his

sandwich. Then another bricklayer sees Nazone’s compassion, stops eating, and shares his food.

The same worker then berates his fellow workers into interrupting their consumption and giving

up portions of their food to Paul. The workers also experience interrupted consumption when the

foreman of the job calls an end to lunch early. The combination of slippage-of-space and

slippage-of-consumption requires further investigation to develop the food thing’s meaning.

A close reading of the interactions between Paul, Nazone, and the other men divulges

much about the hybrid setting and series of interrupted consumption that di Donato orchestrates

to illustrate differing cultural expectations. A close reading of the hunter-style sandwich comes

from Christ in Concrete, “Part II Job, Chapter 7” and supports the need for further historical and

biographical research:

Paul recognized some of the faces that were chewing large sandwiches close by a

job. They were faces he had seen at the great street feast of St. Joseph, faces that

had visited the house and drunk muscatel and alicante wine, faces he had seen at

baptisms and weddings, faces he had seen at the Liberty Loan benefit in the

Bricklayers’ Local the time of the War with the Huns, the time they had beer and

sandwiches and prize fights and where his father put him high on his shoulder and

told him to sing America I Raised a Boy for You and The Sunshine of Your Smile

and they threw pennies to him that glorious time he would never forget…. They

were faces that had stood by and attended his father in coffin with severe eyes and

lowered chins.

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He wandered up closer to the men and sat wearily on a pile of two-by-

fours. Mike “Orangepeel-Face” raised his wine bottle to his mouth and while

drinking saw Paul.

“Son of Master Geremio are you?”

“Yes.”

“Come, sit with us, little paesan, come.”

Paul respectfully joined.

“The masculine first-born of the good spirit Geremio is here.”

“How do you call yourself?” asked Salvatore “Four-Eyes.”

“Paul.”

Four-Eyes nodded his head significantly.

“Paul, Paul—ah, Peter and Paul…”

A big handsome man with livid burn-scars across his cheek, Nick “the

Lucy,” reared his head contemptuously, reached his fist over, and rapped Four-

Eyes’ skill with the accompanying yodel: “Pa-poo coo-coo, pa-poo coo-coo!”

Bastian the tongue-tied Calabrian roared through his horse teeth, “by the

Ma-Ma-Madonna, ‘tong-a tititittong-a’ goes his head-box. It would go well in the

grand op-op-opera!”

Four-Eyes stood his five feet up ferociously and cried, “Why do I get my

top knuckled like that? Why do my brains receive this aggravation? Why? why?

why?”

Salvatore cocked his straight eye into the air and muttered savagely, “All

right! All right! It is understood that I’ll have to trowel-ate some people to infinite

bits or I do not call myself Salvatore!”

“Pa-poo coo-coo!” shouted the Lucy, and Salvatore sat down abruptly.

A bricklayer came from the job walking with a comical gait. He had large

flat splay feet, a face of fat red cheeks pressing against a great nose, and eyes and

lips that tried to assume important concern but were tickled otherwise. In his arms

he carried shavings and split lime barrel staves.

“For pleasure, make way!” he commanded.

No one paid attention to him and he elbowed his way into the center of the

circle and lit a fire in a mortar tub.

“Bravo,” said the Lucy. “Nazone is what is called in truth ‘Christian’!”

and he knighted Nazone in the rear with his foot.

Nazone leaped up with a yowl.

“For pleasure, amuse yourself if you are so inclined by nature, but, whore

of the Saints, do not violate the private properties of man … if you please!”

Four-Eyes tickled Nazone behind with a stick and as he jumped around

another man did the same from the opposite side and they kept him jumping and

yowling until he sat down breathing hard.

“Finished is the comedy!” ordered the Lucy. “A workingman has to eat!”

Nazone sat opposite Paul and opened his loaf-of-bread sandwich with a

whole broiler within done in the hunter’s style covered with stewed tomatoes and

hot peppers, the sauce coloring the bread a reddish brown and dripping in its

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abundance. With the rest of the men he toasted his lunch on barrel wire over the

fire. The smell of peppers, chicken, tomatoes, salami, fish, eggs, and thick fresh

Italian bread over the wood flames in the tangy April air pulled Paul’s stomach

and squeezed it into aching. Nazone broke a tender drumstick, and ate it with

dancing eyes. The juice ran down the channel of his chubby dimpled chin. He

scooped it and while sucking his finger he saw Paul.

“To whom belongs the bambino?”

“Tis the firstborn masculine of the departed Geremio…”

“…And son to the widow Annunziata.”

“Such a sad little chippie is he,” said Nazone.

He took the other drumstick and proffered it silently to Paul.

Paul moved forward a bit and then leaned back abashed. But Nazone read

his hunger and came over and seated himself next to Paul.

Paul ate of his chicken, bread and fruit.

How good, God! How good!

The Lucy took note and handed Paul a chunk of dried goat’s milk cheese

and a slice of sweet red onion. Paul thanked him.

The Lucy made a terrible face at Four-Eyes, Hunt-Hunt, Bastian, and the

others and said, “What cock of Christians are you to let this child watch you eat!”

They all then gave to Paul parts of their lunch. Paul gathered them into a

paper bag and put it in his coat. The fat bricklayer with the bulbous nose, loose

thick lips, and missing teeth, whom they called Hunt-Hung, asked, “What do you

here, Paulie?”

How can I tell you?

“Do you go to school?” asked Four-Eyes.

“Yes…but-”

But I can go no more. I must become a bricklayer!

“Who brings food to your home?” asked Nazone.

“…No one…”

“How could there be anyone, when he is the firstborn—and so young?”

said Hunt-Hunt.

“That is why I now no longer can go to school…” said Paul.

[…]

In the shed were the six who comprised the corporation; six bricklayers

banded who took brickwork on contract and laid brick themselves. They were

huddled at the plan table, lunch half-eaten, fingers dirtied with mortar, stubs of

pencil over ear, gesturing, pipe and sandwich in hand, arguing over blueprint

interpretations and figures.

“Look at them!” mocked the Lucy, “American engineers and scientists

extra-orrrdinary.” He shouted to them, “Hey profes-ssors, what do the blueprints

say, ‘Rain’ or ‘Snow’?”

Black Mike came out of the shed and blew the whistle.

The Lucy looked at his watch.

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“Pig of God, he cheats us every time his stinking mouth blows that peanut

whistle!”

Conversation stopped dead. Hurriedly they left Paul. Hastily,

constrainedly, their bodily machines steered to scaffold and wall.

Nazone said fumblingly to Paul, “To work must I now go, Paul, but fear

not, I shall speak to the corporation for you. You shall become a bricklayer.”

The Lucy jammed his remnant pipe in his mouth, pulled his cap down

toward the scarred side of his face and deliberately waited until his watch

registered one o’clock. Before he sauntered to the scaffold he put his hand on

Paul’s head and said, “Son of Geremio, do not apply your hands for bread; better

that you learn to steal, become a priest or policeman. (Donato 63-68)

Di Donato writes the appearance of the hunter-style sandwich through the eyes of a

hungry young boy and exposes cultural influences through the food and the characters' actions.

Paul, who recently lost his father, joins the men at the construction job site during their lunch

break. Paul has no food of his own, so when he smells the “peppers, chicken, tomatoes, salami,

fish, eggs and thick fresh Italian bread over the wood flames,” he experiences the physical pains

of hunger (Donato 65). Most of the men ignore Paul, except for an older Italian worker, Nazone,

who notices that Paul is not eating and asks, “Who brings food to your home?” (Donato 66). Paul

tells him that no one does, that he is the oldest male in his family and needs to work. Nazone

“read his hunger” and “took the other drumstick and proffered it silently to Paul” (Donato 66).

Di Donato’s use of the words ‘read his hunger’ reveals much about the interaction between Paul

and Nazone. Without explicitly stating that Paul exhibits physical signs of starvation and hunger,

di Donato allows a fellow immigrant, Nazone, to ‘read’ Paul’s physical signs of hunger. Thus,

the reader imagines the physical attributes of those signs for Nazone. Di Donato is drawing

attention to the realities of immigrant and second-generation immigrants regarding food and

hunger.

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Nazone then offers Paul some of his food, “chicken, bread, and fruit,” which he eats

reluctantly initially (Donato 66). After Nazone shares part of his sandwich, another brick worker

notices the exchange and shares his cheese and red onion. The worker then turns to the

remaining bricklayers stating, “What cock of Christians are you to let this child watch you eat!”

(Donato 66). Through the worker, Di Donato demonstrates Catholic guilt as a cultural tool

wielded to coerce the other workers into sharing their food. The worker admonishing the men for

not sharing their food and implying his fellow workers are not Christians contrasts sharply with

an earlier scene of food where Paul appeals to the Catholic church for charity. He meets with the

Priest, who eats at a table full of food, yet the Priest does not offer any food to Paul. The Priest

does not “read his hunger” as Nazone does, implying there is not a shared immigrant experience.

However, Paul does not consume all the food shared with him. Paul gathers the bits of

lunches given to him “into a paper bag and put it in his coat” (Donato 66). Di Donato's intention

reinforces Paul and the workers’ religious background since it is central to their cultural identity.

The brick layers exhibit Christian charity that is fundamental to their cultural traditions. The

Priest, however, is not a faithful Christian, since each worker gives Paul some of their food but

the Priest does not. These are values that Paul also demonstrates when he stops eating the food

given to him and saves some of the food to take home to his family.

According to Simone Cinotto, the series of collective interrupted consumption illustrates

the Italian sense of community prevalent among Italian immigrants. Paul eats some of the food

and saves the rest for his family, mirroring the same Italian filial responsibility. However,

mealtime is collectively interrupted when the foreman of the job site signals the lunch break is

over. The worker who guilts the others into giving up parts of their lunch has a timepiece and

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notices that the foreman calls for an end to lunch early. The worker states, “Pig of God, he cheats

us every time his stinking mouth blows that peanut whistle!” (Donato 68). When the whistle

blows, all the workers stop eating, including Nazone and his hunter-style sandwich, and pack up,

even knowing that the lunch has ended early. Nazone’s actions with the sandwich reveal

different cultural traditions.

Di Donato clearly describes an authentic Italian sandwich in Christ in Concrete, vastly

different from the ham-based “Italian Sandwich” commonplace today. He depicts a mouth-

watering hunter-style sandwich tied to the Italian culture, an identity that di Donato, a child of

Italian immigrants, is fully aware of and which integrates American and Italian influences. Di

Donato describes the sandwich as he knows it from his own cultural experiences: a “loaf-of-

bread sandwich with a whole broiler within done in the hunter’s style covered with stewed

tomatoes and hot peppers, the sauce coloring the bread a reddish brown and dripping in its

abundance,” better known today as Chicken Cacciatore sandwich (65). Cacciatore is an Italian

word that means ‘hunter’ or ‘hunter-style’.

According to food blogs, it was hunters who first ate this dish; hence di Donato’s

references that the sandwich is in the “hunter’s style” (65). Historical research suggests that the

idea behind the original hunter-style sandwich is that men needed to eat while working in nature

(e.g., hunting). Some historians suggest that Italians initially made the Cacciatore with wild

game, rabbit meat, or whatever type of meat the hunters caught and cooked over an open fire

while the hunters were out in the wilderness. The original recipe for Cacciatore is simple and

dates to Italy’s fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. The dish satisfied hunters’ appetites while they

were away from home for several days. The spices of parsley and oregano grew naturally in the

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Italian countryside and thus were readily accessible for hunters to add to the sandwich. Later, the

meat changed to chicken or a “whole broiler,” a chicken raised for meat (Donato 65; Kruchten

1).

Initially, the Cacciatore sandwich did not contain tomatoes, since tomatoes were brought

to Italy from the New World in 1548 when the Spanish Conquistadors brought them from Peru.

It took another three hundred years for the tomato to become a staple of Italian cuisine,

paralleling the time Italians immigrated to the United States. Scholars credit Italian immigrants

with establishing the imagery of tomatoes being synonymous with Italian food. Thus, Di Donato

uses his immigrant experience in the Italian-American community to write in a hunter-style

sandwich that combines elements of Italian, American, and immigrant cultural practices.

The specificity of the style of the sandwich indicates that the sandwich is not a prop nor a

symbol but a material marker specific to Italian identity. The hunter-style Italian sandwich bears

no resemblance to the ham and salami sandwiches of today. Giovani Amato, an Italian baker, is

credited with today’s Italian sandwich recipe that originated in Portland, Maine, in 1903 (Smith

and Kraig 351). Amato created the sandwich to serve dockworkers and made it on a long bun or

bread roll with a mix of meats, such as salami and ham. He added cheeses with tomatoes, onions,

pickles, and peppers and dressed them with olive oil, salt, and black pepper. This style of

sandwich became the quintessential Italian sandwich, also known as the “sub” or a “grinder”

(Smith and Kraig 351). However, this is the American version of the Italian sandwich and is not

the authentic Italian sandwich di Donato describes.

Di Donato describes an Italian sandwich from his second-generation immigrant

memories. He is the child of Italian immigrants, born in 1911 in West Hoboken, New Jersey.

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Like Paul, di Donato became a bricklayer upon his father’s death and was financially in charge

of his family throughout his early life. Though born in America, di Donato was well integrated

into the Italian immigrant culture via his parents, living in tenement quarters, and experiences

with the Church (Esposito 53). Understanding that the hunter-style sandwich is a material marker

of Italian or Italian-American identity is crucial to establishing the cultural conflict of identity

through thing theory. Through the hybrid setting of food spaces and the actions of interrupted

consumption, the hunter-style sandwich becomes an object embodying two different cultural

identities.

Nazone’s hunter-style sandwich is a material marker that demonstrates an interesting

juxtaposition between the ideals of the Italian community and the values of the American bosses.

Di Donato uses the urban work setting to intersect and contrast different cultural traditions

through the slippage-of-space and consumption. The Catholic and Italian immigrant identity

unifies the collective of bricklayers, while the job site and the engineers epitomize American

capitalism. Both identities coexist in the same space but conflict with each other.

Immigrants in the United States created networks that localized ethnic and religious

affiliations into pocket communities within urban and rural settings, creating “chain migrations”

that keep people and families with similar cultural backgrounds tied together as neighbors when

they enter a new country (MacDonald and MacDonald 90). This connection extends beyond

residential neighborhoods and churches to local businesses and employment opportunities, which

mirrors the description of the Italian bricklayers at the job site. Di Donato also demonstrates

through Paul that the men live in the same neighborhood because Paul “recognizes some of the

faces.” The narration through Paul’s eyes further states, “They were faces he had seen at the

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great street feast of St. Joseph, faces that had visited the house and drunk muscatel and alicante

wine, faces he had seen at baptisms and weddings, faces he had seen at the Liberty Loan benefit

in the Bricklayers’ Local the time of the War with the Huns, the time they had beer and

sandwiches and prize fights …. They were faces that had stood by and attended his father in the

coffin with severe eyes and lowered chins” (Donato 64). Through Paul’s catalog, di Donato

outlines this pocket neighborhood of Italian immigrants who are all bricklayers.

Furthermore, the series of interrupted consumption reinforces the Italian community’s

Catholic behaviors. One of the Italian bricklayers admonishes the other workers for not sharing

their food. The worker is using Catholic guilt to raise awareness of their uncharitable behavior by

ignoring the hunger of young Paul. The guilting is successful as the other workers yield and

provide Paul with a portion of their food. Paul also displays his culture’s charitable tradition by

saving a bit of the food given to him for his family. It is easy to view the moments of interrupted

consumption between the workers and the boy, Paul, as extensions of the Italian community’s

behaviors and mannerisms since food sharing among Italian immigrants, the workers to Paul and

Paul to his family, is well within their cultural behaviors.

But the Italian bricklayers work for American employers. In a moment where the workers

and Paul experience a shared sense of community, they are interrupted by a “peanut whistle”

(Donato 68). This moment is a significant interruption of consumption and highlights the conflict

between the Italian community and the American culture of capitalism, in which American men

‘cheat’ immigrant workers. Analyzing the scene from the perspective of an immigrant, the

engineers, in an effort to maximize their profits, cheat the bricklayers of their complete lunch

break. In this instance, the engineers devalue the immigrants’ labor because they are immigrants,

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and they build their profit margins by subjugating their labor force for maximum gain, which

also dehumanizes their labor force.

The interrupted consumption of the hunter-style sandwich when the American labor boss

interrupts the lunch marks when the moment conflict arises. The boss enforces an end to the

lunch before the whole lunch break is complete. One of the workers resists this interruption by

packing his lunch slowly and “deliberately waiting until his watch registered one o’clock”

(Donato 68) before he joins the rest of the brick workers. While the American employers enforce

their American standards, some of the immigrant workers resist to maintain their identity, much

like their attempt to retain their cultural traditions, religious practices, and languages, which

often causes tension between immigrants and native-born Americans. While earlier interrupted

consumption highlights the Italian immigrants’ ideology of the Christian community, the last

interrupted consumption occurs due to capitalism, which directly conflicts with the bricklayers’

culture. The interruption of consumption thrusts the traditional Italian community into the

American capitalist ideology, and Nazone’s hunter-style sandwich becomes a material marker of

two ideologies because of both its Italian cultural association and the interrupted consumption

due to American capitalism.

While studying food in immigrant fiction is not a new area of research, this study does

reveal that immigrant food often embodies more than one identity via cultural and religious

connections. The focus on food in di Donato’s Christ in Concrete primarily stems from a

religious connection to the immigrant communities. While scholarly publications connect

religion with immigrant literature, food, and di Donato’s Christ in Concrete (see, for example,

Fazio, Kvidera, and Kightlinger), they view food solely through a singular cultural identity. The

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above analysis, in contrast, establishes that the human-object engagement contains differing

cultural identities.

Michele Fazio, Peter Kvidera, and Jennifer-Ann Kightlinger readily identify and examine

the Father John scene, which is one of the most heartbreaking food scenes that takes place in a

traditional food setting. In this scene, Paul goes to the church to get food for his family after his

father’s death and visits Father John. The priest is eating while he talks to Paul. Father John,

“with a napkin around rich black cassock,” is eating at “a long table reaching away beautifully lit

with slim candles throwing warm glow on shiny porcelain plates containing baked potatoes and

cuts of brown dripping lamb and fresh peas and platters of hot food cool food hard food soft

food…” (Donato 58). The traditional setting of the food at a dinner table serves to display the

opulence and luxuriousness of the food rather than draw attention directly to the food itself,

because the foods are literary props.

Fazio’s article “Vomit Your Poison: Violence, Hunger, and Symbolism in Pietro di

Donato’s “Christ in Concrete”” examines this scene to argue that despite the regional and

generational differences of various Italian-American authors, they all demonstrate the Italian

immigrant culture’s deep connection to food, which transcends the physical into the spiritual

(Fazio 115). Kvidera’s article, “Ethnic Identity and Cultural Catholicism in Pietro di Donato’s

“Christ in Concrete”” (2010) uses the Father John scene to argue that there is a deep connection

between food and religious practices and the Italian-American identity. Both scholars argue that

the food illustrates “socioeconomic ties, cultural identities, [and] group affiliations,” which

anchor Catholic-Italian communities (Fazio 115). Kightlinger’s dissertation, Eating Ethnicity:

Italian Americans Writing Food, also targets the scene with Father John to argue that Italian

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Americans’ cultural identity integrates with their representation of food within narratives

(Kightlinger 84).

While Fazio, Kvidera, and Kightlinger focus on the Father John scene, they overlook

several other traditional food scenes within Christ in Concrete. An early scene unfolds after the

death of Paul’s father in which his mother strolls “through the dining room and into the dark

kitchen,” where “she felt in the cupboard and found a loaf of fresh bread, half a loaf of stale

bread, two onions, a handful of old potatoes, and a can of evaporated milk” (Donato 50). Di

Donato lists three traditional food settings: the dining room, the kitchen, and the cupboard.

Towards the end of Christ in Concrete, there is another traditional food setting where

consumption occurs in celebration of a wedding. Di Donato writes descriptions of the food

prepared in the kitchen, tables set up to accommodate the food, and the people served soup plates

and flagons of wine throughout Part IV, Chapter 11. Delicious descriptions of traditional foods

flood the pages of this chapter:

[C]hicken soup…rich with eggs, fennel, artichoke roots, grated parmesan, and

noodles that melted on the lips, broiled fat eels garnished with garlic and parsley.

Lemon juice was squeezed upon them and tender white was their meat. The

flagons … thick red wine…the roast suckling was evenly sprawled in a thick bed

of truffles and potatoes, its back and sides were stuck with cloves and covered

with spices, the hollowed-out eyes packed with figs…platters of sea-snails, more

wine, and fresh home-baked bread… snails were cooked in sauce of plum-

tomatoes, parsley, garlic, olive oil, salt, hot pepper, and basil leaf… bowls of

bitter dandelion salad and steaming pots loaded with lobster, hard clams, soft

clams, razor clams, crabs, and black mussels. (Donato 190-193)

This chapter is exciting because the food setting describes the space, the types of food,

and many of the associated food tools: “The tables were blooded with wine and soiled with oil

and salt and peppers, and the plates crowded spoons and platters and flagons” (Donato 191).

There is no evidence that consumption of these foods is interrupted or that someone did not

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partake of the food. Instead, di Donato describes the opposite: “The men opened their belts and

top buttons of pants-fly and relieved bulging stomach from tables’ edge; and even though wives

loosened corset strings, their yearning breasts overflowed corset-tops. Their senses spoke

through contented yes and pleasant flesh-swell, and words kept extolling the wonderfulness of

eat and drink” (191). In addition to exhibiting traditional foods within common food spaces, di

Donato ties food into cultural memories. As the immigrants finish their cultural celebration meal,

they discuss “other days” in their native homeland (Donato 194). Different immigrants interject

different memories brought about by eating cultural food within a collective: “Remember the

orange groves a bloom upon the hills of Abruzzi?...the Campobasso where grazed the sheep of

Don Pepe… and the Basilica of Saint Michael” (Donato 194). The collection of traditional food

settings encompasses tools and furniture commonplace in spaces where food is stored, prepared,

and served.

Paul’s mother walks through spaces clearly defined as the dining room, kitchen, and

pantry. The foods within these traditional spaces are literary props fleshing out scenes. Father

John is eating at a table where ‘porcelain plates’ and ‘platters of food’ are described. The

wedding celebration scene is also rife with food tools and furniture descriptions, such as tables,

spoons, platters, and flagon. Many food scenes highlight the Italian immigrant community and its

connection to food and memories. Yet, researchers are not actively mining the source literature

for food studies or immigrant history and cultural research.

Additionally, literary scholars have limited their study of di Donato and his works to

comparisons of other Italian immigrants within urban New York-New Jersey residences.

Scholars also tend to focus their research on di Donato’s status as a second-generation immigrant

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and emphasize the experiences of immigrant construction workers. Scholars do not compare the

writings or the food stories of di Donato and Christ in Concrete with other immigrant authors of

different ethnic/religious backgrounds, nor with immigrant authors that settled in different areas

of the United States. By utilizing thing theory in my approach to unique food stories in

immigrant literature, I connect immigrant literature and authors that are not studied together and

reinforce a shared immigrant experience through food things that supersedes cultural and

immigrant location experiences. While scholars identify religious or literary themes connecting

immigrant experiences in fiction, they have focused solely on food scenes within traditional

narrative settings. In contrast, the attention to food things in slippage-of-space and consumption

reveals the hunter-style sandwich as an object engaging with immigrant identities.

Mixing Her Tea & Jelly

Yezierska’s tea and jelly in the Bread Givers illustrate the tension between American and

immigrant ideology and their resistance to one another. The identity crisis centers around the

conflict between the immigrant’s heritage and the American ideology or values experienced

through the slippage of narrative space and the conflict within the lack of consumption. Like

Shimerda’s mushrooms, Yezierska starkly describes the jelly stored in an unorthodox place and

several tea and jelly services where Bessie cannot consume the tea and jelly. These instances

occur in the Smolinsky family’s tenement apartment within a single room with several functions:

a sitting room, dining room, and kitchen. The slippage of food spaces contrasts against food

settings that follow narrative logic. Thus, the hybrid space and lack of consumption indicate that

tea and jelly is a material marker of conflicting ideologies.

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Bread Givers is a story of a Polish-Jewish family’s immigrant experience in the Lower

East Side of New York City, based on Yezierska’s immigrant life. The Smolinsky family

consists of an Orthodox Jewish father, a mother, and four daughters: Bessie, Fania, Mashah, and

Sara. The elder Smolinsky daughters and their marriage prospects are frequent topics throughout

the novel. The story is told initially from the youngest daughter’s perspective. Sara begins

narrating at ten years old and culminates in her views as an adult woman. As the youngest

daughter, Sara witnesses her older sisters fall in and out of love and their different marriage

prospects. The Smolinsky daughters experience numerous rejections by their father regarding the

sister’s suitors—the father favors arranged marriages with suitors that financially benefit him.

The prospective proposal scenes between the suitors and the Smolinsky family involve tea and

jelly.

More than any of the other authors, Yezierska defines the uniqueness of slippage-of-

space where the food things appear in immigrant homes. The character Sara clearly describes the

difficulty of assigning a specific role to rooms and furniture in an immigrant home. The below

passage demonstrates how the table shares many functions, not just as a place to eat as

designated in traditional narrative settings:

It was now time for dinner. I was throwing the rags and things from the table to

the window, on the bed, over the chairs, or any place where there was room for

them. So much junk we had in our house that everybody put everything on the

table. It was either to eat on the floor, or for me to job of cleaning off the junk pile

three times a day. The school teacher’s rule, “A place for everything, and

everything in its place,” was no good for us, because there weren’t enough places.

(Yezierska 8)

Yezierska describes a table laden with rags and other junk objects that accumulate throughout the

day. Sara’s job is to clean the table off “three times a day,” breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

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Otherwise, the family would have to “eat on the floor,” which is unacceptable because it is not

civilized. After Sara cleans off the table, the table transforms into a place to eat just as her

mother puts “the soup pot and plates for dinner on the table” (Yezierska 10). This scene

highlights how slippage-of-space is transformative, switching between functions.

One-room homes or tenement quarters exhibit slippage because private cooking and

serving spaces are not clearly divided into kitchen and serving areas. The spaces lack a clear

definition of traditional narrative food spaces because there are elements of the non-traditional

setting, since different functions layer over each other in a single room. Yezierska writes the

food thing of Bessie’s tea and jam within the private space of the Smolinsky’s tenement home.

The serving and non-consumption of the tea occur in the parlor/kitchen/dining room of the

apartment. Bessie’s tea and jam are served but not consumed within a single room that performs

several layered functions.

Another aspect of the food thing asserting itself in a non-traditional setting shares

similarities with descriptions of the settings in previous chapters — for instance, Willa Cather’s

scene in My Ántonia when Mrs. Shimerda brings out the mushrooms. The mushrooms are hidden

away in the trunk just as Mrs. Smolinsky hides away the jelly for the tea, which is only used only

for “company” (Yezierska 5). In both scenes, the immigrant family secrets away food objects

that are culturally important to their family and only brings them out when they are gifting them

to visitors. However, Bessie’s lack of consumption emphasizes the tea and jelly’s thingness.

Rather than slippage-of-consumption witnessed in previously discussed works written by men,

Yezierska, a female author, writes about Bessie’s inability to consume. These characteristics of

thingness underscore a need to analyze and interpret the tea and jelly further.

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A close reading highlights the cultural uniqueness of the tea and jelly service, especially

regarding guests within Polish-Jewish tradition, through a series of interactions via dialogue and

character engagements. Between two occasions when Bessie receives a marriage proposal, she

cannot consume her tea and jelly, revealing a conflict regarding her inability to either rebel

against or fully embrace her traditions. As a result, the food thing is subject to further cultural

and author research, beginning with a close reading of the tea and jelly in Bread Givers,

“Chapter III”:

When the knocking came again, I opened the door. There was a man. He

had a starched shirt on, with a white starched collar on his neck, and a gold chain

across his checked vest.

“Is Bessie Smolinsky here?” he asked.

“Right away she’ll come!” I said. And I showed him to Father’s chair with

a cushion to sit on.

Then Bessie came out, her eyes burning out of her head, her cheeks redder

than Mashah’s, and her right arm held to the side, like pasted there, to cover up

where she pinned herself together.

She shook hands with the man from only her elbow. But the man didn’t

notice anything, he looked as mixed-up and excited as Bessie herself.

First I went to the bedroom, so they could talk to themselves. And I was

thinking to put on my shawl and go out in the street. Then I remembered that

Bessie was like lame, with her arm pasted to her side to cover up the rip in her

pink dress. And I began looking around, all over the house to find where Mother

hid away the jelly for company.

While I was yet looking for the jelly, Father came in.

[…] Father gave a quick, sharp look on the man, and then his eyes went on

Bessie, like she had brought a thief in the house. But he didn’t say anything. And

it got so still in the house, everybody looking away from each other, that I brought

in the tea and jelly.

As soon as they began drinking tea, Father loosened up his hard look and

began again his questions. “You got something already in the bank?”

“Sure, I got money saved. For years already I lived for a purpose. I know

inside the whole clothing trade. I was working already as a baster, a presser, and

an operator. And now I’m already the head cutter. And I’m thinking to start

myself a shop.”

“So you’ll be a manufacturer yet, in America,” said Father. “Have more

jelly in your tea. And how soon will you open yourself up a factory?”

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“First I’m thinking to get myself married.”

“That’s good sense. A business man needs himself a wife. She could run

him the home cheaper, and maybe help him yet in business, if she’s got a head.”

“That’s just what I’m looking for,” said Berel Bernstein. “I like a plain

home girl that knows how to help save the dollar, and cook a good meal, and help

me yet in the shop. And I think… your daughter Bessie is just fitting for me.”

Father pushed back his glass of tea, and stood up, looking on the man.

“Daughters like mine are not found in the gutter.”

“Sure! Don’t I see Bessie in the shop, every day how she knows more

about the work as the forelady? I could get plenty of girls with money. But I want

to take your daughter, like she is, without a dowry.”

“Why don’t you ask me first what I want?” cried Father. “Don’t forget

when she gets married, who’ll carry me the burden from this house? She earns me

the biggest wages. With Bessie I can be independent. I don’t have to grab the first

man that wants her. I can wait yet a few years.”

“You can wait! But your daughter is getting older each year, not younger.

Do you want her to wait till her braids grow gray?”

“Look at Weinberg’s daughter!” said Father. “She is thirty years already,

and she’s still working for her father. Has a father no rights in America? Didn’t I

bring my children into the world? Shouldn’t they at least support their old father

when he’s getting older? Why should children think only of themselves? Here I

give up my whole life, working day and night, to spread the light to the Holy

Torah. Don’t my children owe me at least a living?”

“But Bessie must get married some time. And you can’t get such chances

like me every day.”

“Don’t forget it that you’re only a man of earth. I’m a man of God.

Wouldn’t Bessie get a higher place in Heaven supporting me than if she married

and worked for you?”

“The cheek, from a beggar who dreams himself God!” Berel’s voice grew

loud, like a fish-peddler’s. “I’m a plain ‘man of the earth.’ You can’t put none of

your Heaven over me.”

“But I ask you only, by your conscience, what should I do without her

wages? The other children don’t earn much. And they need more than they earn.

They’d spend every cent on themselves if I’d only let them. But Bessie spends

nothing on herself. She gives me every cent she earns. And if you marry her,

you’re as good as taking away from me my living—tearing the bread from my

mouth.”

Till now Bessie sat still, mixing her tea with the spoon, not tasting it. But

now, as Father’s bargaining over her got louder, she ran into the bedroom.

[…] Chapter VI “The Burden Bearer Changes Her Burden”

[…]

Bessie had no sooner come home from work than Father said to her,

“Zalmon the fish-peddler wants to marry himself to you. You’d have a good home

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and you wouldn’t have to work anymore in a shop. His wife’s gold watch and

chain and her Sabbath fur coat will be yours, and—”

“Don’t,” cried Bessie, shuddering. “I hate Zalmon. I hate the smell of fish.

If he were the last man on earth I wouldn’t marry him.”

[…]

But the next evening, when she came home, there was laid out on the bed

a new velvet dress, richer than anything she had ever seen. It looked like a fifty-

dollar dress from Fifth Avenue. Father had spent all afternoon, bargaining of the

$20 Zalmon had given him, the finest dress in the Grande Street show window.

Bessie’s eyes lighted like a young girls’ at first sight of the new dress. But

her face got old again when she realized that it was only to show herself off to

Zalmon.

“Dress myself up for him—no!” said Bessie. “Only once I dressed myself

up for a man. But then I loved him.”

[…]

One look at Bessie, and Father saw how all the chickens he had been

counting from the money that Zalmon was to give him were not yet hatching in

the icy air of Bessie’s coldness.

“Daughter mine!” cried Father, giving her a pinch in the arm. “Why don’t

you serve some tea and jelly for the company?”

Glad for the chance to turn her back on Zalmon, Bessie rushed to the stove

and began to prepare tea.

“Nu, Zalmon,” said Father in a loud whisper. “Isn’t she a light for the

eyes! And quiet as a dove. And looking up to a man with the highest respect as

only women in the good old days used to have.”

“Her cooking! You ought to taste her gefülte fish! Her tzimes! It melts in

the mouth with a thousand tastes of heaven. Her fried potato lotkes—in the

dearest restaurant you can’t buy anything so grand!” Mother piled up Father’s

praises till the tea was brought.

Father and Mother kept laughing and talking and singing Bessie’s praises

as they drank the tea. Only Bessie couldn’t speak. Only she kept silent and

miserable with the tortured frightened eyes of a person torn on a rack by the hair

and feet.

Father patted Zalmon by the shoulder and beamed on Bessie as though she

were the apple of his eye.

“My dear daughter worked so hard till the last minute, she didn’t have a

chance to put on her new dress…. Go, put on your new dress,” urged Father,

stroking Bessie’s head, as if his old maid was his one and only young child.

Bessie kept mechanically stirring the tea that she could not drink.

(Yezierska 42-103)

Yezierska inserts the tea and jelly in several scenes in the novel; however, the scenes that

feature Bessie, the middle sister, and a suitor are significant. The first of Bessie’s suitors is Berel

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Bernstein, who comes to the Smolinsky home to propose to Bessie. Sara, the youngest sister and

narrator, lets him into the apartment and tries to set up for the company with tea and jelly.

Yezierska wrote, “I [Sara] began looking around, all over the house to find where Mother hid

away the jelly for company” (Yezierska 42). Much like Mrs. Shimerda hides and treasures her

dried mushrooms in My Ántonia, the Smolinskys’ hidden jelly is a treat and a treasure only

shared for special occasions and guests. While Sara sets up the tea and jelly for Bessie and her

suitor, their father comes home and starts questioning Berel about his family, how long he has

been in America, and how much he makes working as a head cutter in the clothing factory.

When Bessie’s father learns that Berel makes eighteen dollars a week and only saves “six,

sometimes seven dollars,” the father exclaims, “On yourself only, you spend eleven twelve

dollars!... A whole family could live already on what you spend on your one self” (Yezierska

43). Bessie’s father disapproves of how Berel spends money on himself.

Bessie’s father further implies that Berel is not a ‘good’ Jew. The Father asks Berel, “Do

you still pray every morning?” (Yezierska 43). Yezierska writes that Berel blushes and looks

down when he replies, “Sometimes, when I get up early enough, I pray. But I keep all the

holidays” (Yezierska 43). Yezierska suggests through his posture that Berel is somewhat

ashamed of not being devoutly Jewish, which causes Berel to become defensive when Bessie’s

father berates him for spending money on himself. Part of Berel’s defense is that he has to eat at

a restaurant since he is not married and eating outside the home costs more. Yezierska describes

Bessie’s father’s looking at Bessie “like she had brought a thief in the house” (46). The use of

the word ‘thief’ is significant because what Bessie’s father perceives as being stolen is Bessie

herself.

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Bessie’s father resists the marriage proposal because Bessie’s marriage to the man would

be “taking away from me my living—tearing the bread from my mouth” (Yezierska 48). Bessie’s

father explains to the suitor that Bessie “spends nothing on herself” and “gives me every cent she

earns” (Yezierska 48). This sacrificial behavior and Bessie’s surrender to her father’s dictates is

the preferential attitude of a ‘good’ Polish Jewish daughter. The man proposing to Bessie tells

her father, “In America they got no use for Torah learning,” disrespecting Rabbi Smolinsky and

his cultural and religious tradition (Yezierska 48). The suitor continues to state, “In America

everybody got to earn his living first” (Yezierska 48).

The interaction sets up the “bargaining” Bessie’s father begins with Berel for his

permission to marry Bessie (Yezierska 46). Yezierska describes the exchanges between the two

men as being contrasting views. One is a “man of the earth,” and the other is “a man of God”

(46). Both express opinions in which they believe they are in the right and superior. Between the

men, their “voice grew loud, like a fish-peddler’s,” Bessie is caught silent between following her

desire to marry Berel and being a ‘good’ Jewish daughter for her father (Yezierska 46). While

the dialogue between the father and the suitor continues, “Bessie sat still, mixing her tea with the

spoon, not tasting it” as the tempers and voices escalate between the two men (Yezierska 46).

Eventually, Bessie “ran into the bedroom” and leaves the tea untouched (Yezierska 46).

Meanwhile, Berel finally has enough and leaves, slamming the door without saying goodbye to

Bessie. The next day Berel visits again and talks to Bessie, asking her to marry him in “court”

(Yezierska 48). Bessie declines, stating she cannot leave her father.

The tea and jelly appear a second time with Bessie, her father, and a second suitor,

Zalmon, an “old fish-peddler” (Yezierska 96). Rabbi Smolinsky personally selects this second

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suitor, deeming Zalmon suitable because he follows their cultural and religious traditions and is

financially successful. The father is enthusiastic about the proposal in this scene and cries out,

“Daughter mine!” with great excitement (Yezierska 102). He calls Bessie when he brings the

suitor to their home and asks, “Why don’t you serve some tea and jelly for the company?”

(Yezierska 102). Both Bessie’s father and mother are keen for the marriage to occur and continue

to pressure Bessie to marry a man she does not want.

Zalmon brings a gift for a Bessie, his late wife’s fur coat. Zalmon states, “My wife, may

she rest in peace, didn’t wear it more’n a few times the Sabbath only. But you, you could wear it

for every day” (Yezierska 101). Zalmon brings additional gifts, such as his wife’s “gold watch

and chain” (Yezierska 101). Yezierska’s description of the scene shows clear intent by Zalmon

to convince Bessie to fill the role of wife with the gifts. If Bessie accepts the coat, watch, and

chains, she accepts becoming Zalmon’s wife. However, Bessie vocalizes her resistance to the

marriage, stating, “I don’t like fur coats” (Yezierska 101). When her vocal opposition does not

impact Zalmon or her parents, Bessie sits “cold as stone” as her parents “kept laughing and

talking and singing Bessie’s praises as they drank the tea,” completely ignoring Bessie’s “icy

air” (Yezierska 103). Bessie can no longer speak and “kept silent and miserable” while she “kept

mechanically stirring the tea that she could not drink” (Yezierska 103). On both occasions,

Bessie cannot drink the tea and jelly because she disagrees with her father's edicts (to not marry

Berel and to marry Zalmon) but cannot bring herself to go against her father’s wishes.

Yezierska utilizes her immigrant background and experiences to inform much about the

culture and history of Polish-Russian tea traditions as illustrated in the Bread Givers and

supported by primary sources. Tea and jelly have significant cultural and social meaning among

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Russian and Polish Jewish nationals and immigrants to the United States. Yezierska incorporates

the heritage of tea and jelly into Russian-Jewish traditional food and drinks in her scene with

Bessie, based on her cultural upbringing. The history of tea or jelly as separate ingredients dates

back thousands of years and through numerous continents and cultures. However, the tea and

jelly combination is a centuries-old uniquely Russian tradition. Unlike Western European

countries that used sugar to sweeten the tea, eastern European countries and Russia added thin

fruit jams or jellies. Customary jams for teas were raspberry, strawberry, and cherry, with

strawberry and cherry jams favored (Mack and Surina 88). A ‘good host’ traditionally served tea

and jams before or after a meal, but not during mealtime. This custom of tea and jelly is well

illustrated in Bread Givers and demonstrates the integration of the food thing into Smolinsky’s

Polish-Jewish cultural identity unique to Yezierska’s time and place.

Including tea and jelly in Bessie’s suitors’ scenes by the author characterizes them as

more than a prop; they are material markers embodying the family’s traditions. Yezierska wrote

the tea and jelly into the narrative based on her experiences and memories as an American-

Jewish author born in Maly Plock, Poland—a part of the Russian Empire at that time called the

Russian Pale. Yezierska’s literature transcribes her immigrant experiences from her emigration

to the United States with her parents as a child and the immigrant neighborhood of the Lower

East Side of Manhattan, New York, where she lived. Her family was similar to the Smolinsky

family, a Polish Jewish immigrant family living in a Hester Street tenement. From Yezierska's

tenement neighborhood, she started writing in her teens (Levin 27). Levin states, “Because she

was hungry as she wrote, her stories are the echoes of her cravings” (28). Her experiences

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inspired the novel Bread Givers, including the culturally significant tea and jelly integral to

Russian identity.

Though tea has a long tradition in many different cultures and predominates in China, its

Russian heritage is also significant. The Russian tea culture started in the early 1600s when a

Mongolian ruler made the first tea gifts to Tsar Michael I and other nobility, quickly becoming a

favorite drink among nobles (Avery 90). In 1679, Russia finalized a treaty to receive regular tea

shipments from China in exchange for furs. After the treaty agreement, the Chinese ambassador

to Moscow gifted Alexis I with several chests of tea. Because the trade route was perilous, the

cost of tea remained high, and only nobles and those wealthy enough could afford tea (Avery

92). In 1689, the Treaty of Nerchinsk granted Russia sovereignty over Siberia. The treaty created

the Tea Road between Russia and China, allowing more caravans with tea from China (Avery

92). The tea trade was interrupted during the reign of Peter the Great from 1706 until 1786

before Catherine the Great re-established regular tea imports. During her reign, the tea trade

increased because tea became an affordable beverage for all citizens (Avery 124). Though

several cultural traditions include tea, the inclusion of jam in tea is uniquely Russian and acts as

a material marker rather than a prop.

Additionally, the scenes with Bessie’s different suitors and the tea and jelly highlight the

intersection between Polish-Jewish and American identities, revealing conflict. Immigrants to

America often faced formal Americanization through systematic programs such as schools, labor

unions, or social programs like the YMCA and YWCA. Americanization is the movement or

structural effort to integrate immigrant groups into American society and culture via cultural

assimilation (Namias xvii). Yezierska includes the systemic approach to Americanize

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immigrants in Chapter IV when she describes how Mashah, one of the Smolinsky daughters,

responds to Jacob’s interest as a suitor. The family sets the table with “whole cups with handles

[that] were taken down from the Passover set” instead of the “cracked penny cups” (Yezierska

55). They cover the table with a “real tablecloth” and napkins and flowers for the table. Mashah

learns Jacob prefers American food, so she seeks “the salt and pepper to please his taste”

(Yezierska 55). Yezierska summarizes an example of formalized Americanization programs, and

one that explicitly targets immigrant foods: “Mashah found out that Jacob liked American

cooking, like salad and spinach and other vegetables. And right away, Mashah joined the

cooking class in the settlement, one evening a week, to learn the American way of cooking

vegetables and fixing salads” (Yezierska 55-56). The narration continues, “And soon we all had

American salad and American-cooked vegetables instead of fried potato lotkes and the greasy

lokshen kugel that Mother used to make” (Yezierska 56). This passage clarifies that the program

intends to replace the immigrant’s traditions with American traditions—a conflict that carries

over to the tea and jelly scenes.

The intersection of conflict is between Bessie’s engendered cultural and religious

traditions and those she developed since immigrating to the United States. Bessie goes from

being immersed in her own cultural and religious traditions to being exposed to American

ideology, which come into conflict. As a result, she must decide which identity to accept—those

of her immigrant heritage, or those representing American ideology. This conflict comes to

fruition between the two suitors, one who embraces some American ideology and another who is

entrenched in Jewish Polish traditions.

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The first suitor’s scene illustrates that the jelly is a treat hidden away like a treasure. It is

not stored with the other food items, but set apart; serving the tea and jelly establishes that the

scene differs from the Smolinsky family’s everyday life. Meanwhile, Bessie’s actions set the tea

and jelly apart from their traditional composition within Polish Jewish culture by not consuming

the tea and jelly. The intersection of identity conflict that Bessie experiences does not include

conventional hostess mannerisms or marriage proposals. In Bessie’s first tea and jelly scene, the

loud, verbal confrontation between the first suitor, Berel, and Bessie’s father is easy to decipher.

Their argument is a product of contrasting ideologies. Berel has accepted Americanization, while

Rabbi Smolinsky continues to resist it. The quieter conflict is with Bessie, who cannot drink the

tea and jelly. The tea and jelly embody much of Bessie’s heritage and religion; if Bessie drinks

the tea, she accepts that cultural identity. Her inability to drink the tea and jelly is her resistance

to her father’s cultural and religious traditions.

Berel exhibits some of the subtle influences of Americanization. His outward appearance

or dress changes to reflect American cultural assimilation, including learning to speak English

and adopting the ‘American lifestyle’ or behaviors, such as observing all the important Jewish

holidays but not doing daily prayers (Namias 243). Berel mirrors those immigrants who do not

cling to their native traditions and who adopt the American ideology quickly. Meanwhile, Rabbi

Smolinsky is an immigrant who resists cultural assimilation. Those that resist Americanization

choose to follow their native practices and religion and fight against Americanization, which

leads to conflict between Americanization and immigrants’ native traditions, community, and

religion. Initially, Bessie cannot physically consume the tea and jelly because the sweet drink

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marks the moment of conflict between her father’s Polish Jewish traditions and her suitor’s

Americanized ideology.

The overt conflict is between the two men and their points of view on life. One believes

in the cultural tradition that financially supported him all his life, and the other in the new-world

American tradition of supporting yourself first. Since Bessie behaves as her heritage directs, she

finds it difficult to shift her beliefs to those of her suitor. However, Bessie also finds it difficult to

succumb to her father’s traditions and marry the man he chooses for her, Zalmon. Once again,

Bessie is unable to consume the tea and jelly when her second suitor arrives with the full support

of her parents. Bessie must choose between her heritage's cultural and religious expectations and

her desires. In the first marriage proposal, Bessie’s father tells her not to marry the suitor, and

she does not resist though she is conflicted. In this proposal, Bessie tries to resist and stated that

if “he were the last man on earth,” she would not marry him (Yezierska 98). Bessie wants to

marry for love, a very American idea. However, Bessie’s father and suitor eventually wear away

her desires with traditional cultural expectations. Bessie then marries the man her father chooses

instead of one of her choosing. The lack of tea and jelly consumption illustrates the moment of

identity conflict Bessie experiences.

The tea and jelly analysis focuses on the conflict between American and Polish-Jewish

cultural identities, unlike other scholarly studies regarding food in Bread Givers which focus

solely on the immigrant identity. Other scholarly publications include food as part of the research

as a supporting role in the analysis of immigrant religious and cultural connections rather than

the central object of the study. Additionally, the resources studying food in immigrant fiction

also focus on a singular religious aspect of the culture of the food and fail to recognize the

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importance of specific foods mentioned throughout the novel (see, for example, Golub, Levin,

Piehslinger, and Zierler). The foods chosen for their article research appear in Bread Givers at

mealtimes and accompany the analysis to dissect table manners rather than focus on specific

foods.

Though the scholars develop different arguments, they are unified in their focus on

Yezierska’s food in connection to religion and the immigrant experience as aspects of cultural

identity. Wendy Zierler’s article, “The Rabbi’s Daughter in and out of the Kitchen: Feminist

Literary Negotiations,” stands apart from the typical cultural identity research because the author

approaches the analysis through gender studies focusing on food prep spaces, namely the

kitchen, and their association with gender roles with traditional Jewish and feminine values (91).

Meanwhile, Ellen Golub, Tobe Levin, and Valarie-Kristin Piehslinger focus their research and

connections of food to immigrant religious identity. Levin’s essay, “How to Eat without Eating:

Anzia Yezierska’s Hunger,” analyzes Yezierska’s work through a literary lens of language, not

symbolism, to address questions of assimilation among immigrants (Levin 28). Piehslinger

continues the religious emphasis of food by arguing that religions and food are inseparable from

immigrant experiences and creating identities of being Jewish in American in her dissertation,

Portrayals of Urban Jewish Communities in US American and Canadian Immigrant Fiction in

Selected Texts by Anzia Yezierska and Adele Wiseman. Golub’s article “Eat Your Heart Out: The

Fiction of Anzia Yezierska” reviews food as a destructive symbol of Jewish family values in

America. Golub spotlights the role of the person providing the food and spends much of her

analysis on the mother in Bread Givers.

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Contrary to the above scholarship, reviewing the story through the lens of food things

allows for a different view of foods and the utilization of space in immigrant homes. Most foods

in Yezierska’s Bread Givers appear in traditional settings that follow narrative logic and are

consumed. One scene occurs around the stove and sink, a conventional food prep area. Sara peels

the potatoes and sets them on the stove to boil, which describes traditional food-prepping

activities. Yezierska describes the moment Sara’s mother spots the potato peelings in the sink

and scolds her daughter. Mrs. Smolinsky says, “You’d think potatoes grow free on the street,” as

she picked up the peelings before her daughters (Yezierska 7). In the following scene, Mrs.

Smolinsky suffers because she remembers life in her home country, where she once had “plenty”

(Yezierska 30). The scene describes the family sitting down for a meal and eating. On a different

day, when the family sits down at the table for dinner, Sara’s mother tells of a time when there

were “pots full of fat, barrels full of meat, and boilers full of jelly we packed away in our cellar”

(Yezierska 30). During Mrs. Smolinsky’s memory, she also describes the traditional storage

spaces of food.

More traditional food settings occur six weeks after Bessie rejects Berel Bernstein’s

marriage proposal; Berel marries another woman. Sara witnesses the engagement from the hall

of the Berel’s apartment and sees a table laid out with “big plates of sponge cake and raisins and

nuts and bottles of wine” (Yezierska 52). While Yezierska is not as descriptive about the food as

di Donato, there is no shortage of traditional food scenes in Bread Givers that scholars are not

identifying and studying, which act as sources for historical and cultural studies. The food things

within immigrant fiction continue to exhibit themselves as material markers of conflict between

established religious and ethnic values and the effects of Americanization.

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Further exploration of academic research reveals that scholars typically study Yezierska’s

novel and the food within to other Polish-Jewish immigrant fiction or associated stories about

New York City’s tenement neighborhoods. Scholars of Anzia Yezierska deeply integrate her

experiences as a first-generation Jewish immigrant from Poland who settled in New York City

with her family into their research and analysis. When making comparisons, scholars link her

work to other Jewish immigrant writers who wrote about Jewish immigrants’ struggles in New

York’s Lower East Side. They do not relate Yezierska and her novels to different immigrant

experiences outside of her religion or urban environment. However, through food things this

chapter connects Yezierska with the works of di Donato and Rölvaag through their use of

material markers that exhibit conflicts with immigrant identities.

Sending Troll Food from House to House

In Giants in the Earth, Rölvaag writes about the conflicting actions between Beret

initially appreciating the stew when she thought it was bear meat, to discarding the stew in

disgust once she realizes it is badger meat, to demonstrate Norwegian cultural views regarding

food. Beret’s badger meat is another example of slippage-of-space because it exists in a private

space within the home. The single-room cabin lacks a defined purpose, much like Smolinsky’s

tenement apartment, and allows for the slippage between traditional and non-traditional spaces.

Upon discovering that the stew contains badger meat and not bear meat, it becomes “troll food”

and she immediately stops eating to discard the stew outside the cabin without hesitation,

embodying slippage-of-consumption. The transformation of the stew from edible to troll food

through Beret’s actions indicates that the food is a material marker of conflicting ideologies.

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Giants in the Earth traces the journey of a Norwegian immigrant family’s resettlement in

the Dakota Territory with groups of other Norwegian immigrants based on Rölvaag and his

wife’s immigrant experiences. The novel is set in 1873 and centers around an immigrant family

which consists of the father, Per Hansa, the mother, Beret, and their children, two boys and a

girl. Throughout the novel, the story is narrated from different points of view and journals the

family’s trials and tribulations as they deal with snowstorms, hunger, homesickness in a new

wilderness, and the estrangement of being immigrants in a new country. Like other immigrant

fiction, food and hunger are integral themes in the novel. Of particular interest is the analysis

regarding Beret’s ‘troll food.’

Rölvaag writes the food thing of Beret’s badger meat or troll food in the family’s one-

room cabin, a singular space that shares the function of sleeping, eating, and cooking. This

undefined space is similar to the Smolinskys’ layered tenement apartment in which a single

space functions as a bedroom, kitchen, and dining room, presenting slippage-of-space. Within

the cabin, Beret cooks on the stove a pot of stew made of badger meat, which she thinks is bear

meat. In the same room where Beret is cooking, her sons do schoolwork by the window, and

there is also a bed. Beret eventually transfers the stew to a single bowl from which she and the

three children eat. The scene also shares some similarities with A Farewell to Arms. In

Hemingway’s scene of macaroni and cheese, all the men sit around a single pot to eat like Beret,

and her children sit around a single bowl, though Beret and her children have their own spoon.

Another non-traditional element of the food setting is how the food arrives. As in Chopin’s The

Awakening where a public service delivers the box of bonbons, the meat arrives in a “pail”

(Rölvaag 206).

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The most interesting characteristic of thingness is the interrupted consumption. Rölvaag

is the first author in this sample collection to write a female character eating the food and then

stopping to throw the food away, demonstrating slippage-of-consumption. All prior authors only

write about female characters not consuming the food. As a result, the troll food is a food thing

requiring further analysis and interpretation. A close reading reveals that Rölvaag centers the

scene on the entry of the ‘troll food.’ Through the unique delivery of the meat and the tense

dialogue, the author illustrates differing values regarding the meat source, highlighting the food’s

thingness and resulting in additional research. The analysis begins with a close reading of the

troll food from Giants in the Earth, “Chapter VI”:

Suddenly Store-Hans came darting back with the needle; he had run until

he was all out of breath. He burst out with the strangest news, of Tönseten’s

having killed a big animal; it was awfully big—almost like a bear!... Tönseten

said it was a bear, so it must be true! Tonseten and Kjersti were skinning him

right now; Kjersti had told him that if he would bring a pail, they could have fresh

meat for supper. Both boys immediately began pleading for permission to go and

see the animal; their mother scarcely answered; she gave them a pail and asked

them not to stay long.

The boys came running down the hill just as Kjersti was cutting up the

carcass; Tonseten was struggling with the hide, trying to stretch it on the barn

door; his mouth bristled with nails, his hands were bloody—he was a frightful

spectacle!

“What’s that you’ve got?” asked Ole.

“Bear, my boy—bear!”… Tonseten wagged his head, took the nails out of

his mouth, and spat a gob of tobacco juice.

“Bear!” snorted Ole, scornfully.

“That’s no bear!” put in Store-Hans, though less doubtingly.

“By George! Boys, to-day he had to bite the dust!”…

“But there aren’t any bears out here, I tell you!” Ole protested.

“Is that so—huh?... There isn’t an animal living that you can’t find out

here?” Tonseten spoke with such certainty that I was difficult for the boys to

gainsay him.

[…] “Come here, now—take some of these chunks of meat home with you…

This will make delicious stew, let me tell you!”

“Is it fit to eat?” asked Store-Hans, still doubting.

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“Fit to eat? No finer meat to be found than bear meat—don’t you know

that?” The boys followed him over to where Kjersti was cutting up the animal; it

must have been a large carcass, for the cut meat made a sizable heap.

“Is it… is it really bear?” asked Ole, in a more humble tone.

“He’s meaty enough for it!... Here, give me the pail; Beret needs some

good, strengthening food…. Maybe you’ll take a little to Sörrina, too; you can

stop in with it on the way…. Careful—don’t spill it, now!”

[…] They picked up the pail at last, and finally succeeded in reaching

Sörrina’s, where there was another long delay; a detailed account had to be given

of the marvelous feat which Tonseten had performed.

[…] They were gone such a long time that their mother grew anxious; when

they came over from Sörrina’s at last she stood outside the door watching for

them. She had dressed And-Ongen, and was almost on the point of starting out to

search; the boys were too preoccupied to notice this; Store-Hans spoke first:

“Just think, there’s a big she-bear over there to the westward!”…

“We’re going to take the gun and shoot her!” exclaimed Ole, gleefully.

“We’ll aim straight for her temple!” Store-Hans assured his mother.

“Now we’ll have plenty of bear meat!” continued Ole in the next breath

with absolute confidence.

The boys were all raging excitement; their mood frightened Beret still

more; she grasped them frantically, one hand on the shoulder of each, and gave

them a hard shake…. They were to go inside this very minute, and take their

books! They weren’t going out of this house to-day!...

[…] The boys kept up their scrimmage until they almost upset the table; their

books suffered bad treatment and lay scattered about on the floor. And-Ongen

watched them open-mouthed until she suddenly grew frightened and set up a

howl. Over by the stove the mother was washing the meat, putting it into a kettle

which she had placed on the fire… Although she heard every word, she kept on

working in silence; but her face turned ashen grey.

When she finished the task she went out hurriedly; in a moment she came

back with a willow switch in her hand. Going straight over to the table, she began

to lay about with the switch.

[…] Not until the mother struck amiss, breaking the switch against the edge of

the table, did she stop….

[…] The boys sat quietly at the table reading; neither of them had the courage

to look up….

[…]

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[Ole] dragged himself through the Third Article, which he knew perfectly

well already; when the tumult within him had somewhat subsided he sat there

thinking of how shamefully Tonseten must have deceived them…. He kill a bear!

It was nothing but a measly old badger! And now this nasty stuff was cooking on

the stove—they were going to have it for supper! And mother was so angry that

one would never dare to explain it to her!...

[…] At last the kettle of meat that had been boiling on the stove was ready; the

mother put the food on the table: the boys drew up, Ole somewhat reluctantly…

“You get that troll stuff down!” he whispered to his brother, making a wry face.

To this command, Store-Hans made no answer; he had stuck his spoon into a

crack between the boards of the table; they were large, those cracks—he could see

a broad section of floor when he laid his eye down close. The earthen floor had

such a rich brown colour in the dim sheen of the lamp; the cracks in the table

made stripes across the shadow down there; it looked pretty, too—and just then it

occurred to store-Hans how nice it would be if they could only have the floor

looking like that by daylight.

The mother filled the big bowl from the kettle and put it on the table; she

made a thick stew, with potatoes, carrots, and pieces of the meat; it looked

appetizing enough but somehow the boys felt in no hurry to start. The mother

came and sat down, bringing And-Ongen with her, the child was so delighted over

the holiday fare they had tonight that she hurried to say grace.

She and the mother immediately began to eat; the boys no longer had an

excuse to sit watching. Store-Hans dipped up a spoonful of the stew, blew on it,

closed his eyes, and gulped it down. Ole did the same, but coughed as if he had

swallowed the wrong way; then leaned under the table and spat it out…

The mother asked quietly how they liked the supper…. At that, Ole could

no longer restrain himself; he looked at his mother imploringly, and said in a tear-

choked voice as he laid his spoon aside:

“It tastes like dog to me!”

To Store-Hans it seemed a shameful thing for Ole to speak that way of

food which their mother had prepared for them; he swallowed spoonful after

spoonful, while sweat poured from him.

“I have heard it said many times,” the mother went on, quietly, “that bear

meat is all right…. The stew has a tangy taste, I notice, but not so bad that I can’t

be eaten…. You’d better leave the meat if you don’t like it.”

“It isn’t bear at all!” Ole blurted out.

“What?” cried the mother in alarm, lowering her spoon.

“It’s only a lousy old badger! … I’ve heard dad say often that they aren’t

fit to eat!”…

“It’s true, every word of it!” cried Store-Hans, suddenly feeling frightened

and jamming his spoon farther down into the crack…. “I could tell it by his tail---

Syvert had forgotten to cut it off!... Oh, I’m going to be sick—I can feel it

coming!”

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Beret got up, trembling in every limb; she took the bowl and carried it out

into the darkness; a long way from the house she emptied it on the ground; And-

Ongen cried and toddled after her…. The boys sat on at the table, glaring

reproachfully at each other; in the eyes of both blazed the same accusation:

“A nice mess you’ve made of things! Why didn’t you keep your mouth

shut?” The mother came in again; she set the empty kettle on the stove and

scoured it out carefully…. Then she cooked porridge for them, but when it was

ready she could eat nothing herself….

… That night she hung still more cloths over the window than she had the

evening before. She sat up very late; it seemed as if she was unable to go to bed.

Chapter VII

She had been lying awake a long time; sleep would not come. Her

thoughts drifted….

… So it had come to this; they were no longer ashamed to eat troll food;

they even sent it from house to house, as lordly fare! (Rölvaag 206-215)

Rölvaag introduces the ‘troll food’ first as bear meat via a tall tale the neighbor claims in

order to convince his fellow Norwegian immigrants that the food is safe to consume. Despite the

neighbor’s insistence, the brothers question this, asking, “…is it really bear?” (Rölvaag 206).

Eventually, the two boys appear to believe the neighbor’s story and the thrill of his adventure,

and they accept that the meat is bear. However, they still retain some misgivings about the meat

because they see the neighbor butchering the animal. The animal’s skin has a tail like a badger.

Rölvaag writes the scene to demonstrate that while bear meat is acceptable to Norwegian

immigrants, badger meat is not. The boys’ father tells them that badger meat “isn’t fit to eat”

(Rölvaag 214). However, the local immigrant community is suffering from a lack of food.

Hence, the neighbor convinces the boys the meat is safe because the Norwegian community

needs some “good, strengthening food” (Rölvaag 206). As a result, the neighbor not only tasks

the boys with delivering some of the meat to other Norwegian immigrant neighbors and their

mother but also with delivering his lie.

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The brothers deliver the meat and the lie as instructed but talk about what they saw at the

neighbor's farm on their way home, once again raising doubts about the meat’s origin as they

approach their home. As the “nasty stuff is cooking on the stove” in their cabin, the boys realize

that ‘troll food’ is being cooked and going to be served to them to eat (Rölvaag 212). Initially,

they try to hide from their mother the knowledge that the stew contains badger meat. The older

brother tells his younger brother, “You get that troll stuff down!” (Rölvaag 213). After a few

bites and secretly spitting out the meat, the brothers tell their mother the truth: “It isn’t bear at

all!” (Rölvaag 214). The mother, Beret, exhibits alarm and disgust, for Beret and her little

daughter have consumed the stew quite happily. Beret remarks that the “bear meat is all right”

though the stew did taste “tangy” (Rölvaag 214).

Beret throws the stew away in response to learning that the meat is troll food. She “got

up, trembling in every limb; she took the bowl and carried it out into the darkness; a long way

from the house she emptied it on the ground” (Rölvaag 214). When Beret returns to the cabin,

she cleans the kettle and “scoured it out carefully” to ensure no trace of the troll food is left.

Later Beret remarks, “… So it had come to this; they were no longer ashamed to eat troll food;

they even sent it from house to house, as lordly fare!” (Rölvaag 215) Rölvaag’s use of ‘lordly

fare’ is significant because it ties the troll food or badger meat with Christian values. Norwegian

tradition claims that troll food is the opposite of Christian values and not worth eating. However,

the neighbor heeds the community’s need for meat, regardless of origin. Thus Beret, who already

suffers from homesickness and difficulty adjusting to life in the Dakota territory, is deceived into

eating ‘American’ meat against her traditions.

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As a Norwegian, Rölvaag is familiar with cultural views regarding badger meat in his

specific place and time, which is why he writes that the neighbor lies to convince the boys that

the meat is safe. In this sense, understanding the origin of bear meat or badger meat is less

important than understanding what Beret calls “troll food” (Rölvaag 215). Rölvaag incorporates

Protestant-Norwegian heritage in his portrayal of ‘troll food,’ which refers to Scandinavian

folklore of trolls, not to be confused with Norse mythology. In Scandinavian folklore, trolls are

unbaptized beings who live far from human habitations. Trolls do not necessarily display

physical characteristics that distinguish them as creatures; instead, they often look and behave

exactly like humans though rumored to be ugly, uneducated, and exhibit uncivilized behavior

(Kvideland and Sehmsdof 341; Lindow 23). The only supernatural aspect distinguishing trolls is

that they supposedly turn to stone upon exposure to sunlight, though unsubstantiated (Kvideland

and Sehmsdof 341). Trolls are those individuals unknown to a settlement's general population;

therefore, they are considered dangerous and un-Christian (Lindow 64). By association, ‘troll

food’ is unidentifiable and unpalatable food because only an uneducated and uncivilized being

eats it. Therefore, in Norwegian culture, the troll’s food or the badger meat is also considered

dangerous and unfit for Christian consumption. Rölvaag writes about Beret’s confrontation with

the ‘troll’ food and eventual rejection of the badger meat to emphasize her Christian-Norwegian

ideology confronting American terrain.

The ‘troll food’ is not a literary prop or symbol but a material marker with its own

cultural connection. Rölvaag was fully aware of the cultural implications of troll food because he

was born and raised on the island of Donna in Norway. He was born Ole Edvart Pedersen and

took the name Rölvaag because it was the name of the settlement where he was born. When he

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was twenty years old, an uncle who had immigrated to America sent him a ticket in the summer

of 1896, and he traveled to Union County, South Dakota, to work as a farmhand. He settled and

worked as a farmhand in Elk Point, South Dakota, until 1898. With the help of his pastor,

Rölvaag enrolled in school, where he graduated in 1901. Rölvaag continued his education with a

bachelor's degree in 1905 and a master's degree in 1910. He did not become a U.S. citizen until

1908. Rölvaag wrote in the Norwegian language and later translated his novels into English. His

stories have a distinctly American flavor despite being originally written in his native tongue;

Rölvaag was influenced by writers who portrayed realistic experiences and expectations of

Norwegian immigrants to the Dakota plains. After originally publishing the novel in Norwegian

in 1924 and 1925, Rölvaag translated Giants in the Earth into English in 1927. His experiences

as a settler and that of his wife’s family, who were also immigrant homesteaders, lend legitimacy

to the novel's food stories and the conflict with ‘troll food.’ The troll food is not a prop because

Rölvaag could not replace the food with a different food or object and recreate a strong cultural

reaction.

Beret’s cultural reaction stems from her native background, which Rölvaag contrasts

sharply with the American-Dakota landscape. Rölvaag describes several instances where Beret

blocks off her ability to see the world outside her cabin because it differs from her homeland. For

example, when Beret realizes she happily consumed badger meat, which should be unpalatable,

Beret suffers a cultural identity crisis and seeks to return the meat from which it came. She

ventures outside, far away from the cabin, to dispose of the troll food. The remarkable part of the

scene is Beret’s willingness to venture far from the cabin in the dark, which she resists earlier in

the novel. Afterward, she closes the window and draws the curtains, eliminating the world

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outside, and shuts herself away in the house. Beret seeks to shut out the Dakota territory

landscape, which is dramatically different from her home in Norway. Like the troll food, this

outside view reminds her that she is not at home. When Beret discards the badger meat stew far

out in the Dakota terrain, she returns the food to its origin while simultaneously rejecting the

American landscape.

The interrupted consumption of the badger meat stew highlights the identity conflict

Beret experiences between her Norwegian culture and the customs of her new home in the

Dakota territory. In Norwegian culture, trolls are considered un-Christian beings, and, by

association, their food is unfit for Christians to consume. However, the badger meat or troll food

is sent to her “as lordly fare” (Rölvaag 215), meaning the meat is fit for Americans to consume

in this new land. Additionally, Beret remarks that her fellow Norwegian neighbors are becoming

Americanized since they pass the meat on to her as “lordly fare” rather than the “troll food” it is

(Rölvaag 215). The changing food classification confronts Beret due to their immigration to

Dakota territory and how it conflicts with the food culture in her homeland of Norway. Beret

fixes the family some porridge for dinner, but she can “eat nothing herself” because she is

dealing with the conflict of consuming some of the ‘troll food’ (Rölvaag 214).

Beret herself says that the ‘troll food’ was “all right,” which means it was palatable to

her, even though troll food is supposed to be unpalatable (Rölvaag 214). Once she finds out,

Beret cannot rescind her confession, though she still chooses to discard the stew away from the

house.

For Beret, the consumption of American badger meat is considered uncivilized. The conflict

arouses her fear that she has unknowingly begun assimilating to America, which she steadily

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resists because she believes American values are uncivilized, like the landscape surrounding her.

Thus the troll food embodies both immigrant and American identity, which causes conflict

illustrated in the interrupted consumption and the slippage of the narrative setting.

The above analysis continues the theme of exploring cultural identity prevalent in food

and immigrant fiction research. However, like with men’s war fiction and food in the previous

chapter, scholars do not identify and analyze the food in Rölvaag's work. Most academic

publications focus on Rölvaag’s portrayal of the Norwegian immigrant experience from a

historical perspective and do not discuss specific foods or general references to mealtimes (see,

for example, Muthyala, Payant and Rose, and Shiffman). One article that examines the literature

through the lens of cultural identity and religion is Michael Aune’s “Using the Fictions of Ole

Rølvaag and Arturo Islas to Reconsider Lutheran Identity in America.” Aune studied what

Norwegian immigrants experience during their resettlement in America, and argues that there is

a conflict between cultural worlds as “immigrant bodies” and Lutheran “migrant souls” struggle

with their religious identity (146). Aune briefly mentions the badger meat as supporting evidence

of un-Christian standards (150). However, the reference to food is very brief and not fully

developed.

No other available studies appear to address food in Rölvaag’s fiction despite a search

through different disciplines and databases, which is surprising due to the number of food scenes

throughout the novel. Giants in the Earth has many traditional food scenes around the dinner

table or a campfire. Part II, Chapter 1’s introduction is a campfire scene with a tent and wagon

next to it with “a stove, a couple of chairs and a few other rough articles of furniture” (Rölvaag

25). Rather than a group of men sitting around the campfire during combat, a “stout, healthy-

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looking woman” and a little girl work together to cook a meal while the men build a sod house

(Rölvaag 26). The woman is “bustling about preparing the meal” and calls the men to eat picnic-

style on a blanket (Rölvaag 26). Though they sit on the ground, Rölvaag states, “the wife had

spread the table” (Rölvaag 27). There they give thanks for the food, eat their dinner, and when

finished, “tossed his spoon on the blanket” (Rölvaag 27). Earlier, Rölvaag connects the blanket

or cloth on the ground to an outdoor table and says it explicitly on the first night the family sets

up camp, “While the mother waited for the pot to boil she set the table. She spread a home-

woven blanket on the ground” (Rölvaag 13). Following the description of the meal, Rölvaag

describes the daughter washing the dishes in the creek. While Rölvaag does not mention specific

foods, the outdoor kitchen scene is recognizable despite no evidence of combat. The following

food scene occurs in the same manner where they all gather picnic style “around a white cloth

which Mother Sörine had spread on the ground” (Rölvaag 34). Here Rölvaag lists the food the

immigrants eat, “a whole leg of dried mutton; on the other a large heap of flatbröd, with cheese,

bread, and butter; in the center of the cloth stood a large bowl of sweet milk, and from the

direction of the stove the breeze wafted to them a pleasant odour of fried bacon and strong

coffee” (Rölvaag 34). Like previous immigrant writers, Rölvaag uses italics to emphasize

cultural foods and their names.

Rölvaag uses a similar technique in a later scene where the characters gather around a

table for dinner at Tönseten’s hut to welcome the new minister to the community. Rölvaag

describes the traditional food setting, “The table now was laid with a white tablecloth, on which

had been placed a superabundance of food… there were römmekolle and flatbröd, fresh milk and

boiled eggs, there were coffee and cakes;… [and] egg pancakes” (Rölvaag 407). Rölvaag

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emphasizes that characters in both scenes consume the food. In the case of the minister, he tastes

everything, praising it and “helping himself bountifully” (Rölvaag 407). Both scenes exhibit

characteristics of traditional food settings and consumption without slippage. Yet, from the

scholarly publications, one would assume there is not much food in Rölvaag’s literature to study.

The lack of food research is a noteworthy juxtaposition because researchers value

Rölvaag’s fiction for depicting the Norwegian immigrant experience in the Dakota territory.

Scholars recognize Rölvaag for portraying his personal experiences of South Dakota’s rural

landscapes where he settled after emigrating from Norway, which scholars argue have an

American style that highlights Norwegian-Protestant settlers’ lives and trials in the Midwest.

Thus, readers and researchers typically study Rölvaag with similar Norwegian immigrant authors

to compare experiences and discuss the hardships of immigration and acclimating to a vastly

different territory. The result is that Rölvaag’s work is more likely to be compared to Cather’s

fiction than di Donato’s or Yezierska’s. Thus, studying the literature through the identification

and analysis of food things enhances the source literature for literary studies, as well as multiple

other disciplines.

Reviewing Giants in the Earth through the lens of food studies, in general, creates

opportunities for food and cultural or historical studies in Norwegian immigrant literature and

traditional settings of campfires, dining tables, and kitchens. The research also identifies a gap in

the study due to the lack of food exploration. Specifically, the reference to ‘troll food’ is a

missed opportunity to fully embrace the Norwegian immigrant experience. Troll food is a

cultural food and a food thing worthy of further attention. For the purpose of this analysis, the

troll food demonstrates a conflict of cultural values. The additional facet of study through thing

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theory embraces slippage-of-space, which acknowledges food things within immigrant homes.

As a result, the food things within immigrant fiction continue to exhibit themselves as a material

marker of conflict between established religious and ethnic values and the effects of

Americanization.

Closing

This chapter applies slippage to the hybrid existence of traditional and non-traditional

narrative food spaces and builds on the idea that a setting is just as layered as things. As a result,

slippage, an in-between or layered existence within the scene of food things, shares

characteristics of traditional and non-traditional narrative food settings. Additionally, the select

source fiction mixes the gender of authors and the types of food narrative settings. For instance,

both female and male authors write their food things within private narrative spaces, previously

read in fiction written by women. Additionally, immigrant food things include both private and

public food spaces. These parameters help identify the food things of Nazone’s hunter-style

sandwich, Bessie’s tea and jam, and Beret’s badger meat stew. These foods are different from

other foods and meals within fiction because they are objects with solid ties to immigrant

cultural identity, while conflicting engagements introduce elements of Americanization.

Therefore, they are not literary props and are crucial to understanding immigrant culture and

cultural identity crisis as food things.

Similar to Chapter 2’s source literature written by female authors, specific foods are

frequently and abundantly detailed in immigrant novels—especially foods from the immigrant’s

homeland. Italics and careful descriptions of the food’s appearance, recipe, cooking process, and

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tastes or aromas distinguish these foods. It is also noteworthy that even though many different

foods are itemized and discussed in immigrant fiction, a prevalent theme is not having food or

enough food, which mirrors food descriptions in Chapter 3’s analysis of men’s war fiction.

Because of the scarcity and desire for a specific food, immigrant fiction shares the same issue as

men’s war fiction in that food is rarely unconsumed or consumption is interrupted. However,

unconsumed food and interrupted consumption does occur in immigrant literature. The food

thing in immigrant fiction marks an intersection of contrasting cultural and religious ideologies.

The different foods enter their respective stories as sources of native, immigrant foods and exit

them as forms of cultural resistance.

Because of the authors’ different religious and cultural backgrounds in the narratives of

their stories, scholars do not typically study these authors or their fiction together. However, I

unify the novels by analyzing food things through the authors’ experiences of immigration and

resettlement in the United States. Scholars overlook these food things because the source

literature exhibits a diversity of immigrant experiences. The novels vary between urban and

rural, male and female authors, immigrant and second-generation immigrant experiences, as well

as between geographic locations. Scholars do not typically study these specific immigrant novels

together; rather, they typically study immigrant literary works within the same geographic

resettlement, ethnic profile, and/or literary period. However, I unify the literature through food

things, which results from the authors’ comparable experiences as immigrants to the United

States. In this chapter, all three novels feature immigrants interacting with traditional cultural

behaviors and encountering American ideology, which serves as a point of engagement. The

scenes of Nazone’s hunter-style sandwich, Bessie’s tea and jelly, and Beret’s badger meat stew

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illustrate an intersection of several cultural conflicts regarding immigrant identity and

Americanization.

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CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

All the narratives in this dissertation feature characters interacting socially with food, and

the food thing serves as a point of engagement for their behaviors. The food things—the pickled

limes, bonbons, dried mushrooms, ration of tinned ham and egg, macaroni and cheese, ham

sandwich, hunter-style sandwich, tea and jelly, and badger meat—differ from foods in traditional

narrative settings because they do not fit within recognized food ritual parameters and are not

subject to symbolic analysis. Food things are not literary props; instead, they emphasize

moments of simultaneous and contrasting behaviors demonstrated by the food object’s

engagement with literary characters and their social actions. The different food things enter their

respective stories as social currency in women’s domestic fiction, memories of home in men’s

war fiction, and evidence of cultural traditions in immigrant fiction. As the stories progress,

either the same character’s behavior, another character’s behavior, or an event with the same

food injects an additional meaning. Consequently, the interpretive approach to the food is

altered, revealing coexisting dual meaning.

Chapter 2 reviews a selection of women’s domestic fiction to identify traditional

narrative spaces where food is stored, prepared, and served in kitchens and dining rooms. These

private spaces follow narrative logic and tie to gender roles. Therefore, the non-traditional

narrative spaces in Chapter 2 are spaces opposite conventional food settings, such as an open

street (public space), classroom or porch (semi-public), and the front entry room (semi-private),

in which conventional food tools and furniture are absent. Chapter 2 features food things that are

not consumed; characters either discard, give away, or destroy the foods. The act of receiving

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and not consuming food marks the food as a material marker in which two conflicting displays of

social power coexist.

Chapter 3 continues the connection of food spaces with gender while exploring a

selection of men’s war stories. The chapter designates male food spaces as outdoor kitchens,

spaces characteristic of campfires. Rather than proposing that the non-traditional space is the

opposite, closer attention is placed on the setting itself and the appearance or lack of appearance

of heating implements and cooking or serving utensils. This chapter also expands the

understanding of consumption through slippage. Unlike the human-object relationship in Chapter

2, in which the food items are not consumed, Chapter 3 features food items that are partially

consumed. The act of interrupting food consumption pinpoints the moment when two conflicting

realities collide: the reality of home, which is safe, and the reality of combat mortality.

Chapter 4 acknowledges slippage-of-space, an in-between existence of food things that

share characteristics of both traditional and non-traditional narrative food settings in select

immigrant fiction. The human-object relationship with food is a combination of not eating or

drinking, in the case of the female-authored works, and interrupted consumption in works by

male authors. Though the consumptive acts vary, the meaning of the food things is similar

because they are markers of conflicting cultural views, such as traditional religious/ethnic beliefs

and encroaching Americanization.

One of the most important distinctions to make about food things is the recognition that

objects can have dual cultural meanings, and those meanings can be contrasting or even

conflicting while coexisting. Many scholars and researchers study cultural objects within a

particular set of behaviors dictating meaning, and they look at objects solely from one cultural

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perspective rather than recognizing that multiple perspectives are occurring simultaneously. For

example, when we study food within traditional narrative settings, we bind the meaning of the

food to the setting and to the human actions that take place with or around the food. The

designated space presupposes that specific social rules are followed. When those rules are not

followed, such as not serving a guest tea, that action also has social meaning. More often than

not, the foods themselves are objects without cultural meaning; instead, they are vehicles to

deliver social significance. In terms of literature or dramas, they are props. However, there are

occasions when foods are more than props: They are material markers, objects that inhabit

multiple meanings and are uniquely positioned in stories by their lack of consumption and

existence in non-traditional food settings. As a result, thing theory provides a paradigm that

recognizes multiple meanings within an object, starting with the object’s original purpose and the

slippage between.

Thing theory provides a unique perspective regarding the combination of literary foods

and culture, contributing to the different scholarly disciplines’ understanding of American

culture and food. The food’s human-object relationship exposes dual sources of meaning that

conflict and coexist simultaneously. As a result, the analysis reveals that food things, as a

material marker of conflict, shape the fiction. Though the food things may appear to be minor

objects, their role in these works of literature contributes to the larger narratives within the story

because the authors use food things to shape social interactions within the story. Due to the

authors’ similar backgrounds and experiences, the food things share comparable attributes as

material markers. The authors establish these material markers to reflect their cultural and social

experiences reimagined in the fiction. As a result, the food things shape how the text is

196

approached and interpreted. If the authors replace the food things with a different object, the

human-object engagement is altered and changes the object’s meaning in addition to the social,

historical, and religious context through which the food is interpreted. Unlike prop foods in

traditional narrative spaces, food things are integral to approaching fiction and understanding the

material markers that shape the conflict within the novels.

Additionally, when I view literary foods through the lens of thing theory, I make new

literary connections that allow me to study groups of literature in ways previously unexplored.

Food things draw together literature selections based on the author’s experiences and provide a

paradigm for literary analysis. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 review novels and a short story written in

different periods, with various academic genres and differing fictional themes. Traditional

academic segregation sees no reason to investigate these fiction works as I have grouped them in

the previous chapters. However, the authors wrote their stories based on their formative

experiences, contributing to their ability to embed material markers in their writings. As a result,

the author’s everyday experiences within their culture were written into their food things,

allowing me to unite the school of literature in a new and different way, one based on food

things.

The food things ultimately alter the academic approach of the texts. Traditionally,

academic fields and specialties determine the collective groups in which fiction works and

authors are studied. For instance, authors and works that exhibit similar philosophies or from a

specific social movement, such as Transcendentalism, are studied together. Similarly, authors

that produce similar genres and works within a particular period, such as children’s fiction of the

mid-nineteenth century, are also studied together. Though all three authors (Alcott, Chopin, and

197

Cather) in Chapter 2 were female, they are often studied separately in literary fields due to the

nature of their writing and the different periods in which they wrote. The same is true of the

selected men’s war fiction by Stephen Crane, Ernest Hemingway, and Norman Mailer, since they

too wrote in different times and styles. Similarly, researchers tend to study immigrant writers

through a regional, ethnic, or religious collective lens, which does not promote the cross-study of

a female Jewish immigrant writer in New York with a male Norwegian immigrant in the Great

Plains and a second-generation Italian-American male in New Jersey. These unconventional

groupings of authors and texts are studied jointly and united here through food things.

The literature review and other scholarly research reveal a disturbing lack of food

analysis in men’s fiction that I believe results from gender bias. For example, researchers and

readers expect female authors to write about food because traditional food spaces follow

narrative logic. Narrative logic dictated that foods are in fictional kitchens and dining rooms.

These spaces are typically gendered female. The idea that a woman’s place was within the home

and her jobs were to care for and feed her family was prevalent during the period I was

researching and, unfortunately, is an idea that continues to the present. As a result, the kitchen as

a principally female space excludes the male gender. Only recently, with Vester's work, did

researchers begin considering a male kitchen space. My research proves that further studies in

men’s fiction and food are justified.

As a museum professional, I find that fiction works of the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries are full of objects and foods that enhance the stories I tell about specific times

and places, as well as relationships within and between cultural communities and social groups.

The historical window into the everyday interactions between people and food reveals a wealth

198

information that has gone previously unnoticed because the source material is fictional rather

than a primary historical source. Additionally, utilizing thing theory also addresses the reality

that food does not solely exist in traditional food spaces; rather, food is prone to appear

anywhere. With thing theory, researchers now have a suitable method for identifying, analyzing,

and interpreting these foods as well as other objects.

With food things established as a fruitful research component, I am curious how

researchers will analyze food things in more contemporary literature. Additionally, I believe that

supplementary identification of traditional and non-traditional narrative spaces is necessary to

further develop food things. During the course of my research, I studied fiction works that

included sickbed scenes and food and briefly considered them non-traditional narrative spaces

for food. However, after some additional analysis, I realized these scenes are previously

unidentified traditional narrative spaces. As a result, the research proves that more focus is

needed on identifying more traditional food settings in order to account for non-traditional food

settings. I also hope that more research is committed to food in men’s fiction and how the role of

food things in immigrant fiction unfolds in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first.

199

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Jennifer Rogers was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. After completing her schoolwork at Captain

Shreve High School in Shreveport in 1998, Jennifer entered the Louisiana Scholars College at

Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Beginning in 1999, she worked

closely with academic and professional archaeologists and museum curators, which guided her

selected graduate studies and future career. Upon completing her Bachelor of Arts in

Anthropology in 2002, Jennifer moved to Waco, Texas, to pursue a Museum Studies degree at

Baylor University. During her time as a graduate student, she was employed as a museum

educator for Ollie Mae Moen Discovery Center (now part of the Mayborn Museum Complex)

and completed a paid internship at the Gregg County Historical Museum in Longview, Texas.

Upon graduation in 2004, the Gregg County Historical Museum rehired Jennifer for the summer

of 2004. Afterwards, she left for a position on the curatorial staff of the Texas Ranger Museum.

In 2006, Jennifer accepted the position of Education Director at the Texas Maritime Museum and

pursued a Master of Public Administration, specializing in non-profit management, 2008.

Jennifer graduated with her second master’s degree from Texas A&M at Corpus Christi in 2010,

which is also when she became the director of the Collin County Farm Museum in McKinney,

Texas, where she remains employed. In 2011, The University of Texas at Dallas accepted

Jennifer in their doctoral program.

CURRICULUM VITAE

Jennifer C. Rogers

Address: Collin County Farm Museum, 7117 County Road 166, McKinney, TX 75071

Email: ccfm@collincountytx.gov

Education

2011 – 2024 Richardson, TX

2008 – 2010 Corpus Christi, TX

2002 – 2004

The University of Texas at Dallas

PhD, Humanities

Texas A&M – Island University

MPA, Public Administration; Non-Profit Management

Baylor University Waco, TX

MA, Museum Studies; Museum Education/Informal Education

1998 – 2002 Natchitoches, LA

1994 – 1998 Shreveport, LA

Northwestern State University

BA, Anthropology; Louisiana Scholars’ College Graduate

Captain Shreve High School

Liberal Arts Magnet Program

Professional Experience

2011 – Present Collin County Farm Museum, Director McKinney, TX

2006 – 2010 Texas Maritime Museum, Director of Education & Volunteers Rockport, TX

2005 – 2006 Texas Ranger Museum & Hall of Fame, Waco, TX

Collections Assistant & Exhibit Designer

2004 – 2005 Gregg County Historical Museum, Assistant Director Longview, TX

2002 – 2004 Mayborn Museum Complex, Graduate Assistant Educator Waco, TX

2003 Summer Gregg County Historical Museum, Internship Longview, TX

1999 – 2002 Los Adeas Archaeology Lab & Site, Natchitoches, LA

Lab Assistant/Museum Associate

Community Involvement

2019 – Present Adult Professional Development, McKinney, TX

Topics: Resumes & Cover Letters, Interview Techniques

2019-Present Collin County Historical Commission, McKinney, TX

Collin County Government Liaison

2017 – 2020 Collin College Tutor, Topics: Essay Writing & History McKinney, TX

2011 – 2019 McKinney ISD, History Fair Judge (Multiple Grades) McKinney, TX

2003 – 2014 Texas Association of Museums, Education Committee Austin, TX

Chairperson (2009 – 2011), Member (2003 – 2014)

2009 – 2010 4-H Heritage Club, Project Leader: Ageless Style Rockport, TX

2008 – 2010 Aransas County Historical Society, Rockport, TX

Trustee & Collections Committee Chairperson

2007 – 2010 Rockport/Fulton Attractions Committee, Rockport, TX

Texas Maritime Museum Representative

2008 Tropical Christmas Committee, Rockport, TX

Special Project Coordinator: Children’s Christmas Village

2008 Keep Rockport Beautiful, Rose Compass Labyrinth Consultant Rockport, TX

2002 – 2005 Heart of Texas History Fair, Judge Waco, TX

2003 – 2004 Museum Studies Student Association, Waco, TX

Special Projects Committee Chairperson (2004), President (2003)

2002 – 2004 Waco Art Museum, Volunteer Waco, TX

2002 – 2004 Cameron Park Zoo, Volunteer Waco, TX

1999 – 2002 Los Adeas Historic Site, Volunteer Trail Guide Natchitoches, LA

1999 – 2002 Anthropology Club, SCUBA & Underwater Archaeology Natchitoches, LA

1994 – 1998 Art Break Festival, Event Volunteer & Contributing Artist Shreveport, LA

Research Interest

American Folk Food History, Pre- and Post-Colonial of Texas and the South

Traditional Homesteading & Handicraft Skills of Texas and the South

Interpreting Historic Recipes

Food Presentations in American Literature

Historical Kitchen/Homesteader’s Garden

Professional Contributions

2011 - Present Collin County Historian, Various Speaking Engagements McKinney, TX

“Saving Historic Architecture: Restoration & Sympathetic Renovations”

“History and Handicrafts Goes Hand-in-Hand”

“Fermenting Foods: Bread, Cheese, and Pickles”

“Rendering Soap: The Homesteader’s Way”

“Cooking at the Farm Museum: Interpreting and Cooking Historical Recipes”

2018 – 2021 Collin County 4-H, Junior Exhibit Design & Installation McKinney, TX

“Refrigeration is Cool” (2019)

“Canning with Viola: The Origin of 4-H in Collin County” (2021)

May 2008 THC Annual Conference, Speaker Corpus Christi, TX

“Making Museums Relevant to Schools”

January 2008 TAM Education Committee Workshop, Presenter Austin, TX

“Different Outreach Programs for Different Audiences”

April 2007 TAM Annual Conference, Chairperson & Speaker Austin, TX

“Program Boom: Museum Education & Older Adults”

April 2005 TAM Annual Conference, Chairperson & Speaker Dallas, TX

“Challenges & Benefits of Traveling Exhibitions”

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