CULTURALSTUDIES Scenes H Scenes of the Apple e l l e r a Food and the Female Body in Nineteenth- and n d Twentieth-Century Women’s Writing of the Apple M o Tamar Heller and Patricia Moran, editors r a n Focusing on women’s writing of the last two centuries, Scenes of the Appletraces the intricate relationship between food and body image for women. Ranging over a variety of genres, including novels, culinary memoirs, and essays, the contributors explore works by a diverse group of writers, including Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Toni Morrison, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and Jeanette Winterson, as well as such nonliterary documents as Food and the Female Body in Nineteenth- and discussions of Queen Victoria’s appetite and news coverage of suffragettes’ hunger Twentieth-Century Women’s Writing strikes. Moreover, in addressing works by Hispanic, African, African American, Jewish, and lesbian writers, the book explodes the myth that only white, privileged, and heterosexual women are concerned with body image, and shows the many cultural S contexts in which food and cooking are important in women’s literature. Above all, the c essays pay tribute to the rich and multiple meanings of food in women’s writing as a e symbol for all kinds of delightful—and transgressive—desires. n e “This is an impressive collection not only because it offers examples of the many s ways in which women’s relationship to food is gendered—as forbidden knowledge, as anorexia, as nurturance, and so on—but also because it shows that such cultural o constructions of woman as desiring, self-denying, or nurturing are more complicated f than they initially appear. It provides provocative readings of a smorgasbord of texts, t including cookbooks, literary theories, memoirs, advertisements, and both classic and h little-known novels. Fascinating and provocative reading.” — Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, coeditor of Anxious Power: Reading, Writing, and e Ambivalence in Narrative by Women A TAMAR HELLER is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature p at the University of Cincinnati. She is the author of Dead Secrets: Wilkie Collins and the p Female Gothic and coeditor (with Diane Long Hoeveler) of Approaches to Teaching l Gothic Fiction: The British and American Traditions. PATRICIA MORANis Associate e Professor of English at the University of California at Davis and the author of Word of Mouth: Body Language in Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf. A volume in the SUNY series in Feminist Criticism and Theory Michelle A. Massé, editor State University of New York Press 0 www.sunypress.edu 0 2 S S M U Edited by P N Y k Tamar Heller and Patricia Moran c a Bl Scenes of the Apple SUNY series in Feminist Criticism and Theory Michelle A. Massé, editor Scenes of the Apple Food and the Female Body in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Women’s Writing Edited by Tamar Heller and Patricia Moran State University of New York Press Published by STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS, ALBANY © 2003 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production by Marilyn P. Semerad Marketing by Anne M. Valentine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scenes of the apple : food and the female body in nineteenth- and twentieth-century women’s writing / edited by Tamar Heller and Patricia Moran. p. cm. — (SUNY series in feminist criticism and theory) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-5783-4 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-5784-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Women in literature. 2. Body, Human, in literature. 3. Food in literature. 4. Literature—Women authors—History and criticism. 5. Literature, Modern—19th century—History and criticism. 6. Literature, Modern—20th century—History and criticism. I. Heller, Tamar, 1959– II. Moran, Patricia. III. Series. PN56.5.W64 S28 2003 809'.93352042—dc21 2002030971 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments ix 1 INTRODUCTION: SCENES OF THE APPLE: APPETITE, DESIRE, WRITING 1 Tamar Heller and Patricia Moran PART 1 APPETITE AND CONSUMPTION IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY CULTURAL POLITICS 2 GOOD AND PLENTY: QUEEN VICTORIA FIGURES THE IMPERIAL BODY 45 Adrienne Munich 3 INGESTION, CONTAGION, SEDUCTION: VICTORIAN METAPHORS OF READING 65 Pamela K. Gilbert 4 CONSUMING IMAGES: WOMEN, HUNGER, AND THE VOTE 87 Linda Schlossberg PART 2 GROTESQUE, GHOSTLY, AND CANNIBALISTIC HUNGER IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY TEXTS 5 “THE COURAGE OF HER APPETITES”: THE AMBIVALENT GROTESQUE IN ELLEN GLASGOW’S ROMANTIC COMEDIANS 109 Debra Beilke 6 “DEATH IS A SKIPPED MEAL COMPARED TO THIS”: FOOD AND HUNGER IN TONI MORRISON’S BELOVED 129 Ann Folwell Stanford v vi Contents 7 “THERE IS NO GOD WHO CAN KEEP US FROM TASTING”: GOOD CANNIBALISM IN HÉLÈNE CIXOUS’S THE BOOK OF PROMETHEA 149 Chris Foss 8 “I CANNOT EAT MY WORDS BUT I DO”: FOOD, BODY, AND WORD IN THE NOVELS OF JEANETTE WINTERSON 167 Suzanne Keen PART 3 FOOD AND COOKING: PATRIARCHAL, COLONIAL, FAMILIAL STRUCTURES 9 REWRITING THE HYSTERIC AS ANOREXIC IN TSITSI DANGAREMBGA’S NERVOUS CONDITIONS 183 Sue Thomas 10 LATIN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS’ NOVEL RECIPES AND LAURA ESQUIVAL’S LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE 199 Janice A. Jaffe 11 “A SINKSIDE, STOVESIDE, PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE”: FEMALE AUTHORITY AND KITCHEN SPACE IN CONTEMPORARY WOMEN’S WRITING 215 Patricia Moran List of Contributors 239 Index 243 Illustrations 2.1 Queen Victoria’s dinner six months before her death 50 2.2 Queen Victoria’s eightieth birthday menu for her household 57 2.3 Victoria brand fruit label 61 4.1 Front cover of the Women’s Suffrage Cookery Book 88 4.2 Poster from the National Women’s Social and Political Union 91 4.3 Postcard 96 4.4 Artists’ Suffrage League postcard 97 4.5 Cover of the Suffragette (March 28, 1913) 103 vii