Edible Hierarchies: Culinary Taboos and Domestic Power in Global Women’s Fiction

Abstract

This article examines how cuisine functions as a tool of gendered conflict, cultural identity, and social control through a qualitative comparative literary analysis of four contemporary novels by women writers: The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood, Serving Crazy with Curry by Amulya Malladi, Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown, and The Abundance by Amit Majmudar. The research employs close textual analysis, drawing on symbolic anthropology and feminist food studies, to investigate how surrounding food acts, such as cooking, serving, refusing, and sharing recipes, embody power relations in both domestic and diasporic contexts. Methodologically, analysis (1) identifies and classifies recurring culinary motifs; (2) examines characters’ behaviours related to food; and (3) traces the symbolic functions of these acts across cultural environments. The findings indicate that food operates both as a means of patriarchal enforcement and as a vehicle for resistance: characters reclaim agency through subversive culinary practices, challenge gendered expectations, and transmit intergenerational knowledge. Thus, the kitchen emerges as a contested site where gender, memory, and identity are actively negotiated.