Elizabeth Melville's This Culinary Life

583 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Australian culture and cuisine

The life story with the title “this (culinary) life” was written by Elizabeth Melville and printed in “The Weekend Australian” Review on Saturday and Sunday, February 14 – 15th 2016. Since this story illustrated Melville’s mother through the aspect of her cooking like, it is regarded as a way for the author to honour her mother for sacrificing her life to provide the family with delicious food, creating treasured memories for all the family members.
To elicit the story, the author had considered some questions. The most noticeable one would be “What do family recipes mean to you?” with the answer demonstrated in the very first sentences of the story. Moreover, other questions could be “How did the society affect your cooking?” and “What led to the feelings of conflict between you and me?”. Another question which was “What did cooking mean to you?” might have had the biggest impact on this story. Rather than a lifestyle, she pictured …show more content…

Starting with a rhetorical question, Melville recalled the memories of our childhood, creating the nostalgic atmosphere that followed us for the rest of the story. Furthermore, the writer also applied the concept of contrast to generate the ideas of this writing. She reveals the “battles” between her and her mother, which were caused by the difference of their backgrounds (line 17). While Melville grew up in a modern environment, her mother was stuck in an old-fashioned and unfair society that looked down on women like her. It was also the cause of another contrast: she disliked cooking, although she had been doing that for 63 years. In this case, metaphor was used to emphasise the conflict. The kitchen was called “a trap”, unveiling a part of her mother’s past when she was forced to give up her work outside the house, reflecting the Australian gender inequality from post-World War 2 to the 1970s (line

Show More
Related

  • The Significance of Family Meals in Faulkner’s Barn Burning, Shall Not Perish, and Two Soldiers

    441 Words  | 1 Pages

    The meal, and more specifically the concept of the family meal, has traditional connotations of comfort and togetherness. As shown in three of Faulkner’s short stories in “The Country”, disruptions in the life of the family are often reinforced in the plot of the story by disruptions in the meal.

    Read More

  • Ma Joad in the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

    1030 Words  | 3 Pages

    Among them are only four women of all ages: the Grandma, the Mother and her two daughters, the pregnant Rose of Sharon and the young Ruthie. Appearing in Chapter Eight, the mother, who is referred to as “Ma”, holds a decisive role in Steinbeck’s novel. She is, along with her son Tom (the main character of the book), present from the early stage of the story until its very end. We will attempt to trace back her emotional journey (I) as well as to analyze its universal aspects and to deliver an overall impression on the book (II). Steinbeck describes Ma as a strong woman, physically “heavy, thick with childbearing and work” (Chap.8).

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Madeleine Thien's 'Simple Recipes'

    794 Words  | 2 Pages

    Originally the narrator admired her father greatly, mirroring his every move: “I walked proudly, stretching my legs to match his steps. I was overjoyed when my feet kept time with his, right, then left, then right, and we walked like a single unit”(329). The narrator’s love for her father and admiration for him was described mainly through their experiences together in the kitchen. Food was a way that the father was able to maintain Malaysian culture that he loved so dearly, while also passing some of those traits on to his daughter. It is a major theme of the story. The afternoon cooking show, “Wok with Yan” (329) provided a showed the close relationship father and daughter had because of food. Her father doing tricks with orange peels was yet another example of the power that food had in keeping them so close, in a foreign country. Rice was the feature food that was given the most attention by the narrator. The narrator’s father washed and rinsed the rice thoroughly, dealing with any imperfection to create a pure authentic dish. He used time in the kitchen as a way to teach his daughter about the culture. Although the narrator paid close attention to her father’s tendencies, she was never able to prepare the rice with the patience and care that her father

    Read More

  • Boxing Day Gwen Harwood Analysis

    1274 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Harwood’s poem, ‘Boxing Day’ (2003), is centred on a mother, who is cleaning up after her children the day following Christmas. The mother figure in this poem is represented as a person who is ‘too tired to move’ and in this state, is reflecting on a life of past happiness she once may have enjoyed. In the opening stanza, the mother is portrayed as a traditional 1960’s housewife, ‘framed in the doorway: woman with a broom’, which reads almost as a position that carries a stigma for women being seen as more than just housewives to cook, clean and keep her family happy.

    Read More

  • Food Is Good Summary

    411 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the narrative “Food Is Good” author Anthony Bourdain humorously details the beginning of his journey with food. Bourdain uses lively dialogue with an acerbic style that sets his writing apart from the norm. His story began during his childhood and told of the memories that reverberated into his adulthood, and consequently changed his life forever. Bourdain begins by detailing his first epiphany with food while on a cruise ship traveling to France. His first food experience was with Vichyssoise, a soup served cold.

    Read More

  • Food in Mary Rowlandson's The Sovereignty and Goodness of God

    2284 Words  | 5 Pages

    Neither life nor culture can be sustained without food. On a very basic level, food is fundamentally essential for life, not simply to exist, but also to thrive. A means by which carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, nutrients, and calories are introduced into the body, food is a mechanism of survival. However, on a more abstract level, food is also fundamentally essential for culture by establishing its perimeters and dimensions and in shaping its authenticity and character. Food becomes the carbohydrates and calories that maintain any culture. Food offers a dynamic cross-section of man's tendencies. "Nourishment, a basic biological need," argues anthropologist Sidney Mintz, "becomes something else because we humans transform it symbolically into a system of meaning for much more than itself" (7). By examining food consumption and preparation, much is discoverd regarding the intricacies of culture. The preparation and consumption of food in Puritan society are reflected in Mary Rowlandson's The Sovereignty and Goodness of God. Rowlandson's view of food and admissions of hunger in the infancy of her captivity cast a revealing light upon the roots of her conceptions and ideas about food and, more generally, about her culture's conceptions and ideas about food. As the conflict between her soul and her stomach raged over food, Rowlandson's attitudes toward the Native Americans' preparation and consumption of food reflect the socialization of the Puritans to believe that every meal ...

    Read More

  • Sharon Olds' The Possessive

    1266 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ther is losing her daughter to time and circumstance. The mother can no longer apply the word “my” when referring to the daughter for the daughter has become her own person. This realization is a frightening one to the mother who then quickly dives back into her surreal vision of the daughter now being a new enemy in a world already filled with evils. In this way it is easier for the mother to acknowledge the daughter as a threat rather than a loss. However, this is an issue that Olds has carefully layered beneath images of war, weapons, and haircuts.

    Read More

  • Loralee Macpike's The Yellow Wallpaper

    450 Words  | 1 Pages

    The narrator’s room is furnished with “symbols of restraint” such as, the bed nailed down to the floor, a gate blocking the stairs, and rings in the walls. According to Jeremy MacFarlane’s journal “Enough to make a body riot”: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Chester Himes, and the Process of Socio-spatial Negotiation, all the things in the room normalize the “repression and self-denial” practice for women. And, of course, the yellow wallpaper reinforces a state of “grotesque, idiotic cheerfulness,” which is the key to a woman’s assent in the status quo (MacFarlane, 8-9).

    Read More

  • Self Discovery In The Yellow Wallpaper

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    As a result, women were stuck at home, usually alone, until their husbands got home. In the story, Jane is at home staring at the wallpaper in her room. The wallpaper’s color is described by Jane as being “repellent, almost revolting” (3) and the pattern is “torturing” and “like a bad dream” (10). The description of the wallpaper represents Jane’s and all women’s thoughts about the ideologies and rules upheld by men prior to the First World War. It is made evident that this wallpaper represents the screen made up of men’s ideologies at the time caging in women. Jane is subconsciously repelled by this screen and represents her discovering continuously figuring out what she wants. Metaphorically, Jane is trapped in that room by a culture established by men. Furthermore, Jane compares the wallpaper’s pattern to bars putting further emphasis on her feelings of being trapped and helpless. Later in the narrative, she catches Jennie staring at the wallpaper’s pattern and then decides to study the pattern and determine what it means herself. Her study of the pattern is representative of her trying to analyze the situation in which she’s in. By studying the pattern, she progressively discovers herself, especially when she sees the woman behind the

    Read More

  • The End Of Cooking

    533 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Michael Pollan’s “The End of Cooking” shares the message of what we are losing something important in this day and age because of all our pre-made and processed foods. This can be compared with Kothari’s “If You Are What You Eat, What Am I?” and her argument that food is part of one’s own identity. By using the examples from these two texts you can analyze the state of food and culture in the United States today. All of the processed and pre-made foods are causing people all across America to lose their sense of Culture. We no longer know what it’s like to make one of our cultures specialty dishes from scratch which can help people identify with their culture. This process helped newer generations see what it was like for those before them to cook on a daily basis and could help them identify your sense of culture.

    Read More

  • Gender Characters In Food Network And Cooking Shows

    1176 Words  | 3 Pages

    This statement by Druckman portrays the belief that women cook for the emotional experience while men cook for the technical experience. Research conducted by Marjorie DeVault (1991) suggests wives and mothers cook as a way to show their love to their family. Similarly, research by Cairns, Johnston, and Baumann (2010) discusses women’s emotional responses to cooking for their family and friends. Both studies highlight the emotion and nurture women feel as they cook for others. The studies’ discussion about the nurturing aspect of cooking demonstrates the traditional feminine belief that women cook in order to nurture their families as discussed by Friedan (1963) and Hochschild

    Read More

  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: Tangled in Society's Expectations

    1617 Words  | 4 Pages

    A notable image that readers of the twentieth-century literature easily recognize is a bell jar. A bell jar is an unbreakable, stiff glass container that confines objects within its inescapable walls. It metaphorically represents the suffocating and an airless enclosure of conformism prevalent during the 1950’s American society. More specifically, American societal standards approve men to have the dominant role as they are encouraged to attend college in order to pursue professional careers. They are given the responsibility of financially supporting their families. In contrast, a women’s life in the 1950’s is centralized around family life and domestic duties only. They are encouraged to remain at home, raise children and care for their husbands. Women are perceived as highly dependent on their husbands and their ability to receive education is regarded as a low priority. Thus, the social conventions and expectations of women during the 1950’s displayed in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath correlate to Esther Greenwood’s downward spiral of her mental state. Throughout the course of her journey, Esther becomes increasingly depressed because of her inability to conform to the gender roles of the women, which mainly revolved around marriage, maternity and domesticity.

    Read More

  • Enrique Salmon's Quote Analysis

    200 Words  | 1 Pages

    This quote parallels with the celebrations my family has. Food, especially good food, has a tendency of bringing people together. Enrique Salmon’s quote characterizes what family celebrations are meant to be. There should be fun, laughter, stories, recipes exchanges, and delicious food. Food allows people to open up and full bellies prevent any ill attitudes. Celebrations, whether they are cookouts, weddings, or birthdays, should always be a joyous occasion with delicious food to accompany it. Food often starts conservation, sometimes about recipes variations, or how the recipe came to be. The conservation leads to remembering stories, obnoxious laughter (which is my personal favorite type of laughter) and just an overall good time. Food isn’t

    Read More

  • Nice Work And Feminism In Nice Work, By Robyn Penrose

    883 Words  | 2 Pages

    In conclusion, David Lodge managed to embody the concrete term of feminism. Through the character of Robyn Penrose, he creates the breakup of the traditional Victorian image of woman.“ `There are lots of things I wouldn 't do. I wouldn 't work in a factory. I wouldn 't work in a bank. I wouldn 't be a housewife. When I think of most people 's lives, especially women 's lives, I don 't know how they bear it. ' `Someone has to do those jobs, ' said Vic. `That 's what 's so depressing. ' ”(Lodge

    Read More

  • Eulogy To Food

    361 Words  | 1 Pages

    Dear Food, I could go on writing an eulogy for you as it is World Food Day, a day set aside to celebrate food across the flora and fauna of the world. The rumblings in my stomach, the quickening of my nostrils, the watering of my taste buds and the shedding of my tears are accelerated by the mere mention of your name. What greater love can there be than the love for food? Food transports everyone across borders, as it is a time travel machine. Food acts as a fuel for a hungry machine as it’s channels and lubricates mortals with purposeful living while reacting to just the smell and taste of the food, man’s laboratory suddenly becomes the mouth with his nose as the chimney.

    Read More

More about Elizabeth Melville's This Culinary Life

Open Document