Feasting on Narratives: A Critical Examination of Memory, Identity, and Power Dynamics in Literary Representation of Food

Author(s)	Dr. Priti Patel
Country	India
Abstract	This abstract examines food literature from feminist and postcolonial perspectives, highlighting how culinary practices in literature reflect and resist systems of domination. Traditionally associated with women and domestic labour, food becomes a gendered symbol that reveals unequal power relations within family and society. Feminist writers transform cooking into a language of self-expression and agency, challenging patriarchal constraints. From a postcolonial approach, food literature exposes the legacies of colonial exploitation, including hunger, scarcity, and the commodification of indigenous resources. Literary representations of food reclaim native cuisines as symbols of cultural survival and resistance against imperial narratives. Texts such as Like Water for Chocolate and Midnight’s Children illustrate how food embodies hybridity, emotional expression, and historical memory. The abstract argues that food literature bridges the private and the political, demonstrating that acts of eating and cooking are deeply embedded in social, economic, and historical contexts. Thus, food literature emerges as a critical tool for analyzing gender, power, and postcolonial identity.
Keywords	Feminism, Postcolonialism, Food and Power, Gender, Cultural Resistance
Field	Sociology > Linguistic / Literature
Published In	Volume 7, Issue 6, November-December 2025
Published On	2025-12-23
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2025.v07i06.64593

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