Lustful Eating: Food, Consumption, Sex, and Pleasure

Self-Evaluation

In my capstone ILC project entitled “Lustful Eating: Food, Consumption, Sex, and Pleasure” I chose to explore intersections of sex, food, eating, consumption, erotica, and pleasure. What is it about a good meal that makes your mouth water and your eyes widen in the same way you may be excited for your lover to come home? What is it about our human desire and attraction to one another that mirrors the passionate desire we feel to consume good food? I explored each of these curiosities and many other historical and modern instances of our desires in practice, using a variety of mediums from journals, novels, and textbooks to paintings, sculpture, poetry, and religious texts.  

From my very first source I picked up on one of the key themes of the quarter, when in Sex by Angela Mea I read “The recognition of cooking as “foreplay” is something that can be dated back to pre-Christian times, before appetites became something in need of “civilizing” (Mennell et al. 1992).” My annotations pondered the social guidelines of eating, questioning what happens when we set guidelines on the civility of meals, if we lose the innate, passionate acts of eating that human beings have participated in for years. I did not think too much of the act of foreplay until I began to find this idea repeated out throughout most if not all of my research this quarter. In Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, I took special note of a dinner scene in which our main character’s lust for her forbidden lover is transferred through her food to her sister who is them overcome with passion and runs away with a solider. I pondered this idea of food and cooking as foreplay again as I read this chapter over and over, conceptualizing meals that may be considered “sexy”.  

Exploring what it is that makes food attractive was a key piece of my capstone research, food porn being an obvious example of the interactions between the edible and the erotic. In Aesthetics of Food Porn by Uka Tooming what stood out to me was the discussion of sensory arousal. When we see food porn we receive it in a sensory manner, imagining the taste and texture, triggering reactions such as drooling. Both erotica and food pornography also succeed by utilizing shock factor and fantasy, something that makes your eyes widen and your heart race. As well as studying food porn, I also explored attraction from a racier perspective, looking at what foods we associate with sex and intimacy. Through religious texts such as The Songs of Solomon (from an Old Testament section of the Bible entitled Ketuvim), tales from The Golden Ass by Apuleius, paintings such as The Judgment of Paris by Henrri Pierre and The Wedding Of Cupid And Psyche by Joachim Wtewael, and poems such as Figs by D.H Lawrence, Feast by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Café Paradiso by Charles Simic, I was able to observe the kinds of foods often used as descriptors of body parts or as sexual innuendos. These were fruits, chocolates, sweet syrups. spiced wines, saffron, cakes, and other foods often considered luxurious or indulgent. If we believe that the root of our desires for both sex and food are interconnected with the same pleasure, the same lust, it would stand to reason that the foods we find “sexy” would be those that share the same level of indulgence as you do in your lover.  

This quarter was a major success, I used twenty sources to build up three main takeaways that were presented to a freshman/sophomore program as part of my final presentation. These were; 1. Our desire for food and our desire for sex share the same internal root, we lust after them in the same manner. 2. Consumption is considered sexual as a human instinct to survive, derived from a historical need to store fat and reproduce. And 3. Foods that we find “sexy” are often fruits, wines, chocolates, and other luxuries and indulgences. They mirror our sexual partners in our belief of their splendor. Despite this being my last quarter for Evergreen, through the completion of this project and my many ILC’s at Evergreen I am prepared to face the world of community eating, social policy, human/plant interactions, and learning through food.  

Academic Statment

Despite starting Evergreen fresh out of high school, I was already immersed in the professional world of non-profit and political organizing I sought to spend my life in, I viewed my ongoing education as a tool to increase my knowledge base and improve upon skills to use in future professional and community endeavors. While all of this has remained true, a sophomore year switch in my degree focus took my work from a simple interest to the beginnings of a lifelong study in food, ethics, and social policy, a passion that supersedes anything I had experienced before. Now that I am leaving the Evergreen State College, I can look back upon each one of my projects with pride and nostalgia. 

My best work over the last four years was done through Individual Study Projects (ILC’s) sponsored by Sarah Williams PhD. After taking her full-time program “Taste: What We Hunger For” in the beginning of my sophomore year I completed eight between Spring 2022 and Spring 2024. One of the biggest standouts in my work happened early on, when just days after I submitted a proposal, an ILC entitled “Digital Reading to Understand Food and Gender Politics”, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Suddenly my project was not only interesting, but also controversially topical. Texts like “From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies: Critical Perspectives on Women and Food” by Arlene Voski Avakian and Barbara Haber “Choosing” Wisley: Paralleling Food Sovereignty and Reproductive Justice” by Dr. Vaughn, were selected to highlight the intersections of food sovereignty and issues of gender politics. I also began to read “Skim, Dive, Surface” by Jenea Cohn to further my understanding of digital reading and online literacy, a theme that would run throughout the rest of my project work as I challenged the boundaries of learning, questioned the format of information, and chased the meta-analysis seen in my favorite journals.  

Over the Summer ‘23 quarter, I opted for an intensive project entitled “Hunger Among Students: Exploring Anti-Hunger Infrastructure through Digital Reading.”, which studied the meal gap in college students across the United States, and created a detailed report of ways in which The Evergreen State College could improve their student social services to increase food access and distribution. My experience in creating these kinds of reports was nonexistent prior to this project, but with several weeks of trial, and error, and reading as many examples as possible, I became confident not only in writing reports of this style but in my ability to learn skills such as these in a self-directed manner.  

In my senior year I began to truly expand my bounds of learning, moving into multi-medium research, experimentation with expression, and developing my own teaching and presentation models. In my Winter ‘24 project entitled “Consumption and Expression: Reading, Writing, Experiencing, and Eating”, I combined journalistic research, fiction reading, poetry, film, food and cooking, to create a twenty-one-page portfolio of works reflecting these many styles. Creating something inspired by pieces of work that stirred something within me allowed the freedom to not only to bite into these rich and complex subjects but to chew and digest them in a manner that left an aftertaste, a curiosity to continue my exploration. I combined readings such as Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, and Crazy About Her Shrimp by Charles Simic, with movies like The Menu, Bao, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show to create a diverse and dynamic collection of works that also showcased my own recipes and family traditions.  

My Evergreen experience was closed with a capstone project that examined the very heart and soul of experimental exploration in food and social policy, a deep dive project entitled “Lustful Eating: Food, Consumption, Sex, and Pleasure” which dissected the relationship between our desires for good food and our desires for good sex. This proved to be my most intense project yet, as my subject matter was controversial to many and rooted in both historical, metaphorical, theological, and scientific means. My sources included historical and modern artwork, fictional and non-fictional readings, poetry, and more, capping a year of dynamic research. While the content was sometimes overwhelming, I had endless options of research to pick from, and every medium had explored edible erotica from one angle or another.  

With several years of positive feedback from sponsoring faculty and trackable improvement in skills surrounding analysis and annotation, I am prepared to face the world of food, policy, and community eating. I look forward to further academic adventures!  

Final Presentation

Café Paradiso by Charles Simic

“My chicken soup thickened with pounded young almonds
My blend of winter greens.
Dearest tagliatelle with mushrooms, fennel, anchovies,
Tomatoes and vermouth sauce.
Beloved monkfish braised with onions, capers
And green olives.“

This poem retells a menu familiar to Simic, calling out to his favorite dishes through the classic style of clever wordplay and erotic wit that defines his style of poetry. As Simic hinted before he passed in a guest piece for Food and Wine magazine, Café Paradiso is a love letter to the flavors he had fallen in love with. Inspired by dishes from an Italian restaurant in Portsmouth called Anthony Alberto’s, what stood out most to me about Simic’s discussion of this particular work was his quote “Give me a bowl of spaghetti and I’ll write you a poem.” (Simic, 2000)

Even before he stakes his point by referring to tagliatelle pasta as “dearest” or monkfish as “beloved“, the possessiveness of the “my” that precedes both the chicken soup and the wintergreens is reminiscent of the way you may call someone “my darling” or “my love”.

“Give me your tongue tasting of white beans and garlic,”

This line seems to break the metaphor just a little, unless Simic is envisioning his plate to have a tongue of sorts and I am just failing to read between the lines. Despite the slight change in perspective, this line drives forward the intimacy of the piece, to taste someone’s tongue is to be incredibly intimate with them, and to have a favorite flavor speaks to the presence of food and flavor in the relationship, as well as heavy familiarity.

“Sexy little assortment of formaggi and frutta!
I want to drown with you in red wine like a pear,”

These lines are dripping with the all-encompassing, all-consuming passion that comes with deep love or intense sex, whilst also making the reader hungry, thirsty, and on their toes for the next line. The way Simic paints the scene of drowning in wine is so rich, so indulgent, and parallels the way love is desired as something that surrounds and consumes us.

“Then sleep in a macédoine of wild berries with cream.”

Berries, cream, and relaxation. Again with the richness and the indulgence, but also a key theme of this line is its place as dessert, both on the menu and in the poem. This line serves as a way to get across the the reader that there is a presence of sweetness in this menu, to tell you about the berries and cream that the consumer may enjoy. But the line also serves as the final course of the poem, the final drop of sweetness before the writing is over, the line itself serves as dessert for the reader so they may experience alongside Simic. You get to exist in the bliss of remembering lying in your lover’s arms, the indulgence of their relaxation, as he does the same, chewing his dessert.

Crazy About Her Shrimp by Charles Simic

I think this poem is a really great one to look at in tandem with Café Paradiso but I analyzed it last quarter so I’m just going to link that post so I can get more content into my last week.

Week 7

Feast by Edna St. Vincent Millay

“I came upon no wine 
     So wonderful as thirst.”

The desire is written as more enjoyable than the satisfaction, is this because the author revels in fantasy, or because she is often let down by reality?

“I came upon no fruit 
     So wonderful as want.”

This poem speaks more to desire than sex, but makes an interesting distinction between desire and hunger. The desire speaks to the repetitive nature of the poem, the way the author so precisely defines her feelings through metaphor and kind intellectualism. Hunger runs throughout this poem, accompanied by cousin thirst, defined in the more literal aspects of the poem, the ability held by the author to consume all the world’s foods and yet still miss missing them.

“I will lie down lean 
    With my thirst and my hunger. ”

The Dinner Party – Art Installation by Judy Chicago (1979)

The Dinner Party was an art piece and exhibition by Judy Chicago, who started work on the piece in 1974 and displayed it for the first time in 1979. Known for her feminist statement pieces, this piece especially highlighted the consumable aspects of femininity and historical womanhood. Its early title, “25 Women Who Were Eaten Alive” signals the kind of edible sex messaging we can expect from a presentation such as this, bridging the gap between these two kinds of consumption.

The exhibition was made up of a triangular dinner table, with the triangle representing equality between each participant. The table was set with thirteen places on each side for a total of 39 places, each complete with an embroidered table runner with the guest’s name, a sculpted and painted plate, utensils, and a drinking glass. Symbolism both hidden and obvious are interwoven through this mixed-medium art piece that reflects upon women historical, fictional, and mythical.

Eleanor of Aquitaine

I chose to focus first on the place setting for Eleanor of Aquitaine because she was my favorite historical figure in middle school, having read A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver by E. L. Konigsburg. Eleanor lived a drama filled life, first becoming the Queen of France on the arm of her husband Louis VII, and later the Queen of England through her marriage to King Henry II. She spent 16 years in imprisonment at the hand of the King, when her son attempted to overthrow her husband, gaining her freedom only after King Henry II was dead. She then ruled the country in place of her son King Richard I, due to him being a minor, and was the mother of King John, who was famously hated so much they created the Magna Carta. So you can see why I thought she was pretty cool.

The symbol carved into her plate is a fleur-de-lis, common in French artwork from the middle ages. The middle tip of the fleur-de-lis has been split open to resemble a vulva, the feminine power and prowess of Queen Eleanor. The Brooklyn Museum, which houses the piece, says this about the runner and it’s symbolism.

“Eleanor of Aquitaine’s runner is modeled after tapestries made by noble women to hang as decoration in feudal castles or to use during ceremonial parades. The imagery is taken from the famous Unicorn Tapestries, circa 1495–1505, in which mystical unicorns appear within the corrals. The corral on the runner surrounds Eleanor’s plate. It symbolizes Eleanor’s imprisonment by her second husband, Henry II, and compares her power as queen with that of the mystical unicorn.”

Boadaceia

Boadaceia is another woman I chose due to familiarity, she is known as a heroine in British history and even has her both song on Horrible Histories, a popular kids TV show that was on the BBC teen network “CBBC” when I was living in the UK. The wife of a Celtic King, she was elected to lead a rebellion against Roman forces after they diregarded a treaty made between their leaders and her late husband to split the kingdom upon his passing. While Boadaceia was victories for a short while against the present Roman troops, when the full force of the Roman army showed up they could not match up to the equipment and the tides quickly turned in the favor of the invaders. While stories differ, the most commonly believed is that Boadaceia ingested poison that day so as to avoid capture, though other say illness, war wounds, or other non-self inflicted means of death. Either way, the Romans were never able to capture her, and she became a historical hero in Europe.

Boadaceias plate is painted with the smooth rocks of stone henge to represent the English islands she was from, and a golden helmet split into a vulva to represent her life as a warrior and a leader in both royalty and battle, both strong in her will and her feminine power.

Natalie Barney

Natalie Barney was born into a rich French family in the late 1800’s, a Lesbian and a non-monogamist she opened her home to artists, writers, and creatives of all kinds for over sixty years in pursuit of true freedom of expression for those outside the accepted bounds of society. When World War II engulfed Europe documents surfaced that cause controversy to surround her to this day. Barney was of Jewish decent and was openly a lesbian, yet her sister was able to forge a document of her Catholic confirmation to dissuade Nazi authorities. Despite the liberalness of her mainstream beliefs, unpublished memos show her sympathizing with fascists and holding some pro-nazi beliefs of her own. While it has never been determined if these were in fact her beliefs, or if these documents were created to further insure her safety due to the erotic and queer nature of her work, by the end of the war she is documented as siding with the allies. Still, it seems prudent to take into account her proximity to pro-facist behavior.

Her plate is painted and sculpted to be a lily, a popular symbolism of womanhood and femininity, both in historical and metaphorical contexts, with a lily often being the flora used to represent a vagina. I like this clever play on the main structure of the project, with the plate still portraying the same message whilst going outsides the bound soft what we have come to expect of these pieces. I also really love the note given about the place runner and the butterflies.

“The runner also mimics the Art Nouveau style and color palette of the plate. The multi-colored fabric, art-deco silk from the 1920s or 30s, resembles the wings of a butterfly. Sections of the butterfly form are outlined with black glass beads and overlaid with layers of sheer fabric, mimicking the plate’s iridescence and also suggesting the luxurious nature of Barney’s life. The butterfly motif is repeated throughout The Dinner Party to symbolize women’s struggle to be free to pursue their own dreams, and in this place setting “the butterfly form, its edges almost entirely free from the geometric constraints of the runner, suggest the freedom of expression that was offered by Barney’s salon and embodied in her life”

Is Food the New Sex? A Curious Reversal in Moralizing by Mary Eberstadt (2009)

“What happens when, for the first time in history, adult human beings are free to have all the sex and food they want? Philosophers and artists aside, ordinary language itself verifies how similarly the two appetites are experienced, with many of the same words crossing over to describe what is desirable and undesirable in each case. In fact, we sometimes have trouble even talking about food without metaphorically invoking sex, and vice versa. In a hundred entangled ways, judging by either language or literature, the human mind juggles sex and food almost interchangeably at times. And why not? Both desires can make people do things they otherwise would not, and both are experienced at different times by most men and women as the most powerful of all human drives.” (p.1)

I enjoyed exploring motivation in this section, the idea that both food and sex will drive someone to act in a way they otherwise wouldn’t and risk the societal consequences that come with overindulgence of either. Whether it be our personal views on weight and beauty, or the pack psychology that dictates popularity and social standing, stepping too far out of bounds will change the way others view us.

The entanglement of language and metaphors when discussing food is also an interesting point. I have already written about some examples of this, such as a virgins cherry, or a woman’s peach, but many can be more commonly used in the kitchen. My favorite instance of this is the still popular recipe originating from the 1970’s known as “Better Than Sex Cake” comprising of rich chocolate devils food cake, whipped cream, and caramel drizzle. If we turn to the world of cocktails, you can find a variation of the well known “Sex on the beach” that intergrates every climate and landscape. We already have a practice of sexualizing our foods, what is it that links these innuendos?

When I look at the foods discussed most this quarter, chocolates, grapes, pomegranets, apples, whole chickens, figs and fig leaves, saffron, cinnimon, spiced wine, and liquor, I see richness and indulgence. I see expensive, desirable foods that mirror the richness and indulgence we experience through sex. We have selected foods that seem sexy because they parallel our sexual partners in our attraction and pleasure respons.

“Begin with a tour of Betty’s kitchen. Much of what she makes comes from jars and cans. Much of it is also heavy on substances that people of our time are told to minimize — dairy products, red meat, refined sugars and ours — because of compelling research about nutrition that occurred after Betty’s time. Betty’s freezer is filled with meat every four months by a visiting company that specializes in volume, and on most nights she thaws a piece of this and accompanies it with food from one or two jars. If there is anything “fresh” on the plate, it is likely a potato. Interestingly, and rudimentary to our contemporary eyes though it may be, Betty’s food is served with what for us would appear to be high ceremony, i.e., at a set table with family members present.” (p.4)

“Now imagine one possible counterpart to Betty today, her 30-year-old granddaughter Jennifer. Jennifer has almost no cans or jars in her cupboard. She has no children or husband or live-in boyfriend either, which is why her kitchen table on most nights features a laptop and goes unset. Yet interestingly enough, despite the lack of ceremony at the table, Jennifer pays far more attention to food, and feels far more strongly in her convictions about it, than anyone she knows from Betty’s time. Wavering in and out of vegetarianism, Jennifer is adamantly opposed to eating red meat or endangered sh. She is also opposed to industrialized breeding, genetically enhanced fruits and vegetables, and to pesticides and other artificial agents. She tries to minimize her dairy intake, and cooks tofu as much as possible. She also buys “organic” in the belief that it is better both for her and for the animals raised in that way, even though the products are markedly more expensive than those from the local grocery store.” (p.5)

“Most important of all, however, is the difference in moral attitude separating Betty and Jennifer on the matter of food. Jennifer feels that there is a right and wrong about these options that transcends her exercise of choice as a consumer. She does not exactly condemn those who believe otherwise, but she doesn’t understand why they do, either. And she certainly thinks the world would be a better place if more people evaluated their food choices as she does. She even proselytizes on occasion when she can.” (p.5)

Compare the two generational kitchens. How do we look at the moral aspects of our diet? While sex was the taboo subject that intrigued and divided us only a few decades ago, food is now the hot-button topic of morality, with arguments of animal rights and climate preservation among a few causes fought through eating habits. While Jennifers kitchen may be more common in 2024, there has been a recent resurgence of homesteading or similar lifestyle changes, with more young people looking to revive traditions and techniques from their ancestors. I would also argue that since this paper was written in 2009, young people are also looking towards Betty’s kitchen to survive an economy that has inflated food costs but decreased wages.

“Up until just about now, for example, the prime brakes on sex outside of marriage have been several: fear of pregnancy, fear of social stigma and punishment, and fear of disease. The Pill and its cousins have substantially undermined the first two strictures, at least in theory, while modern medicine has largely erased the third. Even HIV/aids, only a decade ago a stunning exception to the brand new rule that one could apparently have any kind of sex at all without serious consequence, is now regarded as a “manageable” disease in the affluent West, even as it continues to kill millions of less fortunate patients elsewhere.

As for food, here too one technological revolution after another explains the extraordinary change in its availability: pesticides, mechanized farming, economic transportation, genetic manipulation of food stocks, and other advances. As a result, almost everyone in the Western world is now able to buy sustenance of all kinds, for very little money, and in quantities unimaginable until the lifetimes of the people reading this.” (p.2-3)

“Most important of all, however, is the difference in moral attitude separating Betty and Jennifer on the matter of food. Jennifer feels that there is a right and wrong about these options that transcend her exercise of choice as a consumer. She does not exactly condemn those who believe otherwise, but she doesn’t understand why they do, either. And she certainly thinks the world would be a better place if more people evaluated their food choices as she does. She even proselytizes on occasion when she can.” (p.5)

What happens when we have more access to food than ever? What happens when food has reached such a level of technology and evolution? We can get any food we want pretty much anytime, as long as it can be refrigerated, frozen, freeze-dried, or in some other way preserved it can make its way to your grocery store or doorstep. In the United States we do not have a food production problem, our problem is one of access and distribution. Gone are the days of scarcity, with near-unlimited access to the produce of the world we are free to consume as much as we can afford, and what we cannot afford is then considered trash rather than excess.

“Pornography is the single most viewed subject online, by men anyway; it is increasingly a significant factor in divorce cases; and it is resulting in any number of cottage industries, from the fields of therapy to law to academia, as society’s leading cultural institutions strive to measure and cope with its impact.

This junk sex shares all the defining features of junk food. It is produced and consumed by people who do not know one another. It is disdained by those who believe they have access to more authentic experiences or “healthier” options. Internet pornography is further widely said — right now, in its relatively early years — to be harmless, much as few people thought little of the ills to come through convenient prepared food when it rst appeared; and evidence is also beginning to emerge about compulsive pornography consumption, as it did slowly but surely in the case of compulsive packaged food consumption, that this laissez-faire judgment is wrong.” (p.13)

What happens when we have more access to sex than ever? In measures of safety and medium? We do not have to fear pregnancy or disease anywhere near as much as we used to (although recent political movements may change this), and we now have access to sexual partners and pornography through endless mediums, photos, videos, and written erotica, phone sex, chatrooms, and the rise of AI has potential to bring new formats in the near future. But does overindulgence in sex both as a topic of conversation and an activity decrease the pleasure it brings us? Is lust the wanting or the getting?

A Confession by Czeslaw Milosz

“My Lord, I loved strawberry jam
And the dark sweetness of a woman’s body.
Also well-chilled vodka, herring in olive oil,
Scents, of cinnamon, of cloves.
So what kind of prophet am I? Why should the spirit
Have visited such a man?”

His human desires intertwine lust and gluttony, all-natural and yet ungodly in his eyes. He is devoted to this all-powerful being yet he still has these attractions to the forbidden.

“How I empty glasses, throw myself on food,
And glance greedily at the waitress’s neck.
Flawed and aware of it.”

This represents the same idea of the first highlighted paragraph but the tone seems more tender, the reference to the smashed glass followed by the waitress’s neck has a delicate feeling that yerns to be allowed to have these things he wants after, like he’s seeking permission.

“A feast of brief hopes, a rally of the proud,”

A feast of hopes, consuming dreams without being held back.

Figs by D.H Lawrence

“But the vulgar way Is just to put your mouth to the crack, and take out the flesh in one bite.”

I mean this whole poem is an innuendo, but these two lines are so cheeky and visual.

“The Italians vulgarly say, it stands for the female part; the fig-fruit: The fissure, the yoni, The wonderful moist conductivity towards the centre.

Involved, Inturned, The flowering all inward and womb-fibrilled; And but one orifice.”

While the fig is the representation of the vagina in this poem, the author also uses classic imagery of a flower to describe the subject. Fruit and fertility have some fun connections in a variety of works, the first thing that came to mind was my readings on Dionysus.

“That’s how the fig dies, showing her crimson through the purple slit Like a wound, the exposure of her secret, on the open day. Like a prostitute, the bursten fig, making a show of her secret.

That’s how women die too.”

A darker take on the idea of women as fruit, showing the more violent aspect of womanhood

“When Eve once knew in her mind that she was naked She quickly sewed fig-leaves, and sewed the same for the man. She’d been naked all her days before, But till then, till that apple of knowledge, she hadn’t had the fact on her mind.

She got the fact on her mind, and quickly sewed fig-leaves. And women have been sewing ever since. But now they stitch to adorn the bursten fig, not to cover it. They have their nakedness more than ever on their mind, And they won’t let us forget it.”

Religious callback to the fig leaves, what was the original sin?

And a little scrap of my own work to end the week 🙂

Week 6 – I dedicated this week to combing through my old WordPress sites and projects to find the work I want to highlight as part of my capstone. I picked out the sections from each quarter’s work and started writing mini-reflections on why I chose them and their importance. I will need to put a few more hours in but I am almost done with this piece of my ILC.

Week 7

This week I wanted to look through artistic examples of food and sexuality, heads up for photographed partial nudity and painted full nudity.

Food, Sex, Art: The Starving Artists Cookbook Curated by EIDIA (1986-1991)

Curated by the art duo EIDIA (Everything I Do Is Art) comprised of Paul Lamarre and Melissa P. Wolf, Food, Sex, Art The Starving Artists Cookbook examines both illustrations and literary explorations of food and sex in an artist’s kitchen. The idea was born out of a recipe, what Lamarre refers to as “Starving Artists Beans and Onions” in AnOther Magazine (2018).

Each artist was given a piece of 5×8″ rag paper, and a piece of 5×8″ cardstock, the former for them to present their artwork and the latter for them to record their recipe. Their project lasted from 1986 until 1991, featuring over 160 artists and becoming a collector’s item in the years following. While some of it is available online, much of it seems to be limited behind paywalls or only found in the books themselves.

Starification Object Series by Hannah Wilke (1975)

Hannah Wilke’s S.O.S Starification Object Series was an interpretation of women’s rights and gender roles in food and sexuality, with each piece of gum chewed up, spat out, and delicately sculpted to resemble a vulva, neatly lined up or pressed to the artist’s skin in her voyeuristic, sometimes nude photographs. Her poses and outfits were pulled directly from magazines, editorials, and advertisements featuring women. Many have interpreted this series to speak to society’s view on women as being disposable, easy to manipulate, or perhaps a play on virginity scare tactics.

While only the image on the far left was submitted for Food, Sex, Art, I wanted to take a look at what was available of the rest of the collection, as well as the performance aspect of this work. First performed in 1975, visitors could take and chew their own piece of gum to be returned to Wilke for her project. Wilke would sit topless for the gum, which would then be “stretched and folded the pliable wads into small, labia-shaped sculptures and stuck them to her skin.” (MoMA)

Sashimi T.V Dinner by Shigeko Kubota (1987)

Kubota’s contribution features turquoise marker and collage, with a large sashimi fish being observed and videoed by a young duo, seemingly pasted in by the artist. This piece is simple yet filling, the accompanying recipe is a homey meal that cleverly already has an association with a comfy night in front of the T.V.

Shigeko Kubota was known for her video sculptures and feminist artistry, being described as “an indomitable figure whose multidisciplinary career spanned more than five decades” by MoMA. Her work did not shy away from eroticism, voyeurism, or nudity, with her performance artwork being regarded as iconic acts of feminist grandeur. She would often use her artwork as a response, parallelling artists such as Jackson Pollock and Marcel Duchamp, giving them themes of feminism or lucid fantastical twists.

Paintings of Sexuality, Food, and Mythos

The Wedding of Cupid and Psyche – Various Artists

The wedding of Cupid and Psyche is one of many stories in Metamorphosis, and it tells tale of Psyche, the youngest and most beautiful daughter of a King and Queen in the mortal world, and Cupid, the son of an angry Venus. Despite their respective families attempting to force them apart, the saga follows Psyche as she navigates both the mortal and immortal realms for her lover, evading jealous sisters and vengeful gods to finally be reunited.

Their wedding is the subject of many paintings in the Renaissance Era, often depicting lavish and busy landscapes of food, wine, and naked guests. After spending so much time apart, having never made love with the lights on, and suffering through the many trials put forth by the gods and others she encounters on her journey, these scenes of abundance and overt sexuality are a stark contrast.

The Judgment of Paris by Henri Pierre

The Judgment of Paris is a well-known story in Greek mythology, most often linked to the war of Troy. The narrative centers around three Greek goddesses, Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera, as they bicker over who is the most beautiful being. The decision is left up to Paris of Troy, who is asked to present an apple to the goddess he finds most appealing. Aphrodite bribes Paris by offering him the most beautiful mortal woman and he presents her with the apple. These acts set off the War of Troy, as the woman in question is Helen of Sparta, the wife of a Greek king.

The painting has a soft swirled background that shows an audience looking upon the scene as if through a reflection or water. Every figure both in the background and on the mortal plane is in some state of half-nudity or undress, but it seems so natural to the scene despite its lack of direct sexual content. You can infer from the face of Paris that he is in a state of joy, possibly from looking upon three beautiful goddesses, possibly from the promise his prize presents. Either way, the gold apple in his hand represents a prize for each party.

The apple is an interesting symbol to be found here, I cannot help but think about it in comparison to the apple in the Garden of Eden and the first sin. The apple told them they were nude, made them feel shameful for their nakedness, and gave them forbidden knowledge. This scene shows no signs of shame or disgust towards nudity, yet the apple does represent the lustful sin presented in the Bible, as well as the forbidden knowledge being that which starts a war.

As I reach the end of week five and look back on the first half of my final ILC, I am amazed by how time has flown and how much I can learn and grow with my academics over such a short period of time. I began this project with much trepidation, I was scared of how others would perceive me studying such a topic, nervous that I would run out of content to explore, and overall unsure if I was in a place academically where I could take on a project, one that required myself to fill in the gaps and rely heavily on my own interpretations and conclusions rather than results of a study. These fears proved to be for nothing, as each aspect of my project thus far has contributed to an overall collection of personal explorations that are the definition of academic success.  

So far I have utilized academic papers, journals and books, religious texts, as well as paintings, sculptures, poems, and novels. Standouts include the chapter “Sex” by Angela Mea from Food Words: Essays in Culinary Culture by Peter Jackson, the sculpture My Nurse by Meret Oppenheim, the poem Tomatoes by Stephen Dobyns, “A Lesbian Appetite” by Dorothy Allison, a chapter from Through the Kitchen Window: Women Explore the Intimate Meanings of Food and Cooking edited by Arlene Voski Avakian, and my exploration of the Song of Solomon from the Old Testament. Throughout every week of content I have come across the same concept in different forms, that of cooking as an act of foreplay. I am curious to continue this quarter exploring where the foreplay and seductions comes into play, is it the food, the kitchen, the subject, or the connection between all three that entices the fourth, the luster?  

While I am bittersweet that this is my final project as a student of Sarah Williams, I am unashamedly excited to close out my academic career with a project of this caliber.  

NOTE: This week explores topics of gender and sexuality as presented through historical texts and religious mythos. Many of these sources do not have the understanding or contexts to provide narratives on the complexity of gender-based issues as they apply to the LGBT+ community or modern-day feminism. Please consume the following as a review of the ideas in an academic and philosophical sense rather than a discussion of gender politics.

The Sex Life of Food by Bunny Crumpacker

Chapter 2- “The Sex Life of Food”

“Our perceptions of the sex of food- from bananas to beer- have very little to do with our political or social attitudes toward men and women or their roles. Eggs are female and bacon is male, not because of stereotypical visions of male and female roles, at breakfast or at work or in the bedroom, but because of more subliminal associations- a kind of frontier psychology of the soul.” (pg.26)

What makes food sexual? In this chapter, the author explores sexual reactions and associations with foods based on their physical form, specifically the masculine and feminine distinctions we make within these discussions. She opens with a comparison, between sausages and oysters. The shape of these two foods are akin to that of human genitalia and therefore has a societal “gender” associated with them, one that is both subtle yet also traceable throughout history and mythos.

The first example of this is shown through the separation between fruits and vegetables, the first being feminine and the second masculine (although as with all rules, there are exceptions). Crumpacker points out the use of the term “losing your cherry” as a way to describe the loss of ones virginity, the term “peach house” as a common European term for “whore house”, and many other phrases and metaphors that utilize fruits to disguise overt sexuality. She references Christian mythos, starting with the garden of Eden. The original sin stemming from the apple revealed to Adam and Eve that they were naked, causing them to be embarrassed and cover up, using fig leaves to preserve their modesty. Despite their application to tone down sexuality, time has shifted them to a more scandalous association. There is also a discussion of the Song of Solomon (sometimes known as the Song of Songs depending on the translation), a piece of Christian religious text found in the twenty-second book of the Old Testament, often highlighted for its erotic nature.

“Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, with henna and nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices. You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water streaming down from Lebanon. Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread everywhere. Let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.” (Song of Solomon 4:13-16 NIV)

“As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his intention toward me was love. Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples; for I am faint with love. O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me!” (Song of Solomon 2:3-6 NIV)

While I intend to do further study of the Song of Solomon this week, reading these two quotes in tandem with the knowledge Crumpacker shares in this chapter highlights the intersections of food and sexuality that can be found within Christian mythos, as well as further proving her point about the gendered sexuality within food groups. The use of fruits as a symbol of sexuality do not end at Christian mythos, Crumpacker brings Dionysus into the conversation to highlight another use of fruit; grapes and wine. As the god of fertility, wine, religious ecstasy, and vegetation (among other various niches and progressive adaptations of his believed responsibilities) he is already a character whose eroticism matches his absurdity, but within his collective imagery of the grapes comes another avenue in which to explore the fruits sexual nature, that which makes the grape the feminine presence that which he consumes.

Throughout the chapter we also see notes relating to the texture and performance of the foods in question, the way they smush, pop, burst, run with juices or in any other way act in a sensual nature. Whilst there are many many foods that are categorized in this masculine/feminine manner, fruits are in my opinion, so frequently highlighted due to their sensual performance in the mouth.

“Our perceptions of the sex of food- from bananas to beer- have very little to do with our political or social attitudes towards men and women and their roles, at breakfast at work or in the bedroom, but because of more subliminal associations – a kind of frontier psychology of the soul.” (p.27)

Chapter 4 – “Sex in the Kitchen”

“That’s kitchen sex: steamy and lusty and joyful and for all that, still somewhere innocent. It’s based on the recognition that food and sex satisfy twin appetites- hungers that began before we were born.” (p.44)

This chapter explores experiences of sexuality in the kitchen as opposed to strictly in the food. It too highlights the presence of gender roles within the sexuality of consumption, both historically and in the ways we presently act as people. The author discusses the connotations of “womanliness in the kitchen”, and the way femininity has gone through phases of popularity in the kitchen as the role of preparing meals has changed hands.

Crumpacker notes how in recent years chefs have become sexier, both in imagery and in practice. Pinups of women in the kitchen have gotten progressively more scandalous, and the T.V personalities have become more and more beautiful and sensual in their looks and movements. This rise of sexuality within the kitchen seems to have no source other than a rise in human sexuality overall, yet instances of sex and attraction within the kitchen can be traced back throughout history.

Crumpacker pulls quotes from chefs and food enthusiasts of many backgrounds that highlight the sensuality of cooking and the kitchen. Marabel Morgan, famed anti-feminist, compares a wife to butter, stating that “When a mans got butter in the refrigerator at home he won’t go out into the street for margarine.” Novelist Sue Gath wrote a scene about eating clams that contained many less-than-subtle innuendos. “She speared a tender button of clam flesh and placed it on her tongue her eyes closing in a near swoon as she swallowed…As she bit into it, she made a little sound low in her throat like something out of an X-rated video” 

There is also the idea of cooking as foreplay, one that I have studied multiple times throughout the quarter so far. The movements of ones body, of their hands and hips and eyes, and the act of seduction, coming to an intersection that redefines hunger, pleasure, and satisfaction. One must keep in mind that pleasure and satisfaction are hand in hand, but not the same concept. Crumpacker explores this specific concept of cooking and seduction through The Golden Ass (originally titled The Metamorphoses of Apuleius) a late 2nd-century Roman novel, and in fact the only novel of its time written entirely in Latin to survive in its entirety. Whilst I am unfamiliar with the plot as a whole, Crumpacker focuses on a single scene of seduction. The main character Lucius (who shares the name of the author, Lucius Apuleius) watches a woman prepare dinner in the kitchen, noting the way her hips and chest move and the small mannerisms that turn the mundane into the erotic. The act of cooking and eating have so many physical overlaps with sex and erotic behavior, how does one separate the art from the artist when the aromas and sensations are so entwined?

The Song of Solomon or The Song of Songs – Food and Sex in Christian Mythos

Part of my exploration into food and sexuality involves looking at examples stemming from religion and mythos. As one of the major religions of the world Christianity has a heavy influence on societal opinions and behaviors surrounding sexuality and its attached morality, and historically the expressed opinions surrounding sexual activity have been more in the negative. Historical and recent events both in and out of religious communities lean heavily towards abstinence-based teaching, with sex being acceptable only within the bounds of marriage, and often only for the hope of procreation. As with all religious groups of that size there are many many sub-groups that hold varying opinions on the matter, going more and less extreme in their beliefs around so-called “purity”.

Perhaps that is why the Song of Solomon is not highly discussed by most Christian circles, often noted for its highly erotic and sensual nature, this section of the Old Testament speaks of love and intimacy in thinly veiled poetics. In particular, the pomegranate is highly featured in this piece as a stand-in or comparison to human anatomy. Pomegranates are known to raise testosterone levels, which in turn, raises ones sex drive.

“Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon; your mouth is lovely. Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate.” (Song of Solomon 4:3 NIV)

This is the description of his bride-to-be, lustful and hungry Solomon describes her with joy and grandeur. Christianity makes use of their beliefs in an omnipotent god and the text of the Bible to implement thought crime surrounding sin, making lust in any way before you are married a means of clouding your connection with God. Why is it fine to lust over food but not over your lover? Which part is controllable by the religious institutions and which makes you an outlier?

“I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate.” (Song of Solomon 8:2 KJV)

I mean. If you don’t think they’re talking about oral sex then I don’t know what to tell you.

“Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, with henna and nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices.” (Song of Solomon 4:13-16 NIV)

It seems almost as though to get his writings accepted by Christian scholars, King Solomon used his other hunger, food, to portray his hunger for his lover(s?). This example of their intersection is often explained away as a metaphor for the love between oneself and Christ or the church, but let us be honest, when you read these poems in their entirety you cannot explain away the many references to performing oral sex as a simple godly devotion. Instead, why not turn to the idea that Solomon did not consider the act of desire to be the sin it is so often presented as. A King in the age of Christ, perhaps this is just the view of a man who had never known anything but to consume, collaborating both of the pleasures so often referenced in the bible as a means of understanding life.

Aesthetics of Food Porn by Uka Tooming

This paper explores the intersections between food pleasure responses and sexual pleasure responses as observed through visual mediums of art and expression. Namely, the author seeks to understand and deconstruct the meaning and impacts of “food porn”.

“Pleasures of eating are at the center of a plethora of human activities and passions” (p.127)

This quote is akin to ideas I explored in weeks prior, especially the idea of cooking as foreplay that was referenced in Sex by Angela Meah. How does pleasure act as a universal motivator? How does food act as a universal motivator, how about sex? How does the distinction between acts of survival and acts of pleasure effect our consumption?

“Since watching those pictures tends to involve pleasurable sensory arousal, the label “food porn” is often applied to them (FP in short).2 As actual pornography arouses sexual desire in a setting where the stimulus isn’t the “real thing” but its exaggerated image, so does FP seem to arouse food cravings where the stimulus itself is not the real thing but only its embellished representation.” (p.128)

“In the case of a moving image, the sexual analogy can also be accentuated by depicting the cooking process (chopping, kneading, and eating) in ways which stress its similarities with sexual activities. Some people who watch food videos might also watch them because of the person and not because of the food depicted.” (p.128)

“There are also interesting complex cases. For instance, mukbang, a type of video that is popular in South Korea, features people eating in front of camera, often eating food in huge quantities (Kim 2018).4 Since mukbang seems to serve a variety of functions for its viewers —to fend off loneliness, to simulate social eating, to learn how to avoid obesity, to admire the eater, etc.— it is difficult to say if it qualifies as food porn. In the latter case, the focus should be on the food that is depicted and on its arousing aspects. This aspect of the food may be quite irrelevant for viewers’ motivation to watch mukbang videos. Also, videos of eating challenges, a popular form of entertainment on the Internet, although depicting food, focus their viewers’ attention to the capacities and reactions of the eater and not necessarily on the appeal of the food itself.” (p.128)

There are both obvious and not-so-obvious connections between these online food challenges and human sexuality, the most glaring one being the comparisons to porn the paper is mostly looking for. These videos demonstrate uncontrolled and unrealistic acts of consumption, glorified and fetishized acts of human nature taken to extremes. Under the first parallel we can also find ideas of voyeurism playing within both concepts, the subject of the video often at the mercy of the watchers who play live time judge and jury, also consuming in their own way. These trends make use of shock factors, overindulgence, and obscenity as means to keep the viewers engaged.

“In particular, I will argue that the characteristic pleasure that they get from FP is enabled by what I call “constructive gustatory imaginings”. By imagining flavors in response to seeing the visual properties in the image, people can take gustatory pleasure in watching FP images, and by constructing those imagined flavors, people can enjoy something that they might not even enjoy in real life.” (p.129)

“Attraction to food imagery is a broader human disposition than attraction to images of yarn or baseball, for instance. It has been suggested that people find looking at food, both real and imagined, naturally rewarding, which suggests that the “visual hunger” for food is an evolutionary adaptation (Spence et al. 2016, p. 54). The “food porn” therefore stands out among other “porn” categories on social media by being more than a mere object of niche interest.” (p.131)

Within these sections, Tooming makes arguments for separating food porn from other so-called internet “porns” in the same category of satisfying non-sexual imagery. The reasoning used here and throughout this section is that the stimulation and physical reaction to food porn imagery mirrors that of porn in the more stereotypical sence, and I would argue that the reaction to recreate or seek out those same satisfactions are stronger in the realm of either of these two concepts than that of their peers.

“Like actual pornography, FP can be characterized as obscene and even disgusting, but also as titillating and arousing. For instance, there is something obscene about pictures that depict excessively fatty and sugary foods, such as multiple greasy hamburgers or pizzas, laid on top of one another, just as there is something obscene about the depictions of explicit sex acts.” (p.131)

I’m really glad we came back to this, how do feelings of disgust, gross-outs, and other similar feelings and reactions play into this parallel? How does obscenity, surrealism, novelty, etc, fit into this intersection? Disgust is not usually an emotion one would like to associate with sex, yet we have a social feeling of disgust toward sex that fits this example perfectly.

“Since flavor perception is multisensory, in that it involves both taste and olfaction and often incorporates information from other modalities as well (Small and Prescott 2005; Prescott 2015; Velasco et al.2018), it is not just the taste of food that is simulated but its flavor. Imaginings of food consumption can thus simulate multisensory flavor experiences.” (p.135)

“Think now of a person who comes to know that the food that she enjoys watching in an image is actually inedible. Does this knowledge inhibit her from taking pleasure in the image? Although it might affect some viewers, I do not think that one’s pleasure is necessarily ruined by it.” (p.138)

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

While studying Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel I am studying specifically chapter 12 December, however, this book as a whole is an amazing example of food and expression of many kinds. Throughout the novel, Esquivel covers themes of love, sex, grief, celebration, generational trauma, and more through the lens of magical realism, and is one of my most highly recommended reads for food studies students. While I will not be covering this specific section for my Spring 24 ILC, I would be ashamed of myself if I did not give an honorable mention to an early chapter of the book in which Tita cooks with such passion her little sister is overcome with lust while eating and runs away with a soldier.

Chapter 12, December, is the final chapter of the novel (which is split into twelve chapters, covering twelve months Jan-Dec but over many years) and it is where we get the plot climax we have been building to. It begins with Tita (main character) making preparations for a wedding which we learn to be the wedding between Esperanza (technically Titas niece but more like her daughter) and her lover Alex. The wedding was protested by Esperanza’s mother (Titas sister) who was married to Tita’s childhood sweetheart Pedro before she died from mysterious digestive issues. Pedro and Tita have been in love for many years, but due to her statute within her own family, Tita’s mother forced her sister on Pedro in her place, building years of resentment and entrapment that Tita has only escaped due to the death of both her mother and sister.

Despite the roadblocks to Tita and Pedro’s relationship having been removed, Tita is engaged to John, a local doctor who took care of Tita throughout her family’s abuse. The beginning of the chapter highlights the love triangle within, as Tita struggles to light a fire and John takes it as a chance to gift her a box of matches and rub her hands lovingly in front of the fire.

“That afternoon, when Tita was trying to light the oven, she couldn’t find any matches anywhere. John, always gallant, had quickly offered to help her. But that wasn’t all! After lighting the fire, he had presented Tita with the box of matches, taking her hands in his. What business did he have giving Tita that kind of ridiculous gift? It was just a pretext for John to stroke Tita’s hands in front of Pedro. John thought he was so civilized– he’d teach him what a man does when he really loves a woman. Grabbing his jacket, he got ready to go look for John so he could smash his face in.” (p.231)

It is here that I once again saw a connection to the idea of cooking as foreplay, or as a way to mirror foreplay, especially as they highlight Pedro as an onlooker, and the violence that nearly stems from his jealousy. The idea of lighting the fire also leads itself for metaphor, especially due to the forced nature of the spark between Tita and John, the assistance needed to keep it alive, and the one-sided effort John puts in to maintain it.

Another moment worth noting is from the memories Tita shares with the reader about fighting with her sister and the wife of her lover, Rosaura. Whilst an agreement is mostly reached for amicable living them when the girl’s overbearing mother passes, disagreements surrounding the education and freedoms of Rosaura and Pedros daughter, Esperanza, combined with the obvious love and attraction between Tita and Pedro, drive the household over the edge. When Esperanza falls in love with her later husband, Alex, Pedro and Tita stand together to support the relationship, whilst Rosaura fights tooth and nail for her daughter to be forced to follow the same path as Tita was forced on, to remain single and be her mothers caretaker until such time that she, her mother, passed away. It is mere days after this argument that Rosaura passes away.

“They were attracted from the moment they met. When Esperanza told Tita that when she felt Alex’s eyes on her body, she felt like dough being plunged into hot oil, Tita knew that Alex and Esperanza would be bound together forever.” (p.238)

Throughout the book Esquivel makes use of the physical sensation of heat and spice to represent love and passion, and this is my favorite line from that category of metaphor. Dough plunged into boiling oil puffs, floats, and sizzles yet it does so in a smoother, calmer, less fire and brimstone manner than many things you would drop in a fryer. While I think this is due to the low water content I am not a food scientist, and I can only speculate on the metaphorical and symbolic reasoning for the use of dough in the descriptor, which most likely comes from the more common association with dough and the body. She is also stating that when she is perceived through a lense of passionate love or lust, she feels like a consumable, she feels edible and sweet. Whilst the idea of being consumable is much easier to associate with the negative treatment of one’s body and self, this instance feels both tender and deeply erotic.

Finally, we get to the ending of the book, the climax if you would. Now alone in their home for the first time, Tita and Pedro finally get to have the physical and sexual connection they have craved for over 20 years. During sex, Pedro is overcome by passion and dies, leaving Tita with the feeling that the fire inside her will never again be lit. She chews on candles thinking of memories they shares, until Pedro reappears in front of her as she burns from within. They hold each other once more as their passion burns down the ranch.

“She began to eat the candles out of the box one by one. As she chewed each candle she pressed her eyes shut and tried to reproduce the most moving memories of her and Pedro. The first time she saw him, the first time their hands touched, the first bouquet or roses, the first kiss, the first caress, the first time they made love. In this She was successful; when the candle she chewed made contact with the torrid images she evoked, the candle began to burn. Little by little her vision began to brighten until the tunnel again appeared before her eyes. There at its entrance was the luminous figure of Pedro was waiting for her. Tita did not hesitate. She let herself go to the encounter, and they wrapped each other in a long embrace; again experiencing an amorous climax, they left together for the lost Eden. Never again would they be apart.” (p.245)

Corn Grinding Song by Wendy Rose, from The Half-Breef Chronicles and Other Poems, sourced from Through the Kitchen Window edited by Arlene Voski Avakian.

“My heart is asleep

in the peace of pollen,

in a wide purity

in the yellow squash.“

What is peaceful about the pollen? What is pure about the squash? Is it in the pollen’s gentle movements or the squash’s suggestive shape? Does the soft touch of the pollen or the curves of a squash remind us of femininity, or sexuality?

“My hands dream

of gathering honey

from heavy-breasted women

going into the mountain

with Hoonaw dreams.“

What is it about the woman being heavy-breasted that changes the way one finds or consumes the honey? Being heavy-breasted is often associated with fertility and breastfeeding, but also with a level of sexuality and scandalous societal ideas.

“My hips, butterfly-lifted,

crowd with children,

dip and flow with the sun,

roll from the granite like salt.”

This poem is not highly erotic or raunchy, it has a tone that drips with descriptors that could align with a highly sexual poem. When put into context as a song for grinding corn as the title suggests, I wonder if this writing is meant to highlight and praise fertility and in collaboration, sexuality, as both a means of substance and person-to-person consumption. Fertility and procreation is a hot topic in humanities and in agriculture studies, the two not only have incredible overlap on a metaphorical level, but food and reproductive health are incredibly intertwined on both a biological and political level.

“A Lesbian Appetite” by Dorothy Allison, chapter from Through the Kitchen Window: Women Explore the Intimate Meanings of Food and Cooking edited by Arlene Voski Avakian

“I’ve given it up. If I cannot eat what I want, then I’ll eat what I must, but my dreams will always be flooded with salt and grease, crisp fried stuff that sweetens my mouth and feeds my soul. I would rather starve death than myself.” (pg.277-278) 

This essay presents a collection of memories from author Dorothy Allison, as she revisits relationships past and the meals and foods she shared with each of them. I was particularly drawn to this essay as academic readings that study queer relationships are few and far between, and to find one that exclusively highlights wlw relationships but does not shy away from the sexuality within those relationships was too good to pass up. It is far too common that an academic source will ignore queer sexuality, and combined with pop-cultures affinity to focus only on the sexual aspects of a queer relationship, opening these lines of dialog within these kinds of readings is essential to the survival of queer spaces and politics.  

Each of the relationships referenced within this chapter explore food consumption and emotional connection to meals in tandem with the sexual connection between the author and their lover. Early in this piece Allison states;  

“I’ve only had one lover who didn’t want to eat at all. We didn’t last long. The sex was good, but I couldn’t think what to do with her when the sex was done. We drank spring water together and fought a lot.” (pg.277) 

This makes it clear to the reader how intertwined food and sex are for the author and is a foreshadow to the ways in which “hunger” plays a multi-faceted role in her life. This raises the question of how separate instances of pleasure, such as from a good meal, good sex, or other physical satisfactions, can satiate hunger or cravings in a manner that interlaps each other.  

“It’s good to watch you eat” Mona told me, serving me dill bread, sour cream, and fresh tomatoes. “You do it with such obvious enjoyment”. (pg.279) 

The first relationship we get a look into is with Mona, who tells our author of the joy she gets from seeing her joy. The pleasure she feels from watching her lover experience pleasure. In my mind, Mona represents both the familiarity and safety of consuming food that brings you pleasure, and the gentle sexual undertones of wanting your partner to experience pleasure.  

“She drove us up to visit her family in Georgia, talking about what a great cook her mama was. My mouth watered, and we stopped three times for boiled peanuts. I wanted to make love in the back seat of her old DeSoto but she was saving it up to do in her own bed at home.” (pg.279-280) 

Whilst the relationship seems idealistic, the visit to Monas family also seems to represent the end of the relationship. After telling Dorothy of how amazing her mother’s food is, the meal they are met with is disappointing, the opposite of the pleasure she had been waiting for. Whilst we never get any references to it, I wonder if this reflects the sex she had been waiting for.  

Other memorable sections; 

“I took the wedge of eggplant and rubbed it on the back of her neck. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Salting the eggplant.” I followed the eggplant with my tongue, pulled up her T-shirt, and slowly ran the tough purple rind up to her small bare breasts. Lee started giggling, wiggling her ass, but not taking her hands out of the flour to stop me. I pulled down her shorts, picked up another dry slice and planted it against her navel, pressed with my fingers and slipped it down her pubic mound.” (pg. 281) 

“I’ll cook you… just you wait. I’ll cook you a meal to drive you crazy.” 

“Oh, honey.” She tasted like frybread- thick, smoked, and fat-rich on my tongue.” (pg.282) 

“I licked her fingers and fed her with my own hands. We never did get our clothes back on.” (pg.282) 

Tomatoes by Stephen Dobyns

A woman travels to Brazil for plastic
surgery and a face-lift. She is sixty
and has the usual desire to stay pretty.
Once she is healed, she takes her new face
out on the streets of Rio. A young man
with a gun wants her money. Bang, she’s dead.

This first section presents somewhat of a time circle, showing the aging, youthfulness, and then death of this woman within just a few lines. This is an interesting setup for the tone and behaviors surrounding the body of the poem’s subject.

With her new face, she has become a stranger.
Maybe it’s this one, maybe it’s that one.
He looks at their breasts. Which ones nursed him?
He presses their hands to his cheek.
Which ones consoled him? He even tries
climbing onto their laps to see which
feels most familiar but the coroner stops him.

While not sexual, the son of this woman seeks the pleasure and comfort he once found in her body as the identifying factor. There is also something to be explored in her own son being unable to identify herself with this new surgery. Is her appearance really so different, or is her son blinded by his mother’s youth? Unable to imagine her mother in such a way?

Well, says the coroner, which is your mother?
They all are, says the young man, let me
take them as a package. The coroner hesitates,
then agrees. Actually, it solved a lot of problems.
The young man has the ten women shipped home,
then cremates them all together. 

The way they talk about the women being a package deal and having them shipped home together makes me think of a butcher shop, wrapping these women up like meat and having them sent off with the customer.

In the spring, he drags the garbage can
out to the garden and begins working the teeth,
the ash, the bits of bone into the soil.
Then he plants tomatoes. His mother loved tomatoes.
They grow straight from seed, so fast and big
that the young man is amazed. He takes the first
ten into the kitchen. In their roundness,
he sees his mother’s breasts. In their smoothness
he finds the consoling touch of her hands.
Mother, mother, he cries, and flings himself
on the tomatoes. Forget about the knife, the fork,
the pinch of salt. Try to imagine the filial
starvation, think of his ravenous kisses.

The conclusion of the poem really brings the full story into clarity, this mans attempt to find the familiarity and comfort he once found in his mother. As he eats the tomatoes he attempts to reconnect with his now dead mother, consuming her through the flesh of the fruit. The final line and its reference to starvation parallels grief and the loss of a loved one in a raw and tangible manner.

Kitchen Scene by Peter Wtetael

In this flirtatious painting we see a kitchen maid and an errand boy leaning in and locking eyes with each other as they go about their work. While the eroticism within is more subtle than their obvious attraction to one another, it is not hard to imagine that the skewering of the meat in combination with their knowing grins implies more than simple friendliness. Not to mention the um, hanging cock (or rooster) we see on one side of the room, and the basket of eggs hanging from this young mans arm, both of which could be hints at sexuality within this scene.

My Nurse by Meret Oppenheim

This sculpture is made up of two white high-heeled shoes tied up with kitchen string, most commonly used on large roasts or whole poultry, plated on a silver serving platter and decorated with delicate paper trimmings on the tips of the shoes to give the visual of a turkey. When I first found this piece I couldn’t help but laugh at both the absurdity and the spot-on symbolism found within this imagery.

My takeaway from this piece by Oppenheim, who was known for her surrealist sculptures and artwork, is that of a viscous and long-standing paradox that exists between women and the kitchen, both in 1937 and the present day. This sculpture demonstrates the way women are both responsible for the feeding and nourishment of society through their work in the kitchen, and are simultaneously seen as that which is to be consumed. Seen as both the provider and the provided, taken for granted, tied up with kitchen yarn, and forced to serve up a dinner of their own oppressed voices. However, this piece also feels like an act of rebellion, instead of merely making it known Oppenheim serves back to the viewer a meal less appetizing, a mirror into their own actions and opinions which they must now digest.

Sex by Angela Mea (Chapter from Food Words: Essays in Culinary Culture by Peter Jackson)

“Moreover, Probyn points out that replacing scantily clad young women with a plate full of expensive and delicious-looking food on the bonnet of a car is more likely to end in a sale: “Forget sex sells,” she insists, “these days food sells” (2000: 65).” 

“Elspeth Probyn indicates that there is a sense that “sex on its own is no longer terribly interesting” (2000: 72) and, consequently, food writing and food programs have developed as a form of pornography whereby cooking has become foreplay and eating is fucking (Crumpacker 2006: 54).” 

This is such a colorful and visceral metaphor that pulls emotions and visuals that one would traditionally associate with sex and applying them to food and edible knowledge. How does the act of consumption play into this collaborative act? How does the presence of another change the taste? 

“gastroporn” 

When we talk about food porn we are talking about the photographing or food in a manner in which it is extra appealing to us, a photograph that makes us want a taste. Gastroporn is another word for this, the presentation of food in a manner that is sexual or sensual. When we think about the taboo surrounding sex, can we identify the root behaviors or actions that makes one avert their eyes? How is nudity comparable to gastroporn?  

“Chinese philosopher Mencius (fourth century b.c.) is reported to have said, “shi se xing ye” (appetite for food and sex is nature) (Farquhar 2002: 1). This “comradeship” between food and sex, as Judith Farquhar (2002: 28) puts it, results from the innateness of appetite, an intermingling of alimentary and sexual regimens which connect 195and disconnect at the point of the body (Deleuze and Guattari 1988).” 

Whilst there is a small percentage of the population without a sexual drive, something that must not be overlooked when examining cultural and social behaviors, this idea that all it is nature to desire both food and sex is one I can for the most part agree with. Who does not want physical pleasure, sexual or not? Regardless of the mode it takes, pleasure is an experience and a desire we share as a species. 

“While few—until recently—may have thought about the erotic dimension of a Christmas or Thanksgiving turkey being opened up, the empty cavity being lovingly stuffed, by hand, with a sumptuous mixture that will ooze moistness when cooked, or the sensuous feel of a silky ball of chapatti dough as it is kneaded and caressed,” 

This description is beautiful in its complexity and intelligence but also grosses me out because I hate dealing with whole birds in the kitchen. 

“The recognition of cooking as “foreplay” is something that can be dated back to pre-Christian times, before appetites became something in need of “civilizing” (Mennell et al. 1992).” 

When we set guidelines on the civility of meals, we lost the innate, passionate acts of eating that human beings had participated in for years. Why do we insist upon separating our pleasures?  

“The Golden Ass describes how Lucius watches Fortis as she prepares dinner and is aroused by her activities. The eroticism of the description, the power of the seduction, lies in the movement of Fortis’s body as she handles the food and stirs the pots, how she glances at him as she puts the spoon to her lips and tastes the dish, visual tropes that have become familiar to modern consumers as both male and female cooks have indulged in “real food orgasm” on our television screens (Probyn 2000: 4)“

This circles us back to the idea of cooking as foreplay. I also like the highlight of the lips, and the sensuality veiled in food and consumption.  

“Moreover, Probyn points out that replacing scantily clad young women with a plate full of expensive and delicious-looking food on the bonnet of a car is more likely to end in a sale: “Forget sex sells,” she insists, “these days food sells” (2000: 65).” 

“The sensual engagement with food in its “natural” form has been replaced by packet-opening, rehydrating, defrosting, and microwaving. And far from constituting “foreplay,” even when done from “scratch,” everyday family cooking in advanced industrialized nations—much like conventional (“vanilla”) sex—can become rather dull and routine, a duty or obligation to be performed largely by women. Indeed, Sherrie Inness notes that during the Second World War, American women were encouraged to perceive the serving of a family meal as a “quintessential icon of being a woman and a mother” (2001: 136), which is not a particularly sexy image.” 

“spice-up” 

I am hoping to further explore the food metaphors used in discussions surrounding sex that are so common we don’t even think of them as food related. Vanilla sex, spicing things up, these are words you can taste.  

“Nigella Lawson—in particular—has blurred the boundaries between bedroom and kitchen in domestic spaces in evoking sexual metaphors during her cooking programs, “spanking” pomegranates, for example, while relying heavily on sexual innuendo and the sounds of sexual intimacy to convey “food orgasm.” 

“In spite of the explosion of interest in food programs and food writing, however, cooking experimentation is reported as remaining a largely vicarious indulgence: something that people engage with as voyeurs, preferring to read about or watch (Short 2006) but—as with conventional pornography—unlikely to be lived out in practice (Parasecoli 2008: 3).“

A Shallot by Richard Wilbur  

The full cloves 

Of your buttocks, the convex 

Curve of your belly, the curved 

Cleft of your sex— 

Out of this corm 

That’s planted in strong thighs 

The slender stem and radiant 

Flower rise. 

Is the author thinking of sex when he looks at food or food when he is having sex? Does the title being “The Shallot” imply that shallots are the object of his desire, or merely that it is the object he is viewing? How does the image of the shallot as a butt or a vagina impact the way one would consume shallots or sex?  

The Food of Love by Angela Qian

Eating is touch carried to the bitter end. 
—Samuel Butler 

Probably everyone in the world is familiar with this sensation of longing and uncertainty, painful but nevertheless delightful. It is a feeling which most often manifests itself in the pangs of love. 

Noting the use of the word “pangs”, most often used in tandem with the word “hunger. The physical manifestation of needing to consume.  

But if the poem is a metaphor for desire, what should we make of the metaphor itself? The poem describes an apple. The apple is the object of one’s desire. We may say, perhaps, that the apple is a stand- in for the loved one. We, along with the apple-pickers, reach for it, straining. We desire it, can almost taste it; the fruit is red and ripe, sweet and tempting. And what would we do with the apple, once we had it? Well, the answer is obvious: we would eat it. 

This is where I see the connection to consumption shine through my prominently within this field, when we want a food it is so we may consume and enjoy it. While sex is not the direct consumption of the object or your desire, in a way the act itself mirrors or imitates eating and consumption. Think about a passionate kiss or bite, the closeness between two bodies, do we not indulge in each other the way we do food? 

With this in mind, I produced something like a love story, about a girl whose boyfriends drifting further and further away from her. Unable to bear this, she grows desperate, distraught; she’ll do anything to get him back. She begs, pleads, does everything she can think of. Finally, she murders him—and eats his flesh. 

The language becomes violent, colorful, riotous, as the unhappy narrator’s frenzy mounts until the last scene, when her ex-lover makes his entrance, and she cuts open her veins and finds them to be filled with flour. 

Two examples of stories I would love to read, both of which have themes of cannibalism and consumption of that which we love or are attracted to. How does cannibalism intersect with food and sensuality, how can a crime of passion be an act of consumption and sustenance?  

This quarter I will be taking a dive into the intersections of food, consumption, pleasure, sex, and all things edible and taboo. My exploration will include a wide variety of mediums of expression both academic and artistic, in hopes of untangling the complicated web that entraps human sexuality with our desire to consume that which is edible.

When facing such a topic, we all must come to terms with the fact that we have been trained to feel a sense of shame or disgust when discussing our sexuality, and in doing so topics such as sex and food are pushed further away from the realm of academic inquiry, making their research possibilities limited and their chance of recovery from being deemed “gross” or “childish” even less likely.

Yet pleasure is the driving force of most human activities and in fact, most nonhuman activities. We seek and derive pleasure from so many sources, with our biological and psychological reactions differing based on circumstance. Behaviors such as biting, smelling, and licking illicit pleasure responses from most in both the kitchen and the bedroom, we have already coined the term “food porn”, how deeply are these two topics intertwined?

I hope you enjoy reading my findings as much as I enjoy experiencing them. Each weekly post will be slightly different in both content and structure as I change my process as I consume, but if you’d like to take a closer look at any of the sources I will be utilizing my bibliography will be updated weekly. Questions can be answered via MLH1@evergreen.edu