Wendell Berry, Essay Example

Poet Wendell Berry argues, “Eating with the fullest pleasure…is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world.” It appears that Berry’s sentiment is correct. Eating is what makes us human. When we have enough food, we are happy. When we are starving we feel depressed and are filled with a sense of mortality. Thus, food emphasizes the human experience in two ways. As Berry states, it certainly links us to this world because food comes from the earth. Our consumption of food reminds us that we are derived from the very earth in which our food is grown and that at the end of our lives, we will return there as well. In Like Water for Chocolate, Tita reminds us of this natural connection with food. Cooking is the one thing that comforts her and allows her to escape the problems that life has created for her. In, Pomegranate Soup, producing food is what allows the Aminpour sisters to make a living in a new land.

In both Like Water for Chocolate and Pomegranate Soup, the main character, Tita, uses food to find her identity and be more comfortable with her position in life. Tita uses her love of cooking to escape her unfortunate position within her family. Since she is the youngest daughter, she is expected to stay at home, not marry, and take care of her mother. Ultimately, she thinks that this fate is unfair and that she should not be provided with this responsibility simply because of her birth order; it is evident that she wishes to live a life of her own. While she knows that family is important and she doesn’t want to break her unspoken promise to her mother, she is upset that she believes she cannot act as an independent person. To help her through these troubled times, she engages in cooking as a temporary release. She feels that this art is the one thing that truly belongs to her alone.

Throughout the story, it is evident that food is used as a symbol for Tita’s life. “Something strange was going on. Tita remembered that Nacha had always said that when people argue while preparing tamales, the tamales won’t get cooked. They can be heated day after day and still stay raw, because the tamales are angry. In a case like that, you have to sing to them, which makes them happy, then they’ll cook” (Esquirel 35). When Tita describes the food in this situation, she personifies it, demonstrating that the happiness of the food is aligned with her own personal happiness. It is unlikely that actually singing to tamales makes a realistic difference regarding their taste or tendency to be prepared more quickly, so the reader can assume that Tita is really talking about herself in this situation. She enjoys cooking and singing, so she is able to prepare food more quickly when she does both simultaneously. This is one of the few ways that Tita works hard to cope with her life’s situation. It is evident that the more distractions that she is able to create for herself, the more willing she is to be comfortable with who she is and ultimately achieve happiness as a result.

In Pomegranate Soup, the main characters, the Aminpour sisters, use food to find their identities as well. Unlike Tita, the Aminpour sisters have found themselves in a new country and they use cooking to support themselves in a new land. In addition to using food to support themselves financially, they also use it as a comfort because the foods they prepare remind them of their home. Of particular importance was their preparation of the pomegranate soup. The narrator states, “It (the pomegranate) had shown even her that some of the best recipes are the unwritten ones, the ones that happen when you pour yourself a generous glass of Shiraz vino, pop on a soothing Billie Holiday song, and just let the bountiful ingredients lead you” (Mehran 46). It is evident that opening up the food shop allowed the sisters to apply their creativity to their new trade. While this made them happy and gave their life purpose, this made other individuals living in the community, such as Thomas McGuire, immensely jealous about this talent.

In this situation, food is extremely important. The sisters had lived through a lot of terror before escaping to Ireland, and they felt like strangers in a new land. Their production of food helped them connect more greatly with the Irish people who would visit their shop, and it was clear that those who purchased their food enjoyed it. Despite the trouble the sisters had faced in the past, this new life gave them a new purpose to be alive and keep pushing forward despite the small amount of adversity they faced at the hands of Thomas McGuire. McGuire is jealous of the sisters because he had wished to purchase their shop for a different purpose, and made his jealously abundantly clear. Overall, this demonstrates the value that food held for these individuals. While their entry into the food business was certainly not a magical cure, it made them feel safe and more stable in their new home.

Overall, it is evident that Wendell Berry’s quote is correct. Food is essentially what connects us to life. In Tita’s situation, cooking made her begin to feel more satisfied with her own life. As it pertains to the Aminpour sisters, food made them feel more comfortable in their new home. For the main characters in both books, it appears that food is what help them get past their conflicts and enabled them to get a better understanding of who they are as people and how they fit into society. In Tita’s case, this meant understanding and accepting her role as a member of a family, and in the case of the Aminpour’s this meant striving to succeed in a new land that was seemingly out of their element. Berry indicates that food is related to a human struggle. We all need food to survive. However, in Like Water for Chocolate and Pomegranate Soup, this need for survival stemmed from deeper roots. While Berry is correct, food also has the ability to mend deep internal conflicts that many people would not be able to understand by examining the surface. The love for food is a great thing, because it connects live to motivation, and can ultimately give one the power to survive. Tita and the Aminpour sisters were thankful for having learned this important lesson, and it is necessary to apply these understandings to our own lives to ensure that we are all able to achieve true happiness.

Works Cited

Esquirel L. Like Water for Chocolate. New York, NY: Bantam, 1994.

Mehran, M. Pomegranate Soup. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2006.