Natcho Cheese

In literature, food is used as a metaphor, a balance between life and death. In the literary works “The Odyssey”, “The Book of J” and “Like Water for Chocolate” food is a metaphor for death. In “The Odyssey”, food is a precursor in the death of Agemmnon, his men, and Odysseus's crew. In “The Book of J”, the forbidden consumption of food leads to the death of innocence and dooms all of mankind. In the novel “Like Water for Chocolate”, the intolerance of food leads to the death of Rosaura and Roberto. Although food is a necessity for survival, when caution is not headed and restraint is not exercised food can be a vessel of death.

In “The Odyssey” food is the harbinger of death when Agamemnon recounts to Odysseus the events that lead to the untimely death of his men and himself. Upon returning home, Agamemnon and his men were invited to a great feast at the house of Aegisthus. While eating they were mercilessly slaughtered and we are subjected to perverse images of the men bleeding into wine-bowls, onto the food and “the floor steamed with blood” (XI. 434). Food, it seems was used as a guise to lure these men to their deaths and the connection between food as death is apparant as these men as murdered while they eat. Similarily, the Goddess Circe, lures men into her home with sweet songs and the promise of food. As Odysseus's men went into her home on the island of Aeaea, she prepared for them a wine with cheese, barley, honey "and laced this potion with insidious drugs" (X. 253). When the men were done eating and drinking Circe then turns them all into pigs and herds them into sties. Her intentions are not immediately clear, one can assume she will eventually kill and eat these pigs, although either way these men are dead as they are now simply swine.

Once again in “The Odyssey” food is the ultimate judge of death. The gluttonous consumption of forbidden food leads to the death of all of Odysseus’s men. Calypso specifically warns Odysseus not to harm the cattle of Helios, the Sun God, for disaster will fall upon them if they do (XII.146). While Odysseus sleeps, his crew collectively decide that the worst way to die is of hunger, so they herd up some cattle, slaughter them and feast. Odysseus’s men not only satisfy their basic hunger, but take it a step further and slaughter oxen for six days and “gorge on the meat” (XII. 410). Furious, Helios demands justice from Zeus. For having eaten specifically what was forbidden to them, Odysseus’s men are killed by Zeus’s thunderbolts.
Food once again plays the evil culprit in “The Book of J”, as it leads to the demise of humanity. In the book of J, we are introduced to man (Adam) and woman (Hava). Blissfully innocent, they live in and tend to the Garden of Eden under the condition that they do not touch (eat from) the tree of knowing good and bad, for on that day death would touch them (The Book of J 62). Tempted, they eat the fruit and although they did not literally die, they inadvertently kill their innocence.
It is not long before this curse comes to light as we are introduced to the children of man and woman; Abel, a watcher of sheep, and Cain, a tiller of soil (The Book of J 65). The brothers, in their eagerness to please Yahweh, bring him offerings of food. Cain offers Yahweh fruit of the earth, while Abel brings him the “choicest of his flock”, fat and succulent (The Book of J 66). Yahweh is pleased with the meat offerings but is unmoved by the fruit Cain has given him. Spurned by the rejection of his food by Yahweh, Cain strikes down his brother and kills him.

In the novel “Like Water for Chocolate”, we see food give life to its characters, and by the same token we see food take life from them. Death comes to Rosaura early in life. Plagued through most of the novel, we watch Rosaura battle her inability to tolerate food, which eventually leads to her death by “acute congestion of the stomach” (Esquivel 233). Rosaura’s awkwardness and inability to understand food was her downfall in more ways than one. Rosaura never learned to cook and she never learned how to create food, which in essence, is life. Her inadequacy is especially apparent during the birth of her first child, Rosaura is not able to breast feed and by not being able to provide food, she tilts the scales in favor of death. Tita, in the novel is a direct representation of food and life, at one point even offering “the baby her breast” (Esquivel 76), secretly becoming Roberto’s wet-nurse and providing him with the food he needs to survive. Eventually, Rosaura turns on Tita, refusing her help, and by doing so directly denying food for her son. Rosaura’s denial of Tita, combined with her inability to create food causes the death of Roberto.

Food, albeit wonderful and satisfying plays an equally darker, sinister role, in the stories “The Odyssey”, “The Book of J” and “Like Water for Chocolate”. Untamed, unlawful, and excessive consumption of food is what brings about the death Odysseus’s men, Adam, Hava, Abel, Roberto and Rosaura. Through these literary works we witness the temptation to lose all restraint over oneself, to consume in excess and unfortunately pay the ultimate price, death