“A good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” (Woolf, 2022, p. 25) Food is a crucial part of our lives. In fact, without it, we would not survive more than a few weeks. Therefore, it is not strange that, as a society, we have created multiple metaphors regarding food. In the book “Metaphors We Live By,” Lakoff & Johnson (2003) present the conceptual metaphor that IDEAS are FOOD, where they suggest that ideas are treated as if they can be consumed, digested, or nourished, just like food. In Latin America, eating is almost a ritualistic experience. From cooking the dish to the sobremesa, a Spanish word that refers to staying at the table after eating, usually accompanied by tea and a good conversation. The significance of food often stems from cultural traditions, but it can also symbolise deeper human experiences, such as love. Love, a complex and intricate emotion, frequently appears in the arts, where food and even cannibalism are sometimes used as metaphors to explore its profound and often paradoxical nature. This essay aims to examine how food and cannibalism can represent the multifaceted emotion of love while also uncovering the hidden desires associated with it.
As mentioned, it is common in Latin America, particularly in Chile, to associate food with significant events. The almost ritualistic nature of sharing a meal is what gives food its importance to our society. Eating with someone is a sacred act; it requires trust and vulnerability, and only some are welcome to participate in this ritual. Furthermore, inviting someone to eat represents that the person 1) has enough trust in the other to have them welcome in their home, and 2) it is important enough that sharing this valuable fuel makes them worth it.
Furthermore, food can also symbolise a person’s economic status, as seen in the grand banquets of high society, where food was abundant, contrasting sharply with the struggles of common people to secure enough meals for their families. As my grandmother says, “es mejor que sobre a que falte” (It is better to have more than not enough), which can mean that she wants to make sure that everyone has had the chance to eat and be satisfied, but also can have the underlying note that she has enough money to feed the multitude of people that comes to her house—showcasing an example of how food can show a person’s socioeconomic status. However, food can also represent moments of unity within a community, as with the so-called common pots. In this cooking initiative, a group of people, typically from economically disadvantaged communities, come together to prepare and share meals. It is often organised during economic hardship, social unrest, or natural disasters to ensure everyone in the community has access to food. This showcases that even though food can be a social status determiner, it can also serve as a tool to bring people together.
So, with all said, how can food be related to love? Let us think about the movie Ratatouille for a moment. In the ending scenes, when the food critic Anton Ego takes his first bite of the ratatouille prepared by Remy, he is instantly transported to a cherished childhood memory. In his flashback, after falling off his bike, he returns home sore, only to be comforted by his mother, who lovingly prepares a warm, hearty meal for him (Bird & Pinkava, 2007). This scene captures the emotional power of food and the importance that food has on Ego’s life, evoking feelings of love, care, and nostalgia that break his cold and critical exterior. Consequently, food can be an act of love, where the effort and care put into preparing a meal become a means of expressing affection, comfort, and connection. Sharing meals or preparing favourite dishes for loved ones can serve as a tangible expression of love, fostering intimacy and strengthening relationships.
While food often represents feelings of comfort and care, it can also reflect darker, more complex human desires and emotions. Food sometimes becomes a metaphor for possession, power, or even the consuming nature of love itself. This brings us to the idea of cannibalism as a metaphor for love: the act of consuming another person can symbolise an intense form of connection or desire. Phrases such as “I could eat them up” or “que cosita más rica” (often referring to a baby, but can also be used in other contexts, such as sexual ones) demonstrate this idea of cannibalism as a form of expressing love.
A simple way to explain this would be to make a relationship between food, desire and satisfaction within the cannibalistic relationship. In this metaphor, food represents the loved one, the object of longing and emotional consumption. Desire symbolises the intense craving to connect with and possess the loved one, an all-consuming passion that metaphorically mirrors the act of “devouring” someone. Satisfaction, in turn, reflects the fleeting sense of fulfilment or completeness achieved through this physical, emotional, or symbolic connection. The overlapping areas illustrate the depth of this metaphor: food and desire together represent the yearning to possess and consume the loved one; desire and satisfaction capture the emotional gratification and intimacy that come with fulfilled longing, and food and satisfaction highlight how the loved one becomes a source of completeness for the one who desires them. Ultimately, the convergence of all three—food, desire, and satisfaction—symbolises the consuming nature of love, where boundaries dissolve, and passion, intimacy, and connection merge into an intense and obsessive union.
Moreover, we can further explore this relationship of a cannibalistic nature in the media. Vampires are one of the most prominent references to cannibalism in literature, as they embody this metaphor through their act of feeding on humans as a symbolic expression of intimacy, desire, and power. In modern times, this metaphor is explored in films like Bones and All (Guadagnino, 2022) and books such as A Certain Hunger (Summers, 2021), which delve into the complexities of love and longing through the lens of cannibalistic practices. Bones and All (2022) presents cannibalism as a vehicle for exploring human connection, vulnerability, and the need to belong. However, when the main character (Maren) is faced with Lee’s (male main character) longing to be eaten and be consumed by her, at first, Maren resists this idea, perhaps symbolising the fear of fully embracing the intensity of their love. Yet, she eventually gives in, reflecting the surrender and vulnerability often required in love. Lee's plea, “I want you to eat me. I want you to do it, Maren. It's easy, Maren. Love me,” emphasises his desire to dissolve the boundaries between them entirely. This act is the ultimate expression of their connection, symbolising a love so intense that it devours and transforms both parties.
Similarly, A Certain Hunger (2021) also explores cannibalism as a metaphor for love, but not in the way one might first imagine. The story is about a charismatic and unapologetic food critic, Dorothy Daniels, who surrenders to her love for gourmet cuisine and her cannibalistic desires, as she kills her ex-boyfriends to later enjoy them in her dishes. The following quote “‘Eat what you love,’ they say, and I have. But that's facile. It's not merely that I loved Giovanni, Andrew, Gil, and Marco; it's also that I lost them.” (Summers, p. 120) represents the consuming nature of love, by consuming her lovers, she both expresses her intense longing for them and grapples with the inevitable separation that comes with such acts. The book represents the intersection of desire, power, and consumption, using cannibalism as a metaphor to explore the primal and often predatory nature of human relationships. She states, “I prefer my meat to come from animals who have been humanely raised and humanely killed” (Summers, 2021, p. 121). Through her narrative, the novel satirically critiques societal norms surrounding female hunger—literal and metaphorical—while examining the consuming, destructive, and obsessive aspects of love and desire.
In conclusion, food and cannibalism are powerful metaphors for love, revealing its complex, consuming, and often contradictory nature. The idea of love consumes us, the notion that someone wants to know us to the core, our most strange and ugly parts, and we want to know them back. We want to have them as a whole and know them inside out as if they were a part of ourselves. Most people search for this feeling of being wholly understood and consumed by their partners their whole lives. Ultimately, no other metaphor can highlight this duality of love, its capacity to sustain love and destroy it at the same time, while challenging our perceptions of intimacy, desire, and the boundaries of human connection.
References
Bird, B., & Pinkava, J. (Directors). (2007). Ratatouille [Film]. Walt Disney Pictures, & Pixar.
Guadagnino, L. (Director). (2022). Bones and All [Film]. Metro Goldwyn Mayer.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2003). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226470993.001.0001
Pinterest [Image] https://cl.pinterest.com/pin/744079169713693420/
Summers, C. G. (2021). A Certain Hunger. Unnamed Press.
Woolf, V. (2022). A Room of One's Own. Arcturus Publishing Limited.
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