Food and cooking are the most indispensable part of life. It plays an important role in every culture. Being civilized, people in this modern world take great pleasure in eating. The relationship between food and emotion helps researchers uncover human behaviors. People have evolved to love food because it keeps us alive and healthy. It evokes emotions in humans and food itself is even considered to be an emotion. People who exhibit emotions like love, sensuality, anxiety, depression, lethargy, irritability, food cravings, etc. are the result of an unbalanced diet. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Food and emotion are closely related to each other. Food is considered of primary importance in a human being's life, just like shelter. This is the key to understanding people's emotions and mental states. Food imagery has been used in literature throughout the ages. Jane McCallum in her article Understanding Culture through Recipes pointed out concisely: “The culture of a society, we are told, is reflected in its food pattern. » Food and mood are basically seen as a two-way street, the food we choose to eat depends on our mood. . Food is the only thing that keeps human beings physically healthy and emotionally stable. Every organ in the human body produces some kind of emotion. A particular food arouses a particular emotion. This is because each food attacks different organs in our body. For example, if a person eats a food or drink that affects the liver, such as fried foods or alcohol, the emotions of irritation, rage, aggression, or impatience will be more likely. Foods themselves cover a wide range of cultural meanings. It acts as an object to express the more abstract meaning of social systems and cultural values. Immigrants often use food as a way to maintain their cultural identity. Both authors place more importance on food as a means of expressing the emotions and feelings of the protagonists of their novels. Through culinary imagery, they attempt to define the characters' true identities because, in many ways, food defines people and their culture. In short, both employ a magical effect on food. Both novels explore a clear relationship with culture, food and emotion. Amy Bentley, in her article American Gastro-Anomie, argues that the study of food is a key to understanding cultures, societies, and the lives of individuals within them, because eating, after all, is much more than just food. ingestion of nutrients for biological survival: food plays an important role in social relationships, is a highly symbolic element in religious and magical rites, helps in the development and maintenance of cultural distinctions and is of enormous importance in the formation of identities individual. The food tradition of India can also be compared to the Mexican food tradition. Like Indian cuisine, Mexican cuisine encompasses all the distinct flavors of the different cultures and influences it has been exposed to since ancient times. The culinary traditions of both countries reflect their rich cultural heritage. Mexicans have a vast and sophisticated culinary culture, with a wide variety of regional dishes. There are many religious and non-religious occasionsreligious beliefs in Mexico that are accomplished by special foods. Food functions as a memory. Both positive and negative memories are associated with food. In Esquivel's “Like Water for Chocolate,” food is symbolized as a signifier that shows the relationship with family, Mexican tradition, and gender through the protagonist, Tita. A young woman who is forbidden from marrying the man she loves. Cooking becomes her world and cooking becomes her daily life after Nacha's death. She incorporates recipes into the book to tell a story. The recipes she gives are not just formulas, but they are memories and traditions passed down from one generation to another. The novel opens with the act of a sliced ​​onion while the narrator, who happens to be the protagonist's great-niece, Tita. She begins to tell the story of how the women in her family relate to food. The narrator then establishes a connection with Tita's life and her emotions, represented by the cries of a newborn baby, and food is represented by the act of slicing an onion. Throughout the novel, readers can sense how the choice of a particular dish helps define not only each female character, but also Mexican national identity as a whole. Tita falls in love with Pedro. During a house party, Pedro proposes to Tita at the clinic. In this scene, the emotion of love is linked to food. When she first felt his hot gaze burning her skin. She turned her head and her eyes met Pedro's. It was then that she understood how the dough felt when it was immersed in boiling oil. The heat surging through her body was so real that she feared she would begin to bubble – her face, her stomach, her heart, her breasts – like dough, and unable to bear his gaze, she looked down. Mom Elena forbids Tita from getting married. Pedro because it is their tradition that the youngest daughter in the family must take care of her parents until they die. She therefore organizes the wedding of Pedro and Rosaura. Pedro agrees to marry Rosaura only to be close to Tita. Elena forbids Tita from crying over Pedro and Rosaura's marriage. She orders Tita that she will be responsible for preparing all the food for the wedding reception. Tita is totally upset because the man she loves is going to marry her sister. While making the cake, Tita cries and her tears fall into the batter. Nacha consoles her. On their wedding day, the cake is served to the guests. Immediately after eating the cake, everyone feels a sort of nostalgia and begins to cry and vomit. Their emotions are described in the novel as follows: The moment they took their first bite of the cake, everyone was flooded with a great wave of desire. Even Pedro, usually so decent, had trouble holding back his tears. Mom Elena, who had not shed a single tear when her husband died, sobbed silently. But the crying was only the first symptom of a strange intoxication – an acute attack of pain and frustration – which seized the guests and scattered... those who did not join in the collective vomiting which spread throughout the patio. Even Mama Elena first enters her room and then into the memories of her mulatto lover, Gertrudis' father. “Only one person escaped: the cake had no effect on Tita.” Tita's emotion of desire was transferred to other people through the food she prepared. In the sense that when preparing food, one's emotions are transferred into the food and then to the people eating them. Finally, Mom accuses Tita of getting the guests drunkmarriage and having destroyed Rosaura's happiness. The next day, Pedro gives Tita a bouquet of roses to console her and he tries to get her out of the depression and loneliness caused by Nacha's unfortunate death. Tita hugged the roses tightly immediately after entering the kitchen. She doesn't want to throw away the roses. She reminds him of a recipe that Nacha taught him. She then prepares quail in rose petal sauce with her potential for love and passion which nourishes Pedro. After eating the dish, Pedro becomes the passive receiver of his emotions and the food prepared by Tita becomes the active transmitter of passion. In reality, the physical pleasure between Pedro and Tita is realized through the consumption of food. Everyone in the family could feel sensual warmth after eating the food, except Rosaura. Food creates an aphrodisiac quality. Gertrudis could feel the intense heat coursing through her limbs and she is the most affected by these feelings. She is taken away by one of the revolutionary men named Juan. The days passed. Rosaura gives birth to a son and it was Tita who helped her give birth. Pedro will bring Dr. John to the house to treat Rosaura. The narrator describes the baby's head with brown sugar: "it was shaped like a cone of brown sugar because of the pressure his bones had endured for so many hours." But to Tita, it seemed like the most beautiful face she had ever seen.” The baby is wrapped in a towel and compared to a taco, a Mexican dish is given as follows: "Wrapped like a taco, the baby slept peacefully." For example, on another occasion, during Roberto's baptism, Tita prepares turkey mole. As she loves the child very much, she carefully prepared the dish for the party. While he prepares the dish, Pedro stands next to Tita in the kitchen. They both shared their feelings through their eyes. Everyone appreciates Tita for cooking such a delicious mole. She kept getting compliments on her skills as a cook and everyone wanted to know what her secret was. It was really a shame that she answered this question by saying that her secret was to prepare the mole with a lot of love, Pedro just happened to be nearby,... Everyone, oddly enough, was in a euphoric mood afterwards having eaten the mole; it had made them unusually cheerful. They laughed and carried on like they had never done before and wouldn't for a long time. Then later in the novel, Tita is taken to Dr. John because she is deeply affected upon hearing the news of Roberto's death and acts like a crazy person. . So Tita's mother called John and asked him to take her to an asylum. But he takes her home. Tita feels free from her mother's clutches. Once Chencha, the ranch housekeeper goes to Dr. Brown's house to meet Tita. “Soups can cure any illness, whether physical or mental – at least, that was the firm belief of Chencha and Tita too.” With this logic, Chencha brings a steaming bowl of oxtail soup to Tita. They eat, laugh and cherish old memories, and Tita feels Nacha's presence. The soup contains all the emotions of Chencha's friendship and Nacha's love, so powerfully that the experience of eating the soup brings back Nacha's ghost. She couldn't believe it. And behind John came Chencha, covered in tears. The hug they shared was brief, because they didn't want the soup to get cold. From the first sip, Nacha appeared alongside Tita. Stroking his hair while she ate, like she did when she was little and sick, kissing his forehead again and again. There were allmoments with Nacha, childhood games in the kitchen, Christmas buns, the smells of boiled milk... Like in the good old days, when Nacha was still alive and they so often prepared soup the oxtail together. Chencha and Tita laughed as they relieved these moments, and they cried as they remembered the steps of the recipe. Tita started crying after tasting the oxtail soup. John wondered if Chencha's oxtail soup had made Tita cry and talk after six long months. After sometimes, she returns to the ranch to take care of Mom Elena who is sick. Mama Elen died from drinking the bottle of ipecac syrup which is a powerful emetic and this could be the cause of her death. Meanwhile, Rosaura and Pedro return from San Francisco and settle in at the ranch with their granddaughter, Esperanza. John decides to marry Tita and she comes to her house to ask Pedro and Rosaura's permission. Pedro feels jealous and tells Tita not to marry John. Gertrudis visits the ranch with her troop of soldiers and eventually she marries Juan. Tita is so excited and she makes Tezcucana-style chili beans for John and his Aunt Mary. She's coming from Pennsylvania just for their wedding. Rosaura and Tita argue about growing up with Esperanza. When she comes back in a bad mood and finds that the beans are not cooked, despite the hours. Then she remembers Nacha's words: “Something strange was happening. Tita remembered that Nacha always said that when people argue while making tamales, the tamales won't be cooked. They can be reheated day after day while remaining raw, because tamales are angry. In a case like this, you have to sing to them, which makes them happy; then they will cook. Tita discovers that the same thing happened with the beans who had witnessed the argument between her and Rosaura. To improve their mood, Tita plans to sing a song full of love. She closes her eyes and begins to sing a waltz that recalls images of her first meeting with Pedro and the times they spent together. As Tita sang, the bean liquor boiled wildly. The beans allowed the liquid in which they floated to penetrate; they swelled until they were about to burst. When Tita opened her eyes and took a bean to test it, she saw that now the beans were perfectly cooked. From the above lines, the author has written a point that even vegetables can feel the emotions of those who cook them. Aunt Mary appreciates Tita for making a delicious meal with the beans. She feels so happy after eating them. When everything goes well, Tita informs John that the wedding should be called off. She says she lost her virginity to Pedro. With eyes full of tears, John leaves his house. The years have passed. Tita and Chencha help prepare a special dish called Chillies in Walnut Sauce for the wedding ceremony. Readers may think it is the wedding of Pedro and Tita but it is the wedding of Alex, the son of John and Esperanza. After tasting the food, the guests' reactions were as follows: His guests were delighted. What a difference between this wedding and that unfortunate day when Pedro and Rosaura got married. Today, instead of feeling terrible longing and frustration, they felt completely different; when they tasted these peppers with walnut sauce, they all experienced a sensation similar to that which Gertrudis experienced when she ate quails with rose petal sauce... Everyone else, including the ranch hands, made a crazy and passionate love, wherever they are. Tita prepares most of the food inthe novel and she uses food to express her emotions because she has no one to share her feelings with. Tita acquires great culinary skills thanks to Nacha. Then she passes it on to Esperanza. Esperanza then passes it on to her daughter. Thus, the wonderful recipes are taught to the next generation. In the novel Like Water for Chocolate, different types of emotions are transferred through different types of recipes. The same idea is found in The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. The Peculiar Sadness of Lemon Cake tells the story of a nine-year-old girl, Rose, who discovers her own unique ability to find people's emotions through the food she has prepared. Consuming particular foods is one of the primary ways in which individuals can exercise control over their bodies, minds, and therefore their identities...it is the first and probably primary means of intervention over the body, the privileged instrument of self-control. The first time Rose notices her distinctive talent is on her ninth birthday. Her mother, Lane, makes her a special lemon cake. She feels her mother's immense sadness when she prepares Rose a chocolate and lemon cake. Rose can't bear to eat the cake. She said that I could absolutely taste the chocolate, but in drops and traces, in an unfolding or an opening, it seemed to me that my mouth was also being filled with the taste of smallness, of the sensation of shrinkage, of upheaval, of taste of the distance. .and with every bite I thought – mmm, so good, best ever, yum – but with every bite: absence, hunger, spirals, hollowness. This act of Rose perplexes her mother. Rose thinks a lot about the emotions contained in food. Later, she began to notice them in everything she ate and was even able to identify the origin of the ingredients used in the food. She turns to George, her brother Joseph's friend. He tries to understand what is happening to her and who completely believes her. Like Joseph, George has a keen interest in science and agrees to do research experiments on his abilities. While Rose's new abilities fascinate George, he ignores her growing crush on him. He is making efforts to find the cure for his problem. He has several experiences throughout the novel. Various incidents in the novel are an attempt by the author to make readers understand the close connection between food and emotion. Once she fainted at school and was taken to the nurse. She asks about his health and Rose simply says that the food tastes bad. That wasn't entirely true: I had eaten a good apple for lunch. The carton of recess milk was good. But almost everything else—the cake, the chicken dinner, the homemade brownie, the craving for the peanut butter sandwich—had left me with varying degrees of the same feeling of dread. Every time she eats something, she can feel the emotions of the people preparing it. She thinks there is a hole in the food. She could even smell the water where it came from. When the nurse gives him a small paper cup of water. She believes the water came from a mountain spring that had been sitting in plastic for several weeks. For this reason, water is like liquid lucite. The nurse finally says that Rose's illness is due to a food allergy or an active imagination. Once everyone is seated for dinner. Rose looks upset. Lane hugs her and asks her to eat. She simply takes out her plate and says that “food is full of feelings.” Everyone except Joseph is criticized for their behavior. When George isinformed of his problem, he makes efforts to find out what is happening to him. We provide him with food. George takes a paper and writes the list of foods on one column and all his answers on the right. “Half hollow,” I said of my mother’s leftover tuna casserole. Terrible, I said, swallowing a mouthful of my dad's butterscotch pudding left in a bowl. The following weekend, George and Joseph take Rose to a bakery in a place called Beverly for an experiment. George asks Rose to take the chocolate chips first. As soon as she bites them she can even tell what are the ingredients used and where do they come from and finds out that the cookie is angry, that is, the baker was angry while preparing the cookies . She says: By then, almost a week later, I'll be able to sort through the onslaught of diapers a little more quickly. The chocolate chips were factory-sourced, so they had that same slight, metallic, absent taste, and the butter had been extracted from cows in paddocks, so the richness wasn't as rich. The eggs were tinged with a hint of distant and plastic. All these coins were buzzing in the distance, and then the baker, who had mixed the dough and formed the dough, was angry. A tight anger, in the cookie itself. George asks about the mood of the man who made the cookies. He replies that he was not in the mood while preparing them. In fact, the man hates his job and doesn't even like cookies. For this reason, he gets angry while preparing them. It is transmitted through the cookies he made. George then asks Rose to taste the oatmeal and the sandwich. She responds that the oatmeal seems to be rushed and the sandwich tastes like scream. She says I bit into the oatmeal. Same levels - now the oats, well dried, but less well watered then the raisins, half tasteless, made from dried grapes, picked by thirsty workers, then the baker, rushed. The whole cookie was so rushed, like I had to eat it quickly or it would eat me, one way or another. After tasting the sandwich, she discovered that “it was a homemade ham, cheese and mustard sandwich on white bread. .sandwich as a whole, I tasted a kind of scream, almost. As if the sandwich itself was screaming at me, screaming: love me, screw me, very loudly. The young man at the counter tells them that the sandwich was prepared by his girlfriend. George asks him if he loved him or not? He just shrugs and asks what he's doing. Do you mean love? Through his response, they understand that he doesn't love his girlfriend the way she probably wants him too. George wonders how a nine-year-old girl can feel these things just by tasting them. Everything she says is true. He tells Joseph that "she's like a magic food medium or something." George and Rose then compare the notes they took and verify that she can perceive emotions that even the cook himself does not understand. They also discovered that chopped and sliced ​​foods convey less emotion than baked foods. Rose worries about her problem. But George encourages her with positive words and says she could "grow up." Rose hates her ability to find emotion in the food she eats. She just wants to let go of the feeling of tasting people's emotions through their food. She once passes out after eating her mother's pie and Lane immediately takes her to the hospital. Doctors have a little difficulty diagnosing it. He is served noodle soup at the hospital. "They served me a bowl of hospital noodle soup, which tasted resentful, lateand full...I ate every single one of the crackers, packed in their ridged plastic packaging, made in a factory in East Hanover, New Jersey." As her new sense of taste developed, she was even able feel where the salt in the soup had been produced. Later, the doctor gave her a cherry lollipop. She could immediately tell how it was prepared and where it was bought from. no human emotion. “The doctor handed me a cherry lollipop, from a factory in Louisiana where, once flavored, the hot sugar cooled on a metal table made of small circles then was printed on a rod of white cardboard. Not the slightest trace of a person in it." Lane pats her shoulders and asks her to be calm and not to worry about anything. Rose learns to tolerate the burden of her taste capacity. She started eating factory-made foods to reduce her taste problem. She is twelve years old. Once they all sit down to a dinner of roast beef and potatoes. She feels such emotion of guilt and romance, but Lane seems happier while eating. Rose could sense that her mother was having an affair with someone. Rose tries to spend time with her father and enjoys knowing that he has "special skills." He stays silent but tells her he's afraid to go to the hospital. Even when his two children were born, he did not enter the hospital. Lane's best friend, Sharlene, took care of her. Then the scene shifts to Joseph who often disappears from his home. Rose suspects him. Once, Eliza takes Rose to lunch with her other friends and Sherrie is one of them. When others leave, Rose and Sherrie begin their discussion. Their interaction ultimately allowed Sherrie to be close to Rose. After learning that Rose has a sense of finding emotions, she takes Rose home. She makes a pan of brownies on the spot and hands it to Rose. Rose said quickly, “Ugh,” I said, muffled, grabbing a glass of water. You are massively depressed.” Sherrie just puts her head on the counter and starts crying. She agrees that what Rose says is absolutely true. But she doesn't explain the reason to him. Rose finally discovers her mother's different emotions for Larry through the food she prepares. She thinks it's something strange that a little girl of twelve can identify such emotions in people. She also identifies her father's truth that her grandfather had the same sensory power and he too had to face many difficulties because of this. Joseph's continued disappearance and strange behavior made her think more about him than his taste problem. A few years later, Rose decides to use her superpower for useful purposes. She spends her money on meals and begins traveling to different parts of the city as a food medium. At the end of the novel, Rose learns that her father could sense whether people in a room are happy or unhappy just by entering it. She then realizes that this sensory disorder is hereditary in their family. Taste also refers to individual disposition. By comparing these two novels, readers could clearly understand that both authors are trying to explain their point of view in the same way but from different aspects. In Like Water for Chocolate, the protagonist acts as a transmitter of emotions, but in The Peculiar Sadness of Lemon Cake, the protagonist acts as a receiver of emotions. In the sense that both authors deal with the same theme, their protagonists could identify emotions through food, whether it is prepared by them or by someone else. They also show how..