Food and magic

It is amazing to see how a tiny seed of life sprouts out of the soil and grows into a tree as tall as a skyscraper. It is truly a magical moment. The texts “The Odyssey”, “The Book of J”, and “Like Water for Chocolate” also explore the magical aspects of the food in many different ways. The Odyssey play with all the bizarre and hallucinogenic effects of food, the Book of J tells us how magically food can bring knowledge in human, and Like Water for Chocolate talks about cooking food as an art to transform one’s emotion to another.

Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey” is full of many occurrences in which special relation between food and magic can be noticed. The poem starts with the protagonist “Odysseus” having a feast in the palace of Phaeacians. Odysseus and his comrades come across many life and death situations, and in between all those situations they are depicted as feasting, feeding or killing another form of life, which signals the food as being an important factor behind the consequences presented in the Odyssey. In the poem, the Odysseus reaches a land of lotus-eaters where his comrades eat the strange plant and fails to report back. It can be quoted as “but whoever ate that sweet fruit lost the will to report back, preferring instead to stay there, munching lotus, oblivious of home” (Homer 9.94-96). This gives us an idea of the Lotus plant as having some strange effect that, if eaten, makes a person forget about their being. In another setting, when the Odysseus is in Circes’ island, Odysseus’ men are fed with the potion that works its magical power and makes them forget about their homeland. In the same setting, Hermes gives Odysseus a magical herb that cuts the effects of the potion later to be given by Circe. In yet another backdrop, Odysseus is depicted as pouring libation, sprinkling white barley and sacrificing ram, ewe, and heifer to the dead. This can be quoted as “I poured libation to all dead, first with milk and honey, then with sweet win, and a third time with water. Then I sprinkled barley, vowing sacrifice on Ithaca” (Homer 11.24-29). This shows yet another magical power of food that even causes souls of the dead to come out of their underground caverns. Food in the form of wine is also shown to have a magical effect in the poem. While being inside Cyclopes’ cave, Odysseus feeds him with wine causing him to sleep. Thus, foods in The Odyssey are described to have magical, bizarre and hallucinogenic effects. It is shown as if it is the food that turns the impossible into possible in this epic journey.

Also, in The Book of J, we find many situations that describe the relation between food and magic. One of the situations is when the man and Hava eat the fruit from the tree of knowing good and bad; they immediately cover their body with the leaves. In the text, it can be quoted as “and the eyes of both fall open, grasp knowledge of their naked skin”(The Book Of J 63). Before eating the fruit from the tree of knowing good and bad, Hava and the man were oblivious of their naked body. But, after eating the fruit they notice the secret parts of their body and feel shame, and so cover up with leaves. Also in the text, it is explained that if the fruit is eaten from the tree of life, the man and Hava will become immortal as the gods themselves. Yahweh doesn’t want the man and women to eat form the tree of knowing good and bad, because if they eat they would become knowledgeable and would know that eating fruit from the tree of life would make them immortal. This can be quoted as “the earthling sees like one of us, knowing good and bad. And now he may grasp the tree of life as well, eat, and live forever” (The Book Of J 64). Thus, eating a fruit to become knowledgeable and immortal marks the relationship between food and magic in The Book of J.

The tale of food and magic continues in Laura Esquivel’s “Like Water for Chocolate.” The story presents a Mexican girl, Tita De LaGarza, who possesses an ability to transport her emotions to others through the food she prepares. Just like a painter expresses emotions through his or her painting, a singer expresses emotions through his or her songs, Tita, an artist of her own kind, expresses her emotions through her art of cooking. She believes that food has the power to relate one’s emotion to another. Thus, if prepared with love will spark feeling of love, and if prepared with hate will produce feeling of hate among people. In the story, while making a wedding cake for her sister’s wedding with watery eyes, Tita pours her sorrow in the cake in the form of tears. As a result, everyone in the wedding gets a bad stomach and starts throwing out. On the different setting, food is also shown as an element that can evoke sexuality in the living body. As in the story, after eating the “Quail in Rose Petal Sauce,” everyone starts acting like an aphrodisiac. “Gertrudis begins to feel an intense heat pulsing through her limbs” (Esquivel 51). The rose petal that is used in the dish is of the same rose given by Pedro. That is why, it seems like the reason behind everyone acting crazy is because Tita makes the dish with her own sexual desires that she wants to gratify with Pedro but can’t as being watched by Mama Elena. She blends her own sexual desire in the food and transforms the desire to everyone in the dinner table. Also, in the setting where Pedro smells Tita’s frying of almonds and sesame seed, he feels sexual arousal growing inside him; he feels like something delightful is going to come. In the novel it can be quoted as “the smell of the almonds browning kindled his sexual feeling” (Esquivel 51). Apart from sexual arousals, we can also notice some other effects of food in the novel. To make her relation healthy with Pedro, Tita prepares food for him, as she knows that the food she prepares is always packed with a magical message for the eater. In this way, Tita conveys her emotions through the food in Like Water for Chocolate.

So, it can be noticed that food, in different ways, affects the characters in the texts. Odysseus does much bizarre magic with food, Hava and the man gains their knowledge eating fruit, and Tita exchanges her strong emotions through the dishes she prepares. Above mentioned explanation on food and magic may seem too magically exaggerated to fit real life situations, but it is true that food affects us in varieties of different ways. If it weren’t about the magic in food, how would a small living body grow into a giant mass feeding upon a bit of grain or a crumb of bread?

Work Cited

The Book Of J. Trans. David Rosenberg. Editor. Harold Bloom. New York : Grove, 1990.

Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. New York: Double Day, 1989.

Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Stanley Lombardo. Indiana: HacketPublishing, 2000.