December 28, 2025

From Murakami’s simple egg salad sandwiches in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to the apples in Orwell’s Animal Farm, food has long served as a powerful metaphor and metonymy in literary fiction. In ‘Metaphors and Metonymies of Food in Four Asian Texts’ (Anthropocene Ecologies of Food, 2022), Associate Professor Chitra Sankaran (NUS English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies) explores how four Asian works — Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting, Vida Cruz’s Song of the Mango, Michele Cruz Skinner’s Mango Season, and Wayne Ree’s Satay — use food to highlight the identities of the people and their communities. 

These four contemporary texts from India, Singapore, and the Philippines  explore the making and eating of food, as a reflection of the diverse cultural connotations surrounding nourishment. In Desai’s Fasting, Feasting, the dietary habits of Indians and Americans are contrasted, offering insights into the cultural significance of food in these societies. On the other hand, Cruz and Skinner, centre their narratives on a fruit, the mango, but diverge in their approaches. While Cruz weaves a mythical tale of warring clans over a mango tree, Skinner presents a family drama in Mango Season, showcasing how the mango is deeply embedded in both cultures’ histories. Ree’s Satay is set in a post-apocalyptic Singapore where local food becomes a powerful symbol that can unite or divide communities. Across all four texts, food emerges as more than just a means of sustenance. It reflects cultural beliefs and serves as a political tool for the characters. 

In Ree’s Satay, food serves as a lens to explore the widening class disparities in Singapore, providing a critique of the deepening social divides within the nation. Conversely, in Skinner’s Mango Season, mangoes serve as a social bond between characters from different classes. In Mango Season, Clara and Danny, who come from different social classes, are drawn together by their shared love for mangoes. The act of sharing and eating mangoes becomes a powerful symbol of their connection, transcending social barriers and reflecting the unspoken desires of Clara.  

Cruz’s Song of the Mango, set in the Salayan mountains, follows a mythical tale about how Maragat, a duragma (an honourable soldier), is killed while hunting a wild boar as dowry for marriage. His sister, Saha, finds him dying and sings a song so moving that it attracts a powerful spirit who transforms him into a mango tree. The magical mangoes bore by the tree become a panacea for all ailments, fulfilling the dying wishes of a Maragat, and serving the community. Meanwhile, Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting uses food and related imagery to explore themes of power, status, and the oppression of women. A key scene involves Mama’s meticulous act of peeling and serving an orange to Papa, symbolising the power dynamics within a household, where everything revolves around the patriarch’s comfort and desires. 

Through the four texts, Sankaran illustrates how food is portrayed as a political tool, reflecting and shaping societal dynamics. Her exploration underscores that food availability and the lack thereof is not only a pervasive but also a deeply divisive issue in Asia. Above all, food and eating are powerful metaphors and metonymies that can either fracture or unite families and communities.  

Read the article here.