What Is Eating Latin American Women Writers: Food, Weight, and Ea ...

disinfectants reminds the protagonist of illness and death. As well, the still kitchen stands in opposition to the dynamic outer world of classrooms, streets, offices, cafés, where she learned skills that she no longer needs. The protagonist is aware that now that she is married, the kitchen is the space she must occupy: “It has been here from the beginning of time. According to a German proverb, a woman is synonymous with Küche, Kinder, Kirche” (kitchen, children, church; 7). By bringing up the German proverb, which equates women to the kitchen, to children, and to the church, Castellanos demonstrates that language reflects and contributes to the perpetuation of patriarchal traditions. Castellanos paves the way for later feminist scholars who would theorize on the significance of language as well, among them Dale Spender, who in Man Made Language (1980) argues that words are a crucial element by which men cling to power.

The protagonist’s dichotomous perception continues as she argues that cookbook authors are “applauded equilibrists” (7) because they are able to reconcile all the contradictions in their cookbooks. With irony, she proclaims, “How would I be able to carry out such an immense labor without society’s collaboration, without all of that history?” (7). With this sarcastic interrogation—which will be the first of many in the story—Castellanos presents the cookbook as an element of the patriarchal system in which women themselves are accomplices. Furthermore, the protagonist’s comments that cookbooks perpetuate contradictory values, such as “slenderness and gluttony” (7), reveal Castellanos’ preoccupation with issues connected to food and the body. As I will show in subsequent chapters, these are topics to which female writers of more recent generations return, offering further proof of how avant-garde Castellanos’ views were for a woman of her time.

Later in the narrative, when the protagonist asks cookbook authors for assistance in selecting the menu, she hesitates,