U UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date: May 01, 2009 I, Kathryn C. Bunthoff , hereby submit this original work as part of the requirements for the degree of: PhD in English & Comparative Literature It is entitled: Consuming Nature: Literature of the World that Feeds Us Kathryn Bunthoff Student Signature: This work and its defense approved by: Committee Chair: Tom LeClair Leland Person James Schiff Approval of the electronic document: I have reviewed the Thesis/Dissertation in its final electronic format and certify that it is an accurate copy of the document reviewed and approved by the committee. Committee Chair signature: Tom LeClair Consuming Nature: Literature of the World that Feeds Us A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in the Department of English and Comparative Literature of the College of Arts and Sciences by Kathryn Cole Bunthoff M.A., University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2002 B.A., University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 1999 Committee Chair: Tom LeClair, Ph.D. Abstract This dissertation analyzes works by five North American writers who confront aspects of foodways in their novels in inventive and socially conscious ways. Jane Smiley, Austin Clarke, Norman Rush, Barbara Kingsolver, and Ruth Ozeki make issues of food and agriculture central to their fiction, and in so doing they encourage readers to reconsider the food they eat, and their roles as consumers, in a more critical light. I contend that the novels I discuss evidence a growing concern among writers for the perversity, and unsustainability, of contemporary foodways. Considered individually, each novel makes self-conscious connections between its thematic focus and its literary form. These points of resonance ask readers to consider the production of texts, and the constructedness of accepted truths, in much the same way that they prompt readers to consider the production of the food. Considered as a group, these novels warrant attention for their literary merit as well as for the timely issues they confront. Furthermore, these books not only warrant consideration for their thematic and formal concerns; they also require ecocritical scholarship to expand. As ecocriticism has developed from a celebration of wilderness narratives and natural history essays into a more inclusive and nuanced study of literature dealing with far-reaching human environmental relationships, a consideration of human environmental consumption—foodways and food choices—seems an apt area of focus. The title of this dissertation, Consuming Nature, evokes figurative as well as literal consumption: the point at which nature blurs with human body. Food is a profound link with the natural world. The title of this project speaks to a literal as well as a metaphorical consumption. The consumption of food is paralleled by the consumption of texts, specifically texts that ponder the relationship between nature and culture. Both food and texts not only become a part of us, but become us by sustaining and transforming our lives in countless ways. In turn, we continue to alter and modify the world around us through the production of food and the production and transmission of texts. Furthermore, the consumption of food and of texts is all but unavoidable. iii iv Acknowledgements To my husband, Jason Bunthoff, who knew I could finish what was on my plate; my mother, Susan Cole, for her amazing spirit and support; and my son Elliott, who makes each day sparkle. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One Introduction Consuming Nature: Literature of the World that Feeds Us 2 Chapter Two Putting Food on the Table in Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres 30 Chapter Three The Perverse Sweetness of Austin Clarke’s The Polished Hoe 68 Chapter Four All You Can Eat: Surplus and Mastery in Norman Rush’s Mating 98 Chapter Five Tuning in to Food Networks: Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer 132 Chapter Six The Meat and Potatoes of Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats and All Over Creation 154 Works Cited 191 Chapter One Introduction Consuming Nature: Literature of the World that Feeds Us In “Farmer in Chief,” a recent open letter to the next U. S. President, Michael Pollan asserts the importance of food chains and food issues in American policymaking, arguing that our food systems “designed to maximize production at all costs and relying on cheap energy to do so” are economically and environmentally unsustainable, posing considerable challenges to our country’s security and progress (64). Food, he argues, is an unacknowledged political issue, for the next president will “quickly discover that the way we currently grow, process and eat food in America” lurks beneath the issues that have received considerable airtime: health care, energy, and climate change (64). Pollan’s letter, featured in the October 12, 2008, New York Times Magazine, is his latest in a series of writings aimed to increase public awareness of the perversity of contemporary food systems. With his 2006 The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan introduced the American public to the notion that the act of consuming food is a primary environmental relationship, asserting that “the way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world. Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds” (10). As Pollan traces four meals from source to plate, he indicts our contemporary industrialized foodways, claiming that “what is perhaps most troubling, and sad, about industrial eating is how thoroughly it obscures all those relationships and connections” (10). Lest our supermarkets and convenience foods allow us to forget the fact, food is nature, however removed it may seem, and 2 our consumption of food is an essential, fundamental ecological relationship, regardless of our attitudes about nature. The consumption of food renders the natural environment indistinguishable from the human body, thereby incorporating us into—rather than separating us from—the natural world. Pollan is not alone, as numerous other writers have shed serious doubt upon the widely accepted notion among Americans that inexpensive and abundant food is a laudable situation to be accepted, not questioned. These writers seek to reveal and politicize Americans’ unexamined diets and energy-intensive foodways. Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation (2000) exposes the inner workings of the burgeoning American fast-food industry, from advertising campaigns to offal, creating skepticism among reader-consumers and making the simple drive-thru fast-food meal a bit more complex than it casually appears. Andrew Kimbrell’s Fatal Harvest (2002) decries a broken relationship between industrial agriculture and American consumers, cataloguing the ills of large-scale farming methods that are now the norm. Ann Vileisis attempts to alleviate the estrangement of American consumers from their food in Kitchen Literacy (2007) by making a case for a return to simpler foods and a reclaimed knowledge of our foods’ historical and biological origins. Marion Nestle in What to Eat (2006) focuses on the labyrinthine American supermarket, deciphering claims of nutrition and food marketing from a public health and nutrition perspective. Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food (2008), a follow up to The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), likewise dispenses advice for healthier food systems as well as healthier individual habits of consumption, which he sums up succinctly on the dust jacket: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” These are just a handful of the numerous texts that have appeared recently to question the environmental, ethical, and nutritional soundness of our foodways. 3 These texts emerge at a crucial moment: food has become a newsworthy issue, as every aspect of the food industry suggests grand scale, even excess, from globalized foodways to Americans’ overconsumption of what many consider an overabundance of food. Marion Nestle observes that “overabundant food and its consequences occur in the context of increasing centralization and globalization of the food industry and of altered patterns of work, welfare, and government. The food system is only one aspect of society, but it is unusual in its universality: Everyone eats” (26). In fact, the United States food industry produces many more calories (and overwhelmingly in the form of fats and sugars) than needed by the American population. Unsurprisingly, nearly two-thirds of American adults are overweight, and almost one-third is obese (NIDDK). As Michael Pollan (and others) have observed, overconsumption is common because “Americans spend less on food, as a percentage of disposable income, than any other industrialized nation, and probably less than any people in the history of the world” (Omnivore 243). Government statistics show roughly seven percent of household income going to food, with residents of the U.K. and Canada spending roughly nine percent (Economic Research Service). Recent rising food costs have sparked public outcry, but we actually spend a much smaller percentage of our income on food than nearly any other nation in the world. The recent increase in American food prices is not difficult to understand. Because our inexpensive food travels far to reach us, any increase in fuel cost will ripple throughout the economy, making our far-flung food systems economically vulnerable. The typical food item travels nearly 1,500 miles from its origin to its final destination. In “The Oil We Eat,” Richard Manning holds that “Every single calorie we eat is backed by at least a calorie of oil, more like ten,” so that the energy required for the processing and transportation of our food greatly exceeds the caloric benefit of the food itself (42). Globetrotting foods also periodically spark fears of 4 food safety and prompt consumers to consider conditions of food production. The spinach, ground beef, luncheon meat, and tomato scares in recent years repeatedly illustrate consumers’ vulnerability in such vast food economies.