Food Movies with a “Pinch of Romance”: Symbolical and Metaphorical Representations of Romantic Love

Food Movies with a “Pinch of Romance”:

Symbolical and Metaphorical

Representations of Romantic Love

Pam van Nieuwenhuize 10428089 P.J. Troelstralaam 117 3118VD Schiedam 06-13379824 pamvannieuwenhuize@hotmail.com 27-05-2016 Dr. T. Laine Dr. F.A.M. Laeven MA Film Studies University of Amsterdam (UVA) 18.048 words

2

Abstract

This research examines how food functions symbolically and metaphorically to represent ideas about romantic love in the sub-genre food romances. To be able to answer the research question the actual analysis is divided into two different parts: a semiological or textual approach (a content analysis) and a cognitive approach (constructing structural conceptual metaphors through food imagery). The first found dominant notion of romantic love is the idea that love is a formed unity wherein physical closeness, balance between the lovers, solidarity and peace are central notions. This is represented symbolically with sauces and spices (which can be used to represents love’s ability to mix up different personalities, cultural backgrounds and traditions) and this is metaphorically further strengthened with the structural conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A UNITY (OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS), and its related conceptual metaphors of LOVE IS COMFORT, LOVE IS WARMTH, LOVE IS NOURISHMENT, LOVE IS SUSTAINING, and LOVE IS SHARING (which are represented through the food imagery of warm food, comfort food, and the sharing of food). The second dominant idea of romantic love is about the sexual side of romance, which is symbolically represented through the use of Aphrodisiacs, and their chemical, sensory and emotional factors that come into play. As triggers for the notions of sex, fertility, heat, and passion these symbolical food items become metaphorical when they are connected to the conceptual metaphor LOVE IS FIRE and its related metaphors of LOVE IS PASSION, LOVE IS HOT/HEAT, and LOVE IS SPICYNESS. These metaphors are representations of the intensity and passion of romantic love and strengthened through the food imagery of ‘hot food’ (spicy or warm), actual fire and boiling water/food items. However, the LOVE IS FIRE metaphor can also be used as a bridge for the metaphors that represent the negative side of love: LOVE IS

HURTFULL, LOVE IS DANGEROUS, and LOVE IS FRAGILE. These conceptual metaphors are represented through the food imagery of poisoned food, poorly cooked food or destroyed dishes. Although the negative metaphors are present, they are not represented as explicitly and as dominant as the positive ones. It can be stated that the different food romances naturalize a form of love that seems ideal; although there can be struggles, in the end the unities are formed wherein the characters find balance, solidarity, and sexual romantic intimacy.

3

Food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate.

—Alan D. Wolfelt

It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and

mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it

happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it,

and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it; and then the warmth and richness and

fine reality of hunger satisfied; and it is all one.

—M.F.K. Fisher

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

4

Contents

1. Introduction ... 5

2. Theoretical framework ... 7

3. Methodology ... 11

4. The symbolical expressions of romantic love ... 14

4.1 Aphrodisiacs: the sexual side of love and the sexual side of food... 14

4.1.1 The sensory factor of Aphrodisiacs ... 15

4.1.2 The chemical factor of Aphrodisiacs ... 17

4.2 Sauces and spices: the fundamentals of the romantic relationship ... 19

5. The metaphorical concepts of romantic love ... 22

5.1 The structural conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A UNITY (OF TWO

COMPLEMENTARY PARTS) ... 23

5.2 Related metaphorical concepts of the UNITY metaphor ... 26

5.2.1 The positive metaphors of romantic love ... 27

5.2.2 LOVE IS FIRE as a bridge between the two groups ... 30

5.2.3 The ‘negative metaphors of romantic love’ ... 34

6. Conclusion ... 36

7.1 Bibliography ... 39

7.2 Filmografie ... 41

8. Appendix 1: tables symbolical food items ... 42

5

1. Introduction

A couple of years ago, as I went to see the romantic film No Reservations (2007) in a movie theater, I’ve found myself mesmerized by a type of movie which was completely new to me. The white screen was surprisingly dominated by beautiful detailed shots and close-ups of food items that flashed before my eyes and, as I left the movie theater extremely satisfied, I was longing for more. In the 1980s, as they discovered the aesthetical and visual appeal of food on the big screen, movie makers began to make films wherein food played a leading role, which gave birth to a new movie genre: the food film (Zimmerman 2010). Developing through the years the food film has distinguished itself in its characteristics and, according to Zimmerman, “the frequent use of close-up color photography of sumptuous dishes that significantly enriches the audience’s sensory experience” (1) became the most dominant one. This characteristic can also be

pronounced as food imagery (or culinary imagery). As it evokes the senses of the spectator it can simultaneously link visual and sensual responses to more abstract cultural processes like class, race, gender, and politics, as well as more subjective conditionslike mental illness, obsession, desire, meditation, and love (Keller 2006). Over the years love, and more specifically romantic love, has become a beloved narrative theme within the food films. Because the romantic movie is one of my favorite genres and I already did some research papers and projects on this type of genre it became obvious to me that for this thesis I needed to combine my love for food and my love for the romantic movie. Focusing on the specific movies wherein food keeps its central role and its dominant characteristics, but the main characters find themselves in a romantic

relationship alongside the narrative, I’m introducing a sub-genre that meets this description and that simply combines food and romance: the food romance. Mostly introduced to strengthen the focus of my corpus, this thesis will not be focused on the establishing of this sub-genre, but on the different possibilities that the notion of romantic love can be linked to the food movies most dominant characteristic of food imagery; the way that different food items can represent deeper meaning that they “camouflage”. Love is thus used to form the basic layer of meaning and behind this layer the ideas and social-moral concepts are hidden (Fischer et al. 1990). Within this thesis I will examine these hidden ideas and related concepts of romantic love, with the following research question: how does food function symbolically and metaphorically to represent ideas about romantic love in food romances?

For this research question a corpus of five food romances is constructed: Burnt (2015), Chocolat (2000), Like Water for Chocolate (1992), The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014), and No Reservations.

Burnt tells the story of Adam Jones who returns to London and tries to fix his career in the

professional culinary world. In the kitchen of The Langham Adam tries to find back the man that he once was and this process goes hand in hand with him falling in love with Helene Sweeney, a member of his kitchen. In Chocolat Vianne Rocher opens a chocolaterie during lent in a little French village in the 1950s. With her magical chocolates Vianne wins over the heart of the villagers, including the traveler Roux. Like Water for Chocolate is about the young Mexican Tita who has the ability to prepare magical dishes with outrageous sensual effects on the people who consume them like her family and Pedro, who becomes her secret lover. In The Hundred-Foot

6

Journey Hassan Kadam and his family open an Indian restaurant in a little French town where

the young man learns about the French cuisine and falls in love with the beautiful sous-chef Marguerite. And last, but not least, No Reservations is about the independent and terrific chef Kate who lives in Manhattan and becomes the guardian of her niece while her kitchen staff gets help from the new chef Nick, who learns Kate how to love.

To make sure that the research question is answered, and the conclusions and claims, that will emerge from the different interpretations of the chosen data, are legible and examined from different angles, the chosen corpus will be analyzed in two different ways. The first part of the analysis will focus on the way how food is used in symbolical ways to represent ideas and notions of romantic love. The food movies will be examined first with a quantitative content analysis and, after the food items are counted and measured, their different symbolical ways of functioning will be interpreted further. In this way the symbol will be used to help ‘seek behind’ the used ingredients and food items and to tie together the visual and verbal manifestations of the different movie worlds. For the second part of the analysis a cognitive approach is used, considering the relationship between the way people experience love and the different meanings people give it, and this part is focused on the term metaphor. The work of Lakoff & Johnson (1980) and Kövecses (1986; 1988; 1990; 2000; 2010) has made it possible to identify metaphors, which use and research were originally only limited to linguistic uses (“viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action” (Lakoff & Johnson 4)), as a structure of how people perceive, think and do. The strength of the conceptual metaphor is that it can thus be manifested in linguistic knowledge, but it can also be realized in other areas of human experience (Kövecses 2010, 63). With this notion the connection can be made between conceptual metaphors, the medium of cinema, and the human experience surrounding it. As Kövecses (2010) claims, “films may be structured in their entirety in terms of conceptual metaphors” (63) and as Fahlenbrach (2005, 2008) has argued, movies are filled with these types of metaphors, that serve to evoke the embodied experience of emotion. Because love is an emotion that is abstract it is possible to understand it better with the use of

conceptualizations that are more concrete and tangible. With the symbolical research part as background, the food imagery will in this part be translated into different conceptual metaphors which will highlight the different aspects and ideas about romantic love. It is then possible to answer the research question completely and examine which ideas of romantic love are dominant and what this means for the chosen corpus. It is important to note that within this research it is not possible to examine all the different ideas and expressions of love. First of all because this thesis is limited to the notion of food imagery but besides that, love comes in all kinds of different forms; it is impossible to capture the concept completely. However, with this thesis a starting point is made for the discovering of the role of symbolical and metaphorical uses of food (imagery) in the sub-genre of the food romance, which meanings and ideas of the abstract concept of romantic love are connected to them, how they evoked the senses of the spectator, and in which patterns and ways they are represented.

7

2. Theoretical framework

Before it can be examined how food in different food movies can function symbolically and metaphorically to represent ideas about romantic love it is necessary to make a theoretical distinction between the concepts “symbol” and “metaphor”. Based on the Greek verb symballein, which means literally “throwing together” (Quilligan 32), the word symbol knows a long history in linguistics, style, media, iconography, and art. Within media studies, symbolism is mostly related to the semiological movement (the general knowledge of signs) and the psychoanalytical theories (concerning the relation of conscious and unconscious psychological processes), and more specifically to the work of Charles Sanders Peirce (1931-1958) and Jacques Lacan (1977). In her work Lessen van Hitchcock: Een inleiding in mediatheorie Patricia Pisters explains that with his symbolical order Lacan refers to the social, cultural, and linguistic networks wherein a child is born, and he claims that language plays a central role in this order because the

unconscious is structured as a language (142-143). Peirce has been influential with his

separation of the three classes of signs in language (sign, thing signifies and cognition produced in the mind), and his definitions of the three kinds of signs: the icon, the index and the symbol. Focusing on the last kind, the symbol, Peirce stated that there may be a relation between the sign and the thing signified “which consists in the fact that the mind associated the sign with its object”(372). The symbol is “a sign which refers to the Object that denotes by virtue of a Law, usually an association of general ideas. […] It is thus itself a general type” (2.249). In other words, a symbol is connected to its object by a conventional and arbitrary decision, and

dependent on its sign and on a cultural decision (because a sign can only become a symbol after interpretation).

A definition of the word “symbol” that overlaps every field is hard to find, because of its use in all the different research fields. Within this research, I think it is problematic that the Peircianic and Lacanian definitions of the symbol are mostly focused on the signs in language (in its application on the imagery Peirce his definition evoked a lot of discussion about the relation between sign and the reality). Because a part of this research will focus on the semiological connection between symbol and the imagery (movies), and I don’t want to get caught up in lateral discussions, I will use a more common definition of the symbol (originated in art history) that is easier applicable on the chosen corpus. The term symbol can also be defined “as a plant, object, animal or sign which is connected to a (deeper) meaning in a specific context and therein invites to think about something else than the depicted self” (Visser 4). In this way the plant, object, animal or sign can become a symbol when it encodes or camouflages “the apparent meaning of an expression or that which was represented”(Becker 5), and in this way the symbol can be used as an instrument with little complications. By using this definition for the answering of the first part of the research question the “deeper meanings” will thus be ideas about love and the “objects” that will be interpreted as symbols will be food items or ingredients.

The second part of the research question is focused on the metaphorical way that food can function to represent romantic love. Following the work of Lakoff & Johnson (1980) and Kövecses (1986; 1988; 1990; 2000; 2010) the following definition of metaphor will be used

8 within this research: the understanding and experiencing of a thing (a conceptual domain) in terms of another (conceptual domain). Lakoff & Johnson stated that a metaphor constitutes the foundation of people’s conceptual systems and influences thought, actions and communication and with this claim, and their introduction of the conceptual metaphor, they overthrow the idea that metaphors are rhetorical devices employed to embellish linguistics (Chapman & Routledge 131):

The most important claim we have made so far is that metaphor is not just a matter of language, that is, of mere words. We shall argue that, on the contrary, human thought processes are largely metaphorical. This is what we mean when we say that the human conceptual system is

metaphorically structured and defined. Metaphors as linguistic expressions are possible

precisely because there are metaphors in a person's conceptual system. Therefore, whenever in this book we speak of metaphors, such as ARGUMENT IS WAR, it should be understood that

metaphor means metaphorical concept (Lakoff & Johnson 6) (linguistics and capitals adopted

from original text).

With their introduction of the notion of the conceptual metaphor Lakoff & Johnson (1980) have shown that metaphors can thus be seen as parts of a person’s conceptual system, which plays an important role in defining everyday realities (how he or she perceives, thinks, functions, and relates to other people). The “argument is war” metaphor is an example of the most basic metaphors, also called structural metaphors. The structural conceptual metaphors can be formulated into the following equation:

(conceptual domain) A is (conceptual domain) B

This equation shows that there are two domains in a (conceptual) metaphor; a target domain and a source domain. The target domain is the more abstract and diffuse part “which is

constituted by the immediate subject matter” (Kövecses 2010, 7), and the source domain is the more concrete and physical part in “which important metaphorical reasoning takes places” (Kövecses 2010, 7). In other words, the source domain provides rich knowledge structure for the target domain. This means that these metaphors are easier to use and understand because they “enable speakers to understand target A by means of the structure of source B” (Kövecses 2010, 37).This division between the abstract target domains and the concrete source domains makes more senses when looking at some examples. According to Kövecses (2010) some of the most common target domains include emotion, desire, morality, thought, time, human

relationships and communication, and some of the most common source domains include the human body, health and illness, animals, plants, cooking and food and heat and cold (28). The abstract concept is harder to understand fully without the use of a conceptualization that is more concrete and tangible, but it is important to note that a metaphor is based on the principle of unidirectionality. This means that “the metaphorical process typically goes from the more

9 concrete to the more abstract but not the other way around” (Kövecses 2010, 7). So A can be seen as B, but B cannot be seen as A (argument as war, but not war as argument).

As already mentioned above, emotion is one of the most common target domains used in structural conceptual metaphors. Because they are abstract and tangible, emotions need

conceptual metaphors so they can be fully understood. According to Bartsch, emotion concepts need to be organized around five primary emotion scripts that are similar across different cultures: anger, fear, sadness, joy and love (245). These five emotions scripts form a basic layer of meaning, and different filmic images and devices (music, color, lighting, camera movement and editing) are used to express synesthetic qualities that are associated with the experience of these emotions (248). Through the strategies of audiovisual storytelling these emotions, and the conceptual metaphors that surround them can be explored. Central within this research is the last primary emotion that Bartsch mentioned, namely the emotional concept of love, and specifically that of romantic love (Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Kövecses 1986; 2010). As a typical emotional concept, love doesn’t have a clearly delineated structure in human experience, and for this reason the abstract concept is structured almost entirely metaphorically (Lakoff & Johnson 85). Following the theoretical basis of Kövecses (1986; 1988; 1990; 2000; 2010) and Lakoff & Johnsonn (1980), the concept of love can be structured in different metaphorical terms which are then further reflected in a wide variety of everyday expressions. A couple of examples show how diverse these conceptual metaphors and matching expressions are (from now on

metaphors will be expressed in capital letters so they are more noticeable, just like in the works of Kövecses (1986; 1988; 1990; 2000; 2010) and Lakoff and Jonsonn (1980)):

LOVE IS A JOURNEY  Look how far we’ve come.

LOVE IS A PATIENT  This marriage is sick.

LOVE IS A NATURAL FORCE  He swept her off her feet.

LOVE IS A PHYSICAL FORCE  They gravitated to each other.

LOVE IS WAR  He fought for her love for years.

LOVE IS FIRE  He was burning with love.

LOVE IS MAGIC  The magic is gone.

LOVE IS A NUTRIENT  I’m hungry for your love.

LOVE IS A UNITY  They are as one.

LOVE IS A RAPTURE  She is drunk with love.

LOVE IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER  He overflowed with love.

LOVE IS INSANITY  I am crazy about you.

All these different metaphorical terms show another perspective of the concept and altogether they give a more fully understanding of the many aspects of love. In his work Metaphors of

Anger, Pride, and Love: A Lexical Approach to the Structure of Concepts, Zóltan Kövecses (1986)

claims that there is an idealized version of love. The conceptual metaphor that is central for this notion of the ideal romantic love is LOVE IS A UNITY (OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS) (62). The account of the central role and naturalness of this metaphor is based on the large number of

10 love experiences rooted in (Western) society and the metaphorical entailments of the metaphor (66). For this reason, the unity metaphor is surrounded by several important consequences like true love and the forever lasting of love (which is of course not always the case). Besides that, the object of love is conceptualized by various metaphorical concepts that show other emotions and attitudes that are inseparable with this idealized version of romantic love (examples of these concepts are respect, devotion, and caring). Which of these metaphorical concepts are hidden in the chosen food movies will be examined through food imagery.

As the introduction already showed, the dominant characteristic of the food movie is food imagery: “the frequent use of close-up color photography of sumptuous dishes that significantly enriches the audience’s sensory experience” (Zimmerman 1). Food imagery is a type of imagery that is strongly related to sensory imagery, which is simply the ability to mentally imagine things through the evoking of human senses of touch (tactile imagery), taste (gustatory imagery), sight (visual imagery), sound (auditory imagery) and smell (olfactory imagery) (Franklin 59). When focusing on the medium of cinema and food imagery, movie makers can thus improve the spectator’s experience through the use of details and descriptions that improve one of these five senses. These evoked senses can then creatively be linked to another way of imagery, namely metaphorical imagery. This type of imagery is based on the already used definition of metaphor (the understanding and experiencing of a thing in terms of another); how ideas about love are understand and experienced through food. In order to find the conceptual metaphors and hidden symbolical meanings in the chosen corpus it is necessary to divide the analysis also in two separate part; one focusing on symbols and one on metaphors. How this will be done exactly will be explained in detail in the next section about the

11

3. Methodology

Before the specifics of the analysis will be discussed it is important to explain how the chosen corpus is constructed. To begin with, I’ve watched a list of different food movies that meet Zimmerman’s theory of the genre’s characteristics (2010), and that often mix the different genres of drama, comedy, and romance. Ordered in release date the following movies became the starting point for this research:

- Tampopo (1985) - Babette’s Feast (1987)

- Like Water for Chocolate (1992) - Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) - Big Night (1996) - Soul Food (1997) - Chocolat (2000) - Mostly Martha (2001) - Het Schnitzelparadijs (2005) - Ratatouille (2007) - No Reservations (2007) - Food, Inc. (2008) - Julie & Julia (2009)

- Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) - Haute Cuisine (2012) - The Lunchbox (2013) - Chef (2014)

- The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014) - Burnt (2015)

To be able to answer the central research question, the movies need to show symbolical and metaphorical value which can only be examined if they all fit into the same framework. Focusing on the notions of food and romance, three self defined requirements are made up. First of all, every movie needs to have a narrative that is build around the explicit role of food. In the introduction the dominant characteristic of food imagery has already been mentioned: “the frequent use of close-up color photography of sumptuous dishes that significantly enriches the audience’s sensory experience” (Zimmerman 1). For this reason this was of course the first requirement that the corpus had to embrace; a lot of screen time needed to be dedicated to the preparing and consuming of food. Second, besides the visual use of food imagery the narratives also need to follow the central role of food; one of the main characters must have a big love for food; he or she is a chef or a passionate hobby cook. Third, the romantic relationship needs to play a central role, so all the movies that are (in my opinion) too much focused on family matters, self development or didn’t deal with romance at all are skipped. Besides that the

12 romantic relationship between the two main characters must come from two sides (no

unanswered loves), establish and develop through the story. After the movies were tested and selected, and the animation and documentaries were skipped because they were too different from the other movies (animation in its visual style and documentaries in narrative elements), the remaining movies were watched again. Considering the size of this thesis, I’ve made the decision to pick a maximum of five movies, so I would have enough writing space and time to analyze each movie. In this way the following movies remained as corpus for the analysis: Burnt,

Chocolat, Like Water for Chocolate, The Hundred-Foot Journey and No Reservations. The chosen

corpus is a good mix of some older and famous classics and some newer movies that aren’t examined much. Besides that the movies are divers in their focus on different cultures and thus on different kitchens and food items. The traditional Indian, Italian, Mexican, and French cuisine are used but also techniques from the modern haute cuisine and the gastronomic kitchen.

As mentioned before, to be able to answer the research question the actual analysis will be divided into two different parts: a semiological or textual approach for the symbolical part of the analysis and a cognitive approach for the metaphorical part. More specific, the symbolical part is examined with a content analysis, which is a form of a quantitative method. Quantitative methods involve counting, and the measuring of quantities of items such as images, phrases of words (Gillespie and Toynbee 120).The five food movies will be examined through the activities of counting (within the size of the corpus) and coding (the found data). During the counting the main focus will be on the measuring of first appearance and repeatment: which food items specifically occur as images and as words? and how many times do they occur? After all the different food items are counted in their visual and linguistic appearance, the food items will be systematically set out in tables and the data will be coded. First of all there will be looked at which food items are used the most and if some occur in more than just one movie. After that, the food items, that occur when the two characters that (are going to) form the romantic relationship are together, physically or mentally (talking or thinking about the other), will be highlighted. The tables can be found back in Appendix 1. When this is all recorded Visser’s (1989) definition of the symbol comes at play; relevant categories will be made up, which will be focused on the different ways that the food items can represent romantic love in a symbolical way, and the found data will be assigned to these categories.

The second part of the analysis is focused on structural conceptual love metaphors and the way how they are represented through food imagery. The movies will first be screened following the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) that is designed by the Pragglejaz Group (2007). They’ve created four steps that make it possible to identify metaphorical linguistic expressions and words and thus to distinguish linguistic metaphors from nonmetaphorical items.

Metaphorical Identification Procedure (MIP)

1. Read the entire text-discourse to establish a general understanding of the meaning. 2. Determine the lexical units in the text-discourse:

13 applies to an entity, relation, or attribute in the situation evoked by the text (contextual meaning). Take into account what comes before and after the lexical unit.

(b) For each lexical unit, determine if it has a more basic contemporary meaning in other contexts than the one in the given context. For our purposes, basic meanings tend to be

• More concrete (what they evoke is easier to imagine, see, hear, feel, smell, and taste)

• Related to bodily action

• More precise (as opposed to vague) • Historically older.

Basic meanings are not necessarily the most frequent meanings of the lexical unit. (c) If the lexical unit has a more basic current-contemporary meaning in other

contexts than the given context, decide whether the contextual meaning contrasts with the basic meaning but can be understood in comparison with it.

4. If yes, mark the lexical unit as metaphorical. (Pragglejaz Group, 3)

Important to note is that the MIP will be adapted and interpreted in the following way. The “entire text-discourse” will be the chosen movies and because the focus is on food imagery, the “lexical units” will be food items, food ingredients, and related objects (like spoons and knifes) and elements (more specifically fire and water) that are used for cooking. Step 3(b) shows how these units can be concretized into the evoking of senses, what is exactly what I want to show with my analysis of the used food imagery. There will be looked at five types of imagery that can be used through food imagery: visual imagery, gustatory imagery, tactile imagery, auditory imagery, and olfactory imagery (Franklin 59). The visual imagery, the gustatory imagery, and the tactile imagery are not surprisingly the most important ones. With the first type there will be focused on what the spectator sees: colors, shapes, sizes and patterns of the food items. The second type focuses on how tastes like sourness, saltiness, bitterness, sweetness, and spiciness can be evoked. The last one is about the evoking of touch through the evoking of temperature, texture or movement. Besides that the auditory imagery can occur with cooking sounds, music, or the describing of food, and the olfactory can be used as scents are describes or evoked when food items are showed. Besides the food imagery there will also be looked at which different phrases and expressions are used when characters talk about love, food, and everything that surrounds them (emotions, activities, consequences, or objects). Thus, within the most used food items and expressions, distinctions will be made between target domains and source domains. Through the activity of mapping the source domain and the target domain of each chosen linguistic expression will be separated, and a set of all the systematic correspondences will be constructed. After this, several dominant structural conceptual metaphors will remain with have the most metaphorical value.

14

4. The symbolical expressions of romantic love

When asking someone to name a type of food that is a symbolical expression of romance the most obvious and common used examples are foods that have connotations with sex or the actual shape of a heart. When eating a banana or slurping an oyster it is sometimes hard not to think about sex, and a box full of heart shaped chocolates is a common gift on Valentine’s Day, the day of the lovers. Everybody knows some food items that are associated with the notion of sex; they stimulate libido, capture imaginations, and by just smelling, seeing, tasting or touching them, the senses they evoke are strongly related to the evoked senses during sexual activities. This type of food items can be called Aphrodisiacs. Originated by mythology, Aphrodisiacs were derived from the name of the Greek Goddess Aphrodite, who was the goddess of sexuality and love. Aphrodite “rose from the foam surrounding the genitals of Kronos’s father, which had been severed and cast upon the waters” (Hospodar 84). For this reason the first acknowledged Aphrodisiacs were fish and seafood, who come from the same birthplace as the goddess. Aphrodisiacs have been a fascination since the existence of the human being, because food and sex are the most basic human drives. According to Hill, “civilisations, from ancient to modern, have sought to enhance their sexual experience, experimenting with substances”, and this is also confirmed by Albertson & Albertson who claim that “the search for amatory bliss, and the hunt for substances that provide it, are as old as the dawn of civilization” (11). Thus, the basic mammalian drive for reproduction can only be successful when the human race is healthy and sexually vital. Not surprising, the analyzing of the movies showed that the first dominant symbolical connection between food and romance is related to the sexual side of love and thus the sexual side of food.

4.1 Aphrodisiacs: the sexual side of love and the sexual side of food

There are movies wherein food items are explicitly used as representations of sex: in Tampopo (1985) and 9 ½ Weeks (1986) food items like egg yolks, honey, jelly, and milk are passed from mouth to mouth or eaten very sexually as a part of sexual foreplay, in American Pie (1999) an apple pie is ‘fingered’ and ‘fucked’, in Sex and the City (2008) Samantha’s naked body is covered with sushi as a romantic surprise for her Valentines date, and the list goes on. The analyzed movies do not show this kinds of super obvious connections between food and sex, but they do use a lot of Aphrodisiacs and a lot of romance. With Michael Albertson’s and Ellen Albertson’s work Temptations: Igniting the Pleasure and Power of Aphrodisiacs (2002) as starting point -who found out that six factors come into play when discussing Aphrodisiacs (the chemical factor, the emotional factor, the energy factor, the romantic factor, the sensory factor, and the social factor)- and the taxonomical divisions of Aphrodisiacs by Hill in his work The Aphrodisiac Encyclopaedia:

A Compendium of Culinary Come-ons (2012) (Alcohol, Fruit, All Things Animal, Vegetables,

Seafood, Herbs, Spices, Nuts, Seeds and Grain and Anaphrodisiacs), several food items will be highlighted shortly. It can be stated that the food items in the chosen corpus become symbols for romantic love in their representation of the sexual sides of the relationships, and they function

15 alongside two dominant factors of Albertson and Albertson: the sensory factor and the chemical factor.

4.1.1 The sensory factor of Aphrodisiacs

First of all the movies use the sensory factor of the Aphrodisiacs to make symbolical associations with romance and sex. The most explicit way of using this factor through food items is the use of food that in its appearance has physical resemblance to sexual apparatus. It is hard not to think about sex when a person sees an object that has resemblance to sexual body parts. The senses that are connected to food like taste, smell, touch (texture of food) and sight (appearance of food) trigger memories and the act of eating is an “intimate, sensual, and sensory activity that can stimulate our sexual appetites” (Albertson and Albertson 15). Kessler emphasizes that this sensual accusation between food and sex isn’t strange because “eating involves putting things into our bodies, and usually when things get put into our bodies (through whichever orifice) or come out of our bodies (through whichever orifice) the activity is done in private” (157). For this reason the movies often use Aphrodisiacs that symbolically represents male or female genitalia; in their shape and appearance they can be associated with a phallus, a vagina or female breasts.

Because of their general appearance, some types of mushrooms have long been considered as Aphrodisiacs because their shape has resemblance to the sexual organ of the penis. In The Hundred-Foot Journey ceps become symbolical for the romance between Hassan and Marguerite. The first time they share raw ceps Hassan and Marguertie find themselves in a dark forest and as Hassan finds them, hidden under branches, leaves and bushes, the ceps are symbolically connected to the characters hidden sexual desires and untouched feelings for each other. This symbolical association is further strengthened as Hassan an Marguerite share their first kiss after they tasted the ceps. Another food item that shows resemblance with a phallus in its shape is the asparagus which is also used in The Hundred-Foot Journey. When eating an asparagus, which often goes with butter or thick sauce, it is hard not to have sexual thoughts. In the movie there is played with the resemblance between an overcooked asparagus and a flaccid penis. As Madam Mallory shows her kitchen crew what mistakes were made the night before she uses an asparagus that is floppy and has miserable colors (the normally bright green color is replaced with a brown and dirty color). The food item becomes a symbol for the passionate side of a romantic relationship (which is now missing) as Madam Mallory explains that the cuisine is “a passionate affair of the heart” (then the asparagus/phallus would be ‘strong’ and ‘stiff’), and not “an old tired marriage”.

The food items that symbolically refer to the female sexual apparatus can be divided into associations with female breasts and associations with the vagina. The first one is only used explicitly in Chocolat as Vianne makes dark bonbons that she eventually dips into white chocolate. As the woman names them “Nipples of Venus” the viewers sexual thoughts are triggered and connected to the little chocolates (see Appendix 2, figure 1). The symbolical associations with the lower female genital parts are mostly represented through food items that can be opened up; their inside explicitly or implicitly looks like a vulva or the organs that it includes (like outer/inner lips, clitoris, and the vagina). In Like Water for Chocolate

16

pomegranates are used for the dish “chiles in walnut sauce” that magically absorb Tita´s

temporal emotions, which are at that moment passion and love for Pedro. During the

preparation of the dish a close-up of the cracking and opening of the fruits reveals their seeds and this has unmistakable visual resemblance with the opening of the female genitalia. This symbolical association with sex is further strengthened as the consumers of the dish become sexually aroused and sneak away from the wedding with their romantic partner.

The sea urchin (member of Echinoidea) belongs to the traditional acknowledgments of the Aphrodisiacs and is used in The Hundred-Foot Journey. Although it has little meat beneath its shell, the edible parts of the sea urchin are considered as natural aphrodisiacal delicacies (Hospodar 82) and this is not surprising. First of all the edible parts of the animal are in fact its reproductive “gonads”, and secondly the visual appearance of the sea urchins “inside” show resemblance with the female genitalia. So the observing and eating of this food item already brings intense sexual feelings with it. This is strengthened when Hassan wants to prepare sea urchins with Marguerite at the end of the movie. During the preparations of the dish the two chefs declare their love for each other which results in some sexual activities. But the movie uses the food item not only as a representation for sex, but also for life, fertility and love. In the first scene of the movie the young Hassan tastes his first sea urchin on a market in Mumbai. As he picks an animal up, covered with black sharp-as-knife spikes, Hassan puts his fingers inside the sea urchin and picks out the creatures gonads, which have a gorgeous peachy-orange hue. As he closes his eyes and enjoys the flavors of the exotic creature the salesman yells that his basket is sold; “to the boy who knows”. This sentence becomes a motif for Hassan’s love for food. When in a later scene, the boy is cooking with his mother she explains that “the sea urchins taste of life […] Life has its own flavor. Hidden in that shell, raw, beautiful life”. So when Hassan chooses to make sea urchins with Marguerite at the end of the movie, his choice of food shows that he connects the woman to his individual life and that he wants her to be a part of it.

Another way of using the sensual factor of Aphrodisiacs is done with the “rose petal sauce” in Like Water for Chocolate. The rose has a dominant role in the movie in its visual and linguistic appearance (see Appendix 1). As plants’ sexual organs, the flower is strongly

connected to the sensory and emotional factors of Aphrodisiacs (Albertson and Albertson 15). The emotional factor is about the way that food and sex are interconnected because they are physically linked in the limbic system of the brain, which controls emotional activities generally (Fox 11). For this reason a person links the same manifested emotions to good food and good sex: they feel warmth, comfort, safety, taken care of and emotionally secure (Albertson and Albertson 17). The red rose itself knows its symbolical meaning as an attribute of Venus

(goddess of Love) and it denotes beauty, love and passion, and the flower is also associated with the element of fire (Bruce-Mitford and Wilkinson 84). Besides that, the smell of roses is deeply rooted in the sensory memories of human beings because of its traditional symbolical

associations witch affection, love and sex. The color “as red as a rose” is warm but bright at the same time and can also influence a person senses. “They’re the ones that really raise your temperature, pulse rate, and blood pressure. They can inspire love or lust. […] When a hotter or more intense color appears, our senses respond accordingly” (Bellantoni 11). According to this,

17 only looking at the quails in “rose petal sauce” would already evoke sensual feelings of warmth, lust and love (see Appendix 2, figure 2).

4.1.2 The chemical factor of Aphrodisiacs

The second dominant way that food functions to represent the sexual side of love is through the highlighting of the chemical factor of Aphrodisiacs. Each Aphrodisiac contains different key vitamins (E is needed for the producing of sperm and sex hormones), minerals (like magnesium and calcium), the B-complex (helps increase blood flow to the penis) and essential fats

(Albertson and Albertson 15). Strongly connected to sexual activity, these “superior nutrients” in Aphrodisiacs are all needed to keep a body healthy, sexually vital and functioning (Albertson and Albertson 15). The analyzed movies represent this through the fact that the characters feel sexually aroused or become sexually active after consuming some Aphrodisiacs.

Chocolate is one of the most famous Aphrodisiacs (in the movies its visual appearance is 68

times (see Appendix 1)). The cacao bean has been used as a symbol for female genitalia since the Maya’s; “the longitudinal crease on the bean resembles a vulva” (Dreiss and Greenhill 148). In its chemicals chocolate is built up from different minerals (magnesium which women crave for, especially during menstruation), more than four hundred chemicals (chemical are phenyl ethylamine (PEA), and amphetamine-like brain chemicals which triggers the feeling of euphoria that people experience when they fall in love) and stimulants (caffeine and theobromine for elevating the blood pressure and heart rate) that can enhance sexual activities and can help put someone in the “love mood” (Albertson and Albertson 14). Of all analyzed movies, Chocolat gives the most attention to the food item chocolate. Used as a symbol for hidden desires, sins, sex, pleasures, and lust the whole village is under the spell of Vianne Rocher’s chocolates. When Vianne gives a customer some “unrefined cocoa nips from Guatamala” she says that they will “awaken the passions”. After the customers husband had a taste of the nips, their sexual life gets a big boost, and they will become regular costumers of Vianne’s shop. Later in the movie, when Charlie (the dog of Guillaume Blerot) eats some chocolate nips of the floor of the chocolaterie, its sex drive is also boosted as it tries some doggy style with another dog. Besides that, when Vianne’s customers confess at the local church their descriptions of the chocolates can be associated with their hidden pleasures and sins: “so small, so plain, so innocent. I thought, just one little taste it can’t do any harm. But it turned out that they were filled with rich, sinful… […] Buttery filling and it melts, god forgive me, it melts ever-so-slowly on your tongue and tortures you with pleasure”. Less explicitly, chocolate as a sexual activator is also represented in No

Reservations when Kate and Nick eat tiramisu. The combination of the main ingredients (liquer

and chocolate) are Aphrodisiacs on their own and this is represented further in the scene. Kate first refuses to join eating the dessert (“I’m not a dessert person”), but when she takes a bite of Nick’s tiramisu their romance begins to establish and they become more intimate (Kate: “well maybe I am a dessert person”). While sitting next to each other Nick removes some cream of Kate lips with his finger and puts it in his mouth; the sexual tension between the two rises.

Alcohol is also a dominantly food item in the analyzed movies (see Appendix 1; visually

18 because of its more direct relation to romance and its general physiological effects. “The right amount blocks inhibitory nerves in the cerebral cortox of the brain” (Hospodar 91) and this can result in exhilaration and relaxation. The ancient Greeks and Romans associated the ecstatic intoxication of wine with the world of the gods, and that of Dionyses, Bacchus, (God of the wine) in particular. Focusing on the chemical factor, red wine is medicinal; one glass a day is good for the heart and quickens the pulse too. Besides that, the active ingredient in red wine, which is only available in the skin of red colored grapes, is the antioxidant called resveratrol (Hill 2012). Resveratrol can stop the natural conversion of testosterone into the hormone oestrogen. Both sexes produce these hormones, but men’s testosterone levels are much higher, which means that their libido-drive is also higher. Women are more dependent on the fluctuation of their sexual appetite, and red wine is just the solution to loosen this up (Furrow 109). Besides that, the mood that is enhanced through the drinking of red wine can be a symbolization for the charm and allure of romance. First of all a warm glow spreads throughout the body when drinking alcohol, and the specific flavors and aromas that come along with a good glass of red wine “awaken the senses and suffuse sensuality” (Hill 2012). In No Reservations and Like Water for Chocolate red wine is used to show the representation of this enhanced mood. When Nick invites Kate to drink a glass of wine after work the stiff woman loosens up and becomes noisy and giggly which enables Nick to give her a first kiss. In Like Water for Chocolate the red wine is used several times to show how the sex-drive is stimulated through alcohol. During the eating of the quails in “rose petal sauce” Tita and her family drink red wine to wash away the magical food, but the alcohol stimulating the awakening of their sensuality even more (Tita’s sister runs away naked with a stranger). Besides that, during the wedding of Alex Brown and Esperanza, later in the movie, the visitors also drink red wine which results in a ‘feast of sex’; all couples are leaving the wedding celebration, while giggling, kissing and touching each other, to find a secret spot

together.

Another way of using Aphrodisiacs in the movies is through the food item of sauce. For example, the sauce from No Reservations consists the Aphrodisiacs alcohol (cognac, white wine),

onion (shallots), celery, leek, and garlic. Besides that, the Aphrodisiac properties of truffles are

shown in the movies Burnt and No Reservations, as part of sauces (and for the decoration of plates). In two important sauces in Burnt and No Reservations truffle is used. Although they do not have the same (phallic) shape as most mushrooms, the truffle is also considered as an Aphrodisiac fungi. The French author Alexandre Dumas (D’Artagnan) ones said that they “make women more tender and men more lovable” (Hill 2012). Growing among the roots of oak trees, truffles have a body of microscopic fungal networks and a “complex earthy flavour and aroma” (Hill 2012). Their reputation as Aphrodisiacs is mostly owed to this aroma that they produce. Of any plant scent, the aroma of the truffle has the highest content of pheromone, which is the scent that animals give of as a stimulant of sex (specifically pigs in season and dogs) (Philips 36). So, by producing the perfume of androstenone (the present pheromone), truffles can activate and engage the senses in an erotic way (Hill 2012). In Like Water for Chocolate rose (already

described above) and honey are part of the “rose petal sauce”. Often associated with love and sex is the notion of sweetness; sweethearts, honeys, sugar daddies, or honeymoons. For this reason

19 it is not strange that honey has been a well known Aphrodisiac since the Ancient times, the earthy sweetness of this nectar increases fertility and is a boost for energy and rejuvenation (Hospodar 84). While dripping honey into her sauce the magical powers of Tita come at play as her temporal emotional feelings of passion are absorbed into the substance. In this way, the honey (together with the rose petals) becomes a symbolical representation for the sexual tensions between Tita and Pedro. As they are tasting the sauce later, these sexual tensions are released. Most of the time the tasting of the sauces (and the tasting of other Aphrodisiacs) goes together with the rise of intimacy, sexual tensions or even actual sexual activities. This will be discussed in detail in section 5.2. More importantly for now is another deeper symbolical representation that can be expressed through the use of sauces.

4.2 Sauces and spices: the fundamentals of the romantic relationship

In every kitchen worldwide - an Italian nonna preparing the Sunday dinner, a Chinese father making his kids some lunch, a Michelin chef experimenting with new techniques of the

molecular kitchen, and, of course, in your own kitchen at home - different spices and sauces are used during the preparation and consuming of food. For this reason it is not surprising that in all the researched movies these food elements are used, in some explicatively and in others

implicatively, to represent different cultures, personal identities (‘you are what you eat’) and social relationships (like friendships, familiar bonds, or romantic relationships). All these different representations intertwine when there is looked at the symbolic connections between spices, sauces (and the ingredients used for it) and romantic love. To begin with, the first and most obvious connection, between these food items and romance, can be made while looking at the most important characteristics of sauces and spices: the adding of flavor. Special flare can be given to food when the tastes of sweet, spicy, bitter, sour, or salty are added to a dish; food without any flavor is just boring nutrition. So, the first symbolical association with the notion of love is this adding of flavor, because love also needs flavor and taste to give meaning to life. Like Lonnie Lynch says in his book Romantic Cooking: “A good sauce brings everything to life. It moistens and enriches your dinner. […] It makes your meal more sensuous. […] The secret to romantic cooking is in the sauce!” (238). Lynch is not the only one who refers to this connection, because sentences as “spice up your marriage”, “variety is the spice of life” and “life has its own flavor” are culturally rooted in Western society and used by a lot of people in everyday life.

The usage of spices dates back to a proximally 300 BC and they have been used since, in all kinds of cultures, for the enhancing or varying of food flavors, functioning as aphrodisiacs (4.2), and for medical and therapeutic use. In Chocolat Vianne Rocher, who is inspired by the ancient Maya’s, combines chili pepper with chocolate, to give her costumers “a lift”. During the Yucatec Maya curing ceremonies two pairs of cacao beans and two pairs of chili peppers were arranged around five candles to represent “the biological union of male and female in an ordered universe” (Dreiss and Greenhill 148). The used number of two symbolized the two human beings, and “the cacao beans symbolized the female genitalia and the chili peppers the male penis”(Dreiss and Greenhill 148). Combined into her hot chocolate (the flames of the burning candles in the ritual), Vianne follows an ancient recipe that represents the unity between man

20 and woman. The use of chili itself becomes a symbol for the revealing of life destinies and the unlocking of hidden (sexual) yearnings by her costumers. In The Hundred-Foot Journey ancient spices are also used by the main character Hassan Kaddam, to symbolize his cultural Indian roots and memories of Mumbai. From an old spice box Hassan uses traditional spices as Dhania (coriander powder), Dalchini (cinnamon), Elaichi (cardamom), Saunf (aniseed), Laung (clove), and Kalonji (black cumin) to combine the Indian cuisine with the French cuisine, which results in his discovery of the “spice of life”. While discovering his relationship with food Hassan finds himself in a romantic relationship with a beautiful French girl called Marguerite, who teaches him the traditions of French cuisine.

With the “five basics” as starting point -Espagnole (brown sauce), Béchamel (white sauce), Véloute (blond sauce), Hollandaise (creamy egg sauce) and Tomato (tomato sauce)- The

Hundred-Foot Journey shows the second symbolical connection that can be made between the

characteristics of sauces (and spices) and romance: the blending and mixing of flavors. While Hassan prepares his version of the five basics for Marguerite, in the kitchen of his family restaurant Maison Mumbai, he combines two egg yolks, mustard and vinegar into a bowl to create a beautiful sauce Hollandaise. Separated from their shell the yellow egg yolks fall softly into the bowl and symbolize the two main components of the sauce; Hassan and Marguerite (see Appendix 2, figure 3). With the eggs as general symbols for fertility (Eberhard 107) and new life the preparation of the sauce, which is also new for Hassan, represents the beginning of

something new: their blossoming relationship. While Hassan mixes the yolks into a yellow mass and adds vinegar and mustard to blend everything together the sauce results into a symbol for the mixture of Hassan’s and Marguerites cultures, traditions and personalities (see Appendix 2, figure 4).

A sauce that cannot be left out in this category is the famous “rose petal sauce” from Like

Water for Chocolate which is already discussed in the previous paragraph. The main character

Tita, who is the youngest daughter of a traditional Mexican family, has the magical powers of communicating her emotions through the food she prepares. When she feels emotions of longing, anger, frustration or passion, her feelings are transmitted in the dishes she makes and the members of her family experience similar emotions while consuming her food (Furrow 106). When Tita falls in love with Pedro her mother forbids her to marry him and she tries to

communicate her hidden love to him during a family celebration. Inspired by the roses he gave her as an expression of his love, Tita uses the flowers for a special dish: quails in rose petal sauce. Both ingredients, the quail and the rose, are relevant in their symbolic connection to passion and romance. The quail is a little member of the pheasant family (Phasianidae), but his symbolical associations aren’t that small. According to Werness, the quail can be associated with ardor, courage and warmth (337). With this accusation of courage, it is for Tita possible to show Pedro how she feels by putting her warm love inside the quails. As already described, the red rose is symbolically associated with beauty, love and passion (Bruce-Mitford and Wilkinson 84). It is a signifier of romance, in an almost cliché way; Valentine’s day wouldn’t be the same

without the red rose and the spreading of rose petals in the wedding suite (or just at home for a romantic night) is a ritual in different cultures. When the dining begins the voice-over explains

21 that “a strange alchemical phenomenon seemed to have occurred. Not only Tita’s blood, but her whole being had dissolved into the rose sauce, into the quails, and into every aroma of the meal.” All the members of the family, including Pedro, are overwhelmed with passion and ecstasy; they close their eyes and begin to sweat and gasp. When they try to wash away their strange feelings with red wine, the alcohol makes them even more blurrier and passionate (because alcohol is also an Aphrodisiac). While heavenly breathing the two lovers can not keep their eyes of each other as the voice-over continuous: “That’s how she invaded Pedro’s body. Voluptuously, ardently, fragrant, and utterly sensual. They had discovered a new way of communicating. Tita was the sender and Pedro the recipient”. Their way of communicating and the fact that Tita invaded Pedro’s body show that this sauce also symbolize the unity that is formed between two lovers when the right ingredients are mixed up together. This reciprocity between giving and receiving, of cooking and eating is built around the connection between two individuals and the equality among two partners (Counihan 13); through the food Pedro and Tita become equals, and they become a unity. The fundamentals of this romantic relationship, just like that of Hassan and Marguerite, are symbolized through the use of sauces and spices; first of all they ‘give flavor’ to their love and second of all, they are able to mix up the difference between the two persons so their romantic connection can become stronger.

22

5. The metaphorical concepts of romantic love

As the previous chapter examined, different parallels can be made when looking at the symbolical associations between food items and romantic love. Within this chapter the argument that food functions in different ways to represent ideas about romantic love will be strengthened by looking at the metaphorical concepts of romantic love on the level of food imagery. For that reason, it is not surprising that it can be claimed that within these movies the metaphor LOVE IS FOOD is the overarching structural metaphor that makes the connections between all the different used metaphors stick. The following mapping shows this:

Source domain: Food (nutrient) Target domain: Love

The eaters  The lovers

Biological need for survival  Biological need for sexual reproduction

Effects of being well fed/nourished  Effects of being well loved

The preparing and cooking of food  The “making of love”

Gluttony  Insatiable sex drive

Desire for food  Desire for love

The accepting/rejecting of food  The accepting/rejecting of love

Negative consequences lack of food/ bad food Consequences no love/ bad love State of food item (ripe/overripe/rotten)  State/age of relationship (young/old)

When food is used as a metaphor for romance, LOVE IS FOOD is mostly translated in the conceptual metaphors LOVE IS A NUTRIENT, THE OBJECT OF LOVE IS APPETIZING FOOD or more specific LOVE IS SWEET (with sweet food as source domains). These metaphors refer to the notion of food, but they utilize chiefly the hunger or thirst that can be associated with the concept of nutrient. The result of this is that only certain aspects of love are utilized/activated in the comprehension of the target domain (food), or simply said, some aspects of the concept are highlighted and other concepts are hidden. According to Kövecses (2010), this is not particularly bad, because it is inevitable; “one source domain would not be sufficient to comprehend a target” (94). So many other connections can be made between the source domain of love and the target domain of food (or more general, nutrient). Although the movies lack in linguistic expressions they show enough metaphorical images that can form a framework for the conceptual metaphor LOVE IS FOOD. Thus, if food is used as the metaphor for love/romance, it is important to note that I will focus more on the sufficient similarities between the domains to make the connection stick. Because food imagery is a whole other level than the plot elements of the movies, the examined metaphors need to connect the notion of romantic love to different types of food items. So, it is possible that some metaphors about love are used in the movies, but not

highlighted in this analysis because they aren’t really related to food or the romantic side of love (like LOVE IS FAMILY or LOVE IS A ECONOMIC EXCHANGE). In this way LOVE IS FOOD is just a starting point to get to the next metaphor that is more specific and that dominates the analyzed movies in all kinds of ways: LOVE IS A UNITY (OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS).

23

5.1 The structural conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A UNITY (OF TWO

COMPLEMENTARY PARTS)

In every analyzed movie the dominant metaphorical concept of romantic love, and perhaps the most central one, is LOVE IS A UNITY (OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS). All the different characters (separate parts) find their way (for some this is more difficult than for others) to be together and construct a ideal romantic relationship; the happy end shows that there is

solidarity between the characters and together they form a strong unity. This is not surprising because, according to the theoretical framework (Kövecses 1986; 1988; 1990; 2000; 2010, Lakoff & Johnson 1980), this way of conceptualizing love is the most common one. Kövecses (1986) claims that there are two essential reasons for the naturalness and central place of this metaphor:

The metaphor entails several metaphorical consequences which allow us to understand a number of our love experiences (…) Another reason is that we see a similarity of sorts between certain love experiences and the unity of two complementary physical, chemical, etc. parts, and because of this the linguistic examples of the metaphor appear natural and obvious to us (62-63).

According to this, the structural metaphor of LOVE IS A UNITY is embedded in Western society and people’s experiences with love. As 4.2 already showed, the chosen movies show parallels in the symbolical associations between the food items of sauces, spices and the unity between two human beings. When looking at a metaphorical level the process of mapping shows the more hidden general set of systematic correspondences between this source and target domain. Because love is an emotion, and thus the more abstract concept, this is the target domain and this makes the concept of unity (of two complementary parts) the more concrete one, or in other words, the source domain:

Source domain: Unity Target domain: Love

The two complementary parts  The lovers

The physical objects in unity  The physical closeness between lovers

The perfect matching parts  True love

The incompleteness of one part  The need for love

The stability of the unity  The stability of the relationship

The dissolving of the unity  Breaking up

The mapping shows that there are different ways of connecting the two domains which together form the more complete picture of the abstract concept love. First of all, the notion of physical closeness is the most characteristic feature of romantic love. The two physical objects in unity refers to the physical closeness that can occur when to lovers connect, and besides the use of food items, the activities of cooking and eating together are good examples of the metaphorical conceptualization of the physical closeness between the lovers. In the visual aspects of the

24 movies this closeness between the lovers is further motivated through the different actions of touching, cuddling, kissing, and holding hands. Besides this characteristic feature, the unity metaphor also shows some important consequences as the notion of true love (which can last forever), the idea that love is seen as some kind of need (one part is incomplete without the other), and the more realistic one that the unity can be dissolved (relationships can be ended).

When looking closely at the metaphor of LOVE IS A UNITY (OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS) it can be claimed that for the construction of a unity two different parts must be present (that aren’t connected in the first place). Thinking about a perfect unity a connection can be made with the balance between yin and yang; the man and the woman need to find balance within their own yin and yang, but their opposites and differences also need to balance together in the relationship to find unity and harmony (Towler 2014). Food can help in finding this right balance. When there is a balance between the expansive (male, or yang) and the contractive (female, or yin), food can have a big impact on a person’s energy levels and sexuality (Albertson and Albertson 19). The notion that two different lovers can eventually form a unity is

strengthened in No Reservations, The Hundred-Foot Journey and Burnt through the explicit highlighting of these two separate parts as two characters. Through different aspects of food imagery the different cooking styles of the chefs, and thus their different personalities, are represented to the viewers in almost opposite ways. Each person identifies himself when he or she cooks, and, as they transform the raw food to an edible dish, humans convey messages by manipulating food combinations, cooking mode, color, texture, taste and form (Verdier 1969). In this way the evoked senses of the spectator are connected to the two characters in different ways, which results in the perspective of two chefs as two completely different persons (as two separate parts). In No Reservations a clear division is made between Nick’s Italian roots and Kate traditional, but precision-perfect, French cooking style. Although the most important ingredient of the French cuisine is butter, Kate creations look fresh, clean and of high quality (see Appendix 2, figure 5). The senses of vision, taste and touch are evoked through the uses of visual, gustatory and tactile imagery. When perfectly cooked lobsters are taken out of the pan, their wet bright red skin evoke the sense of freshness, and when Kate caramelizes the sugar of a crème brulee the melting brown and crusty top evokes the sense of touch and the taste of sweetness. As she makes up her plates, Kate works alone and with perfection; each plate looks the same, with the same size and measure, and with little pans, brushes, and sauce bottles Kate adds a final touch on her creations while dripping some sauce or adding some herbs. Through the food imagery, the spectator connects Kate with the notion of perfection. However, Nick’s creations are very different than Kate’s because he makes food that is less complicated and sophisticated, and more playful and loosened up (see Appendix 2, figure 6). As the food images show Nick’s food is meant for sharing; big plates of spaghetti, pasta, pizza and tiramisu are put in the middle of the group and as the whole kitchen crew shares pasta, or when Nick, Kate and Zoe eat pizza, the familiar emotions of solidarity and sociability are evoked. In every way they cook, and in the

presentation of their food creations, Kate’s and Nick’s styles shows their different personalities, which needs to develop to form the ideal unity. Kate needs to loosen up her stiff attitude and

25 needs to become more creative in and outside the kitchen, and Nick needs to become more serious and mature and more structured and less messy in and outside the kitchen.

In The Hundred-Foot Journey the French cuisine is also used as opposite for a less rigid, strict kitchen. The Indian Kitchen of Hassan is represented very different than the French roots of Marguerite and in this way the spectator connects different feelings with the two separate characters. The viewer explores the Indian kitchen and Hassan’s culture as an explosion of the senses and full of flavors and colors. As the Kadam family, or Hassan alone, cooks Indian food, the kitchen is filled with all kinds of silver plates and little pots filled with colorful spices, herbs and fresh ingredients. The whole family is cooking, even the kids, and the senses of the spectator are evoked through close-ups of garlic cloves which are crushed under a knife (taste and smell), and through the close-up of dusty flour wherein little balls of dough are rolled and pushed flat with the palm of a hand (evoking of physical texture and the sense of touch). As the whole family cooks, The Hundred-Foot Journey shows that the way of Indian cooking is strongly related with familiar relationships and bonding, and as the food is eaten by restaurant costumers this notion is strengthened further. The metaphorical images of different hands that take Naan bread of the plate, the colors on the table, and the sharing of food out of different plates represent that the Indian form of dining goes together with intimacy, communication and bonding between the different people on the table (see Appendix 2, figure 7). As an undercut is made the spectator sees a dish that is presented in “Le Saule Pleureur”, the restaurant where Marguerite works. In contrast to the more mysterious substances of the Indian kitchen, the food imagery of this plate is an overview of a perfectly clean and detailed dish; little green cubes and pieces of soft pink radish and shiny brown ceps fill the dish which evokes lightness and freshness (see Appendix 2, figure 8). The consumers are not sitting in groups to share to food, but little tables divide the restaurant as couples of two to four people talk and eat quietly. Besides that, in contrast to the kitchen of the Maison Mumbai (the restaurant of the Kadam family), the kitchen of the Saule Pleureur is traditionally structured through hierarchy. As a sous-chef Marguerites personality and cooking style is the opposite of Hassan and almost similar to that of Kate. Her way of cooking is stiffer, cleaner and less colors are used when she prepares sauces and dishes. She knows everything about French cuisine, but this isn’t everything in life. She needs to let go a little bit and embrace the fun side of cooking and life; only then she can form a unity with Hassan. On the other hand, Hassan needs to learn how to cook without his family and become more

independent and in this way his individual developments can meet up with Kate’s developing personality.

In Burnt Adams and Helene’s different personalities are forming a unity as their love for each other is represented in two signature dishes that they create together to get a third

Michelin star. Each signature dish represents one of the two characters: Adam’s dish is a more masculine and robust dish and Helene’s dish is a more graceful and feminine dish in its

ingredients and appearance. However, several elements on the plates connect the two dishes metaphorically together. First of all, both characters use a main ingredient, which symbolical characteristics represent their own identity, but this ingredient comes in two pieces on the plate. The number of two metaphorically connects the two human beings of Adam and Helene; the two