The Pen and the Pan

Acknowledgements / ix 

INTRODUCTION: Food, Fiction and Homegrown Caribbean Feminism(s) / 1 

1. GISELE PINEAU: Cooking Creole in the City / 26

2. EDWIDGE DANTICAT: The Hunger to Tell / 60

3. LAKSHMI PERSAUD: Forbidden Fruit / 96

4. SHANI MOOTOO: Kitchen Indians / 131

5. MARYSE CONDE: The Pen and the Pan / 169 

AFTERWORD: World Travelling / 202

Notes / 205

Bibliography / 235

Index / 249

INTRODUCTION

FOOD, FICTION AND HOMEGROWN CARIBBEAN FEMINISM(S)

WHENEVER SHE SERVES A MEAL TO GUESTS, literary giant Maryse Condé always makes the same joke, and nobody ever finds it funny. In the preface to her 2015 food-focused memoir Of Morsels and Marvels, Condé describes her guests’ response: “‘I know you’ll love it! I’m not sure I’m a good novelist, but I’m convinced I’m a great cook!’ Nobody laughs. Not one. It’s because my guests are shocked. What sacrilege! they think. How can she be so bold as to compare cooking with literature? It boils down to mixing sheep with goats, jute with silk.”₁