Lee Smith's Recipe Box

Mama's Famous Loaf Bread and Terrific Risotto

Food is ubiquitous. Every individual requires its nutrients to live their lives. It chemically provides the human body with the needed glucose in order to convert ATP to useable energy in cells. This means a person literally cannot live without it. Though an immensely important aspect of food is a nourishing supplement; it is not the sole significance of food in human’s lives. Food is symbolic. Food connects people. It is a collective activity everyone must experience; thus meaning it allows people to relate more easily between each other. There is no universal type of food in each society due to the fact that the world is multicultural. Many different styles of food spawn from this diversity. Thus

Smith utilizes similes, diction and imagery in the chapter Recipe Box, in order to provide richness and clarity to the text for her readers. Such in the beginning of Recipe Box, Smith compares the recipe box to a novel. She explains that her recipe box serves as a novel because it allows her to read about her life. She is given the ability to trace where she has been and how food returns her to the experiences of her youth. Imagery is a constant device used in Recipe box and implemented specifically when she described scenes from her house in Grundy. For

Thus denoting the changes in her life compared to her traditional and isolated existence in Grundy. Smith discusses how as her world expands outside her hometown, simultaneously so does the recipes in the recipe box. She explains, “I, too, have written out my life in recipes.” In her early stages of marriage, she had eleven dessert recipes with Cool Whip as the main ingredient. She elucidates how as her progression out of Grundy increased, her diversity of eating expanded. New recipes for hibachi, fondue, quiche, crepes and the most recent addition salsas, were added to her mother’s recipe box. These foods indicate how far she has come from the traditions of her southern hometown. Additionally, she describes how cooking isn’t solely controlled by women but to men as well in the 21st century. The chapter provides a stark between the conventional housewife and the new aged husband who shares the responsibility of cooking. The starts the comparison by describing the image of her mother waiting for her father to come home from work every day. She prepared a hot meal on the table ready for him each time he came