Introduction

Our food practices and taste buds render us acquiescent to divisions along the lines of culture, region, race/ethnicity, religion, gender, age, class and sexuality — a hegemony that is exercised via appetite and desire. (Wenying Xu)

In John Hughes’ classic 1980s film of teen ennui The Breakfast Club (1984), five teens are grouped together Saturday morning in detention for various reasons. All stereotypes are represented when at lunch they silently take out their food: “the jock” (multiple sandwiches, fruit, and so on), “the beauty” (sushi and all its accoutrements), the “brain” (sensible soup in a thermos and sandwich), the “basket case” (Cap’n Crunch cereal with sugar on bread), and “the criminal” (no lunch). Everything from knowledge of food trends, health awareness, habits, and socioeconomic status to family life is laid bare on the lunch table. That food is a signifier is nothing new, revealing who we are, where we’ve been, and where we want to go (Fischler 1988; Eagleton 1998; Lanchester 2014); food informs not only individual identities but our cultural and societal ones as well (Bourdieu 1984; Trifonas and Balomenos 2003; Xu 2008; de Solier 2013). The current chapter adds to this dialogue by introducing two personal food narratives drawn from my childhood in Canada as a visible ethnic minority. I will analyze the narratives through interdisciplinary lenses and make observations that aim to highlight the potential of using narrative for educative gain enhancing knowledge of self and other.

Growing up in small town Ontario, I lived in two worlds: my Chinese-speaking one at home and my English-speaking one at school. I was able to lead a double life until I was in first grade and asked to explain what I ate. Lacking the vocabulary to describe my ethnic food, I lied and said I ate cereal – all day every day. Called to explain, the shame caused an “inner crumbling” at not being good enough (Miller 1985). This experience inspires the first narrative. Though a published bedtime story was also based on it (Lee 2008), the following narrative “7 Days Cereal” (Lee 2015) recounts this event as it happened according to my memory and offers another interpretation. The discussion will be grounded in psychoanalysis and food shame (Goffman 1956, 1963; Kristeva 1982; Miller 1985; Britzman 2005; Xu 2008; Lee 2015). Underscoring the value of re-storying events and the notion of timeliness (Woolf 1976; Britzman 2005), the narrative will be further interrogated through the lens of critical literacy exploring the significance of bridging home identities and school identities (Comber 2000, 2004; Cooper and White 2015).

The second narrative, an excerpt from “The Package,” introduces a different angle on the “offal” (referring to animal entrails and internal organs used as food) foods I ate; instead of being an agent of shame, food stirred the imagination, rousing my creativity as a young writer. The analysis examines the role of disgust in food and culture and how it shaped my understanding of self. In approaching this, the meaning of disgust, the paradox of aversion, aesthetic disgust, the cognition-affect link, as well as the difference between horror and disgust, and finally disgust in culture will be considered (Darwin 1872/1965; Rozin and Fallon 1987; Miller 1997, 2004; Kolnai 2004; Korsmeyer 2007, 2011, 2013; del Toro 2017).

The First Experience

7 Days Cereal [Revised]

As a first generation Asian, growing up in a small Ontario town in the late 1970s, I knew I was different. So I had two lives: there was my private life in Chinese at home, and my public life in English at school.

After learning about Canada’s Food Guide as part of Nutrition Week, my first grade teacher Mrs. Smith (Name changed to protect identity) asks us to document what we eat for one week for breakfast, lunch and dinner. My 6 year-old mind wonders, ‘What do I eat? What’s that black stuff called? Directly translated it is a ‘wood ear’? And the flat disk of grey meat, which was called a ‘meat cookie’ just sounds wrong’. At once, a montage of dizzying images flashes through my mind: cow brains, bloodied and creviced, pig tails served up on a platter, cut in small bite sized pieces on the end of a toothpick, gizzards, in all their elastic iridescence, sliced thin like a cold cut, strips of lung and stomach, brown and rubbery in soup. Some of the food while not sour was not quite savoury either with pickled vegetables that aren’t green, nor brown, food like preserved vegetables, pickled duck eggs, black eggs, fermented black bean, dehydrated sea creatures and the like.

I look at Mrs. Smith’s pictures of food around the room and long to eat what is foreign. Thinking this way, my heart starts to pound faster until it almost feels like it’s in my throat, ‘What am I going to write?’ Guessing that Mrs. Smith wants to know that what we eat satisfies all the food groups according to Canada’s Food Guide, I set out to do a bit of investigative work: What can I write that reflects I understood the lessons, and yet could be believable? I wonder, ‘what does everyone know? What does everyone (except me) eat? What’s on TV?’ I can think of only one thing: Cereal.

I let out a huge sigh, and quickly grab a purple marker and large sheet of chart paper. Steadying my hand I carefully craft my weekly account: Monday breakfast: cereal, lunch: cereal and an apple, dinner: cereal and a banana. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday: Cereal! Cereal! Cereal! 7 Days Cereal! I finish the project and am ready to put it up when the recess bell rings.

In the school yard, my classmates scatter; the boys play with other boys that I don’t recognize and the girls group together in clusters. My best friend Lydia and I sit by the bicycle bars. I know there are no other kids that look like me, and while inside I feel just like them, a simple glance into a classroom window showing our reflections would let me know that I am different. Lydia is different too: she has buck teeth. They rest on her bottom lip, front and centre, also present for class, like two more little friends.

Back in from recess, Mrs. Smith calls me to her desk. What could this be about? On the way there, I start to panic with each step, what had I done? I had never made a mistake! What could this be about? It is clear something is wrong.

“Cammy, I have a question for you”

“Yes, Mrs. Smith…”

Leaning in tilting her long face towards me, she is all eyes now, and asks, “Do you really eat cereal 3 times a day, 7 days a week?”

Eyes wide and unblinking, she is not smiling.

My face starts to burn and my eyes dart around looking for an answer: I made a mistake. How am I supposed to respond to make this situation go away? In my head, I go through a file of possibilities. All this thinking and not enough time to manufacture a response: she is waiting for an answer.

My voice breaks the silence, “Uh, sometimes…”

A pause follows that feels like an eternity, I squeeze the pencil I am holding, hard. With feet planted, I wait; it is now her turn to volley back.

She nods, and still looks serious, but says, “OK” and once again, I can breathe. I feel like all eyes are on me as I walk back to my desk. I wonder, ‘what could I have said? We eat parts of animals that I don’t have names for? Nothing that I see in class or on TV resembles the food I eat, so then why can’t I just show that I want to be a part of this class and say what I’d like to be true?’

I don’t need a window reflection to show me I’m different, this isn’t like Lydia’s buck teeth, or even something I can pretend isn’t there, momentarily like the colour of my skin; this is a non-negotiable and I have no words for it. Before recess, I couldn’t wait to put my chart up, but now, I look down at the straight purple letters, which seem to be mocking me, and want to tear my work to shreds. No matter how perfectly the words were written, they simply aren’t good enough. How I resented the food I ate at home…

©Cammy Lee 2015. All rights reserved

Unpacking the Story

The fairy tale’s meaning will be different for each person, and different for the same person at various moments in his life. (Bruno Bettelheim 1977)

In her autobiographical book Moments of Being (1976), Virginia Woolf describes unforgettable experiences as “violent shocks” that shake us out of the “cotton wool” ordinariness of daily life (p. 71). Woolf emphasizes the educative value in writing and its potential to create psychological wholeness by bringing together our “severed parts” (p. 72). Writing a bedtime story allowed me to “write” a wrong; giving my experience a fairy tale ending was my way of seeking wholeness, as the following excerpt illustrates:

One day, soon after, Alison asked, “Can we have an International Food Fair? Everyone can bring in some special food.” There was Antoine who brought in a meat pie, called “Tourtiere”, and then there was Ivan who brought a red soup called “Borsht”, and Adam who brought in yummy dumplings with cheese inside. And everyone ate and ate and ate. They ate food that was not on the food cards, but yummy, yummy, yummy food. And on that day, Alison was so full, she didn’t think about cereal, not even once. (Lee 2008, p. 55)

Storying the event valorized it, making it seem as though my experience and all its attendant emotions mattered. Time creates perspective; “as one gets older one has a greater power through reason to provide an explanation …[that] blunts the sledge-hammer force of the blow” (p. 72). John Dewey in Experience and Education (1938/2015) describes experiences like this as “miseducative” having “the effect of arresting or distorting the growth of further experiences” (p. 25). Unravelling it nurtured insight which ran counter to Dewey’s sentiment that “he [sic] is lucky who does not … have to unlearn much of what he [sic] learned in school” (p. 47). But for me, it was the very unlearning and the subsequent relearning that have led to deeper meaning. Turning a miseducative experience into educative demonstrates the pedagogical opportunities that arise in the integrating and synthesizing of details. And this can lead to discovery: “that behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern” (Woolf 1976, p. 72). It is the discernment of that pattern that leads to the knowledge “that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art” (Woolf 1976, p. 72).

Although I made some self-discoveries by writing the bedtime story, it was just the beginning of seeing what Woolf called a “pattern.” The following analysis seeks to illuminate issues of identity: what helped construct it, deconstruct it, and reconstruct it. Grounded in literature that explores the psychological effects of this experience of feeling “othered” through a psychoanalytic lens, the concepts of self-loathing, self-abjection, and food shame will be highlighted (Kristeva 1982; Miller 1985). Embarrassment over my ethnic diet, including the notion of stigma, social roles, and blame, will also be considered (Goffman 1956, 1963). This discussion will be rounded out by the notion of timeliness and the benefits of revisiting experiences previously “processed,” underscoring the educative gain of re-storying (Britzman 2005).

This childhood experience showcases how the food I ate informed my identity. In Eating Identities: Reading Food in Asian American Literature (2008), Wenying Xu asserts, “when paired with the deeply constructionist notion of identity, eating takes on richer connotations than food” (pp. 166–167). The story clearly contrasts the food I ate at home and the food I was learning about in school. The social and cultural climate established an order; Mrs. Smith’s lessons revealed what the dominant culture ate emphasizing how food and foodways create divisions (Xu 2008). And thus, my identity construction here should be more aptly understood as deconstruction (Lee 2015).

Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror (1982) offers a psychoanalytic angle on self-loathing and self-abjection. She describes that it begins early and with disconnection. The semiotic is described as the psychosocial space where senses reign and no demarcations between “I” and “other” exist. Termed the “semantic void” (Žižek 1993, p. 202) or “jouissance” (Kristeva 1982, p. 9), it is the ultimate pleasurable space of unbroken connection. Language is what disrupts the metonymic relationship of the semiotic; Kristeva theorizes the cleaving: “[i]t is thus not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order” (p 0.4). (Although Kristeva talks about the separation happening between the ages of 6 and 12 months, and I was 6 when my incident took place, it is used here because her assertions support my observations, analysis, and interpretation). Kristeva’s notion of disruption resonates with my experience, for what disturbed my order, system, and identity was the disconnect between what I ate and what I was learning at school. As a bid to fit in, I turned my back on who I was and opted for a “cleaner” more sanitized version that resembled “Canadian” culture. Kristeva describes this “disconnection” as self-abjection and is defined here as a betrayal of self (p. 4). Not only did I reject my ethnic self to create a new identity, but I also reject the newly created self. “Food loathing is perhaps the most elementary and most archaic form of abjection” (p. 2). And so I became that girl who ate cereal all day, every day. Desire, Kristeva expounds, is at the heart of self-abjection (p. 5).

Susan Miller in The Shame Experience (1985) reiterates that desire is at the core of shame, that is, the desire to be someone else while deeming oneself as not good enough (p. 32). Consequently, through the material means of school, TV, and other cultural artifacts, my growing understanding of who I was and who I wanted to be constructed a master narrative. The trope of cereal was the perfect quotidian breakfast food I could think of; it was the ideal foil to my food because it created the greatest distance between what I ate and what I wanted people to think I ate (Lee 2015). My 6-year-old self knew that revealing my “offal” diet would have been stigmatizing.

In Goffman’s Stigma (1956), he identifies three major categories of stigma: “physical deformities … blemishes of individual character … and the tribal stigma of race, nation and religion” (p. 4). Growing up when and where I did, I was acutely aware that I was stigmatized, as the story illustrates. However, what I felt was not only racial stigma but a blemish of character because it extended to my food choices. I had two “selves,” and Goffman notes that it is when these clash that embarrassment ensues (p. 269). My young mind was incapable of negotiating what this meant. Who was I then? Xu reinforces the theme of splintered selves on how the self participates in (maybe even instigates) its own dissection as a “hegemonic process of ‘othering’ that produces a schizophrenic self — a self torn between body (yellow and foreign) and mind (white and American)” (Xu 2008, p. 41). So even though I was Canadian-born and had no trace of Chinese accent, my appearance would always trump any authority I might have.

According to Goffman, the social organization of school can explain why I lied: “the physical structure of an encounter itself is usually accorded certain symbolic implications, sometimes leading a participant against his [sic] will to project claims about himself [sic] that are false and embarrassing” (p. 269). At school our social roles were clear. As a child in the weaker position standing before my teacher, I internalized the blame (Lee 2015). It never even occurred to me that it could have been any different. In this situation, Goffman (1963) might argue that understanding should have come from my teacher – the “ordinary” – and not me, that is, the “stigmatized” (p. 127). With the advantage of hindsight, there were several ways Mrs. Smith could have approached this. She could have used this awkward interaction as an entry point for a discussion on international food and culture. For though I saw myself as the only one who could not identify with her food pictures, this might not have been the case.

In Deborah Britzman’s “Note to ‘Identification with the Aggressor’” (2005), she emphasizes that revisiting experiences – even those that have been processed – can be valuable, for we can revise old meanings and make new ones (p. 179). It was not until re-examination that a different perspective surfaced (Lee 2015). I realized my teacher had her own moral dilemma: should she report a possibly malnourished or abused child? Only by taking into account the broader context did perspectives shift from judgment to gratitude. However, knowledge to Britzman is just the first step: “[it] is not a substitute for transforming injustice in the social world” (p. 188). With awareness comes responsibility: how do we enact this knowledge, these narratives, and what would it look like? Britzman avers that this question and others like it belong to the domain of education (p. 188).

Critical literacy (Comber 2000, 2004; Cooper and White 2015) grounds this part of the discussion with particular focus on context, how it tempers understanding, as well as its emphasis on using student identities to inform curricular design (Comber 2000, 2004). Critical literacy is defined as a “means by which scripts and texts can be analyzed in order to detect bias … so … hierarchies of power can be identified, interrogated and … dismantled” (Cooper and White 2015, p. 25). It was the late 1970s and the Freirean transmissive method of teaching characterized the historical moment: teachers as the givers of information and students the receivers (Freire 1993, p. 1). Foods not in “Canada’s Food Guide” were not taught. But a bigger question persisted: following the confrontation, why did my teacher proceed as though nothing happened? Silence leaves gaps that unanswered questions fill. Taking into account the historical and cultural contexts might provide some answers; with a population of 60,500, the Kingston of my childhood did not reflect its ethnic diversity today. It is likely that my teacher did not see the child before her because she saw everyone as the same, in favor of the “Canadian identity.” Titley and Miller (1982) state that in the nineteenth century, Canadian schools were “an important instrument of social cohesion — so necessary in an era of rapid change. It would bind the diverse social elements together with one set of values and political beliefs” (p. 58). So, my teacher was just doing as she was trained. This was less a reflection of her values and more of her conforming, inadvertently perpetuating biases. Therefore, it wasn’t personal after all. Knowing this did not excuse her behavior although it is an explanation.

Educator and critical literacy advocate Barbara Comber (2000) urges that educators need to “explore ways that children’s existing knowledges, capabilities, and interests might be used in the design of school literacies” (p. 47). Comber refers to this as “capital” and suggests teachers use it to design a “permeable” (p. 47) curriculum; bridging school literacy and home literacy creates more engagement and investment from the student. The bedtime story ends in a potluck that recognizes different ethnicities without singling any one out. For my teacher, it may have meant turning away from a static text like “Canada’s Food Guide” and turning toward the “fluid texts” that stood before her, that is, her students. As educator Comber says, we need to champion faith over fear of the Other (p. 47). Overcoming fear is one thing; learning who your students are is another. With the bedtime story followed by another re-examining, these interpretations have deepened insight, moving from how it affected me personally to how it affected my teacher and to what this reflected about the cultural and educational perspectives at the time. Reflection and writing provided this opportunity for more meaning.

The Second Experience

Growing up as the youngest of six children, writing was my salvation; it was my way of making sense of my surroundings: my interior and exterior landscapes, the clashes of cultures, religions, and beliefs. In my home, crucifixes, Guanyins, and Buddhas coexisted side by side. Fumes of garlic, onion, and fermented black bean permeating an entire household were commonplace. So were the smells emanating from pots of medicinal Chinese soup simmering for hours. All this, while on TV, we watched commercials of Butterball turkeys and Betty Crocker cakes. Writing meant I was trying to “tame the wildness of experience” (Luce-Kapler et al. 2011, p. 168), giving all that wildness a voice. I read to learn. But I wrote to understand. The food that we ate was part of this wildness and did much to stir my developing imagination shaping my identity as a writer. However, sometimes, as in the following narrative, it was as much the deliverer of such food as the food itself that sparked creativity.

The Package [An Excerpt]

The doorbell buzzes and my sister Dana and I look to see who it is. A dark figure stands nearly as tall as the aluminum door. It is my mother’s friend: Ah-Fong. She is always dressed head to toe in black. We go to the door and open it and are greeted by a waft of her flowery perfume. Perfume is something my mother never wears.

On top of her dyed long black hair, sits a curious nest of curls. Her rouged cheeks look like two ripened cherries, as if she forgot to blend them after application. Black kohl pencil lines her eyes emphasizing her already heavily hooded lids. From the neck up she looks like a Chinese opera singer. But from the neck down, clad in black, she is no ordinary housewife and mom, even my 6-year old eyes know this.

“Hi Ah-Fong” we both say. We call her “Ah-Fong”, a casual greeting, like she was a sister. But she is anything but. She is the only friend of mother’s we do not address as “Ah-Sim” or “Ah-Moo”, which is the norm for Chinese ladies. Ah-Fong is something else. She is married to the richest man in Kingston, Mr. Chen. And that’s what we call him: Mr. Chen. I don’t know his first name. None of us kids do. They live a 5 minute walk away but none of us have ever been in their house. My mom included. Neither of them go to Chinese functions. But Ah-Fong visits us. In fact, Ah-Fong comes regularly and always brings a different package (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
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“Ah-Fong”. (©Cammy Lee 2017a. All rights reserved)

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In a husky booming voice she says, “Ah-Lee-Tai-Tai hai do ma?” (Is Mrs. Lee here?). She is like a cartoon character: if Big Bird were black and had the voice of the Snuffleupagus. We never say much to Ah-Fong. We just stare at her. So we both nod. And when she steps in our house, we see her black stockinged feet tucked into black suede high heels. I measure up to her waist that is cinched tightly with a black leather belt. Her black pants hug her hips and thighs and bell bottom out below her knees. She wears a tight black top with a lace trim at the plunging neck line. I see cleavage. And that’s all I can think about. My mom doesn’t show cleavage. I don’t even know if my mom has cleavage. Over her top she sports a black leather fringe vest which matches the purse she hangs on her shoulder. And tucked under her other shoulder is the brown package.

The lifts on her high heels sometimes snag on the chocolate brown hallway carpet as she strides towards the kitchen. My mom puts out a plate of cut oranges and apples on the table. “Hi Ah-Fong, Ho-Ma?” (How are you?). I don’t pay attention to the conversation between my mom and the black Snuffleupagus. But I do eye the brown package. She hands it over to my mother who puts it on the table (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
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Bag on table. (©Cammy Lee 2017b. All rights reserved)

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Dana and I gather round and gawk. As fascinating as Ah-Fong is, it’s her packages that are the main event. Those packages contain things you can’t buy in our small town of Kingston Ontario. There are no such things at the local A & P, animal parts like: cow hearts, big bloody flaps of purple organs, or ripply hairy-like membranes looking more like pieces of fabric than something from the inside of an animal. Where did she get it that none of us could? Who did she know? To us, she became the “Mysterious Bearer of Bloody Organs”.

“What do you think’s in the package this time?” Dana whispers in my ear. I shake my head. I won’t let myself blink. My mom slowly unwraps the brown paper package. As each fold unfolds there is more and more wetness on the inside waxy finish of the butcher paper. Then I see it: the shiny wetness of blood. It gets bloodier and bloodier the closer she gets to the centre. And then there it is, in all its formidable energy: one cow brain (Figs. 3 and 4).

Fig. 3
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Two kids and a brain. (©Cammy Lee 2017c. All rights reserved)

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Fig. 4
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Brain close-up. (©Cammy Lee 2017d. All rights reserved)

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It is the size of a very large grapefruit, or small pomelo. Its exterior is wavy, fleshy, pinkish, organy, and creviced with bright red bits of blood. Mom brings it over to the sink and starts to work on it. Ah-Fong takes a bite of a Granny Smith apple. She chews and crunches the tart fruit and juice runs down her chin. She wipes it away. Her cheeks sag a bit. I smile at Ah-Fong. She doesn’t smile back.

We never see it again as “brains”. It doesn’t show up on a platter, like “roast brain” with peas and carrots, or “baked brains” with assorted veg, or even sliced and fanned out like cold cuts to use in a “brainy sandwich”. But it ends up somewhere. You can be sure. I probably eat it in a mystery soup, or big “meat cookie” with pickled eggs…

©Cammy Lee 2016. All rights reserved (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5
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Thought bubble. (©Cammy Lee 2017e. All rights reserved)

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Unpacking the Package

Food is inseparable from imagination. (Jean-François Revel)

As illustrated in “The Package,” not all my offal eating created shame and embarrassment. Some of the food I ate evoked the stuff of horror movies and captivated me more than watching Julia Child truss a duck. Afternoon movie matinees on TV about monsters, the macabre, and the grotesque were what really gripped my attention … and held it. As “The Package” suggests, that element of disgust extended beyond the food I ate. The following discussion will first define the meaning of disgust, the paradox of aversion, aesthetic disgust, the cognition-affect link, as well as the difference between disgust and horror and, finally, a word on disgust and culture (Darwin 1872/1965; Rozin and Fallon 1987; Miller 1997, 2004; Korsmeyer 2007, 2011, 2013; Kolnai 2004; del Toro 2017).

With its etymological origins in French and Latin, disgust is dis (negative prefix) + gustus (taste), quite literally bad taste. Darwin (1872/1965) describes disgust as “something offensive to the taste … this feeling is excited by anything unusual in the appearance, odour, nature of our food … and the idea of eating it” (p. 256). William Ian Miller in Anatomy of Disgust (1997) notes that disgust is a visceral emotion unlike any other: “because no other emotion forces such concrete sensual descriptions of its object” (p. 9). And yet, if disgust means “bad taste,” it follows that what is considered disgusting varies from person to person, as well as from culture to culture (p. 15). Disgust, however, has a paradoxical nature: “even as the disgusting repels, it rarely does so without also capturing our attention. It imposes itself upon us” (p. x). And what imposed itself upon my memory was not only the image of the bloody brain in the middle of the waxy shiny butcher paper but also the one who delivered it. The roundness and curly crevices of the brain were not dissimilar to Ah-Fong’s “curious nest of curls” which sat atop her head. The redness of the bloody brain stood out in marked contrast against the blackness of Ah-Fong’s appearance. Her and her packages were equally memorable. It is this dynamic that can be exciting; in her book Savoring Disgust: The Foul and the Fair in Aesthetics (Korsmeyer 2007), Carolyn Korsmeyer explains: “fear-provoking situations shake up the mental works in a healthy and enlivening way, even as they cause us to dwell on forces that threaten our safety and raise our mortality to the forefront of awareness” (p. 152). Korsmeyer (2011) defines the paradox of aversion as “the attraction to an object that both inspires fear or revulsion and is transformed into something profoundly beautiful, an experience that philosophers from ancient times to the present have analyzed as a type of ‘pleasure’” (p. 72). That is, the sublime (Burke 1757) for I could not look away. In the narrative, there was some fear, apprehension, a curiosity, and a recoiling, and yet, there was also definite fascination with the package and the deliverer. Taken together, these recollections stitch together a memory that is not altogether negative. This paradoxical attraction/revulsion and what Kolnai (2004) called “macabre allure” (p. 42) was intrinsic to the value and quality of my experience for the paradox is such that “the disgust and the affective appreciation — are not only inseparable but one and the same” (Korsmeyer 2013, p. 198). Korsmeyer (2013) elaborates that trying to “separate its components, would lose its identity in some important way” (p. 198). She defines “aesthetic disgust” as “the arousal of disgust in an audience, a spectator, or a reader, under circumstances where that emotion both apprehended artistic properties and constitutes a component of appreciation” (Korsmeyer 2011, p. 88). In this valuing, the elements of reason and cognition are drawn in.

Psychologist Paul Rozin and his colleagues have conducted many studies in the area of disgust as an emotion (Rozin and Fallon 1980, 1987; Fallon and Rozin 1983; Rozin et al. 1993). To them, disgust is a food-related emotion that they define as “a revulsion at the prospect of (oral) incorporation of an offensive object” (Rozin and Fallon 1987, p. 23). Rozin and Fallon hold that their study of disgust can illuminate the link between affect and cognition. Although what is considered disgusting varies among cultures, what is cross-culturally consistent is the attitude toward bodily waste products: feces, urine, and mucus (p. 27). Their study of offering subjects chocolate feces showed how even though participants knew the feces were chocolate and, therefore, delicious, they still could not consider it appetizing (Rozin et al. 1993, p. 583). The sheer mental knowing (and the emotion it triggered) overrode reason, and so, they posit the cognition-affect link.

But how do you know you know? A Cuban memory illustrates; I was staying at a two-star resort and being unable to speak Spanish, spoke French, which worked about half the time. On this particular day, I smelled something surprisingly delicious in the cafeteria; looking at a stew that resembled beef, I asked the server, “Boeuf?” And I heard, “…boeuf…” The meat was tender and fell apart; the sauce was rich, and with the white rice made for a filling flavorful meal, that was the perfect way to end a full day of swimming. I went back for a second, then third helping. As I was approaching satiety, I wondered what cut of beef shreds and has a kind of chicken skin that peeled back? What were these little dot-like bumps that gradually changed in size? And then, it hit me. Those little bumps were taste buds. Taste buds like on the massive beef tongues I had seen in supermarkets. Tongues that revolted me and captivated my attention at the same time. Memories of being awed by them came flooding back, noting how they resembled my own. And then it really hit. My stomach churned. But it was too late. I had swallowed. I pushed my plate away. I could not un-eat what I’d eaten. So even though I had previously relished the two and a half plates of beef tongue, suddenly I was nauseous: this incident further demonstrates how powerful cognition and sometimes its process can be. And thus, Rozin and Fallon’s claim that conception overrides the sensory.

It is clear that in “The Package,” there is more to the disgusting than just the brain. Susan Miller in Disgust: The Gatekeeper Emotion (2004) says that disgust is connected with our sense of identity and values: “disgust speaks to the sense of identity. It declares what I am willing to accept as me and mine and what I want to assert is outside and alien” (p. 14). Miller’s assertion underscores the theme of how food helps construct identities. For Miller, the meaning of disgusting objects is more than the taste, the texture, or the look of something (p. 25). Ah-Fong herself played a pivotal role in the unfolding drama. Disgust was not the only emotion at play: there was also horror and with it a bit of comedy. Miller distinguishes between horror and disgust. “Disgust is more likely to occur when an intrusion is limited and a point of physical or psychic entry can be identified” (p. 171). Ah-Fong entered our house – she is described as almost unhuman being as “tall as the doorway.” Dressed in black, she contrasts with the surroundings and is the antithesis of my mother. She is a mix of the grotesque and comedic: is she a monster or as the “black Snuffleupagus” a creature more fit for Sesame Street? Scary it seems, is just the other side of the comedic. Miller describes horror as “the likely response when little can be done to resist the invasion of some powerful outsider” (p. 171). In the story, as children, we could not resist the Ah-Fong invasion; in fact, we opened our doors inviting her entry.

The disgust and the grotesque clearly occupy a place in our culture. Testament to this is a 2017 exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto featuring Mexican-American auteur Guillermo del Toro, whose blockbuster movies have grossed $450 million (US) (Berry, 2017, p. R.1). At the opening of the exhibit “At Home with Monsters,” del Toro was asked to explain his love of monsters. As an influential director, tapping into popular culture, del Toro emphasizes the necessity for reflection as opposed to blind consumption: “I think that pop culture is very dangerous just to consume, or collect, or worship without processing or analyzing … I think that the only way that culture moves forth is by people that actually make it their own, and transform it” (p. R10). del Toro’s answer reiterates the intent of this chapter: the value of analyzing, processing, and reflecting upon experiences, ultimately to make new meanings and revise older ones. Del Toro claims: “I think you spend 50 years of your life trying to correct the first six” (p. R10). He explains, “you are basically destroyed and put together when you are 6. Whatever forges you is what you need to disassemble and deconstruct the rest of your life” (p. R10). Coincidentally, I was 6 when the cereal incident happened.

The link between beauty and the grotesque was a main theme throughout the exhibit. That one is inherent in the other and echoes the paradox of aversion and the overarching notion that we are all fundamentally connected: “we are all bound in the necessity of our beauty and grotesqueness” (p. R10). As in “The Package,” it was the cow brain, which was at once disgusting and fascinating; it captured and took hold of the imagination stirring my young mind to put pen to paper informing my identity as a writer. However, “The Package” was not written until 2016. But what I did write as a child were horror stories, one after another – all inspired from Saturday afternoons spent watching “Monster Movie Matinee.” The opening sequence begins with ominous music as the camera slowly pans up a hill to reveal a mansion, presumably haunted. A recent Internet viewing shows it is more akin to an elementary school film project. Nevertheless, it was what was inside the house that enthralled me; an arm clothed in black velvet with white ruffled shirt sleeve reaches out of a coffin. With ringed fingers and black sharp fingernails, our show host menacingly gestures as he introduces the upcoming feature. To my child’s mind, this image was unforgettable. After the movies I would re-create details to the best of my memory and craft a story. Even though I did not know it then, by writing my own version of the story, I was heeding del Toro’s advice, “making it mine and transforming it.”

But still, as I wandered through the gallery, I wondered: Why, as a child, was I so taken with horror and the grotesque and fascinated with Ah-Fong? At this point, I came upon one of del Toro’s reflections on outsiders: “I feel at the age of 7 or 8 or even earlier that I did not really belong with the other kids that perfectly. I felt like an outsider. The horror genre seemed to show me other outcasts I could sympathize with” (del Toro). Reading this, I realized it was precisely because of Ah-Fong’s abject refusal to conform that I so connected: I learned we were like two sides of the same brain. There I was trying desperately to fit in, and there she was, trying so hard not to. Ignoring us, she did not pander to children like most visitors to our home. In all her cleavage, tight clothes, fringe, blackness, long hair, heavy makeup, and deep “booming voice,” she flouted convention, not only embracing difference but going out of her way to assert it (Fig. 1). That is why, being an outsider myself, I claimed a sort of kinship to Ah-Fong and her packages and channeled it into writing scary stories.

My third grade teacher Mrs. Ellis (name changed to protect identity) seemed to enjoy my creative output. I recall a particular day when she read one of my stories to the class as she often did. We gathered around and I sat cross-legged looking up at her and squirming, dying with anticipation to see how she would read the end of what was in my opinion, my best work to date. She did not disappoint. Just before the ending, she put the story down and looked at each and every one us. With her large bulging brown eyes and red lipsticked mouth, letting each syllable rise and fall and sink, she croaked, “And that … was the end … of Meeeee!” The class went wild. I thought I would explode with joy. Connection, indeed. This is the connection del Toro speaks: his in film and mine in story. By reading my stories aloud to the class, Mrs. Ellis demonstrates making use of a child’s cultural capital by seeing my budding skills as a storyteller and encouraging me to go on.

Conclusion

In this chapter, two experiences were considered. In the first experience with two interpretations, knowledge deepened from an understanding of food shame to the various contexts that influenced reactions and eventually to an appreciation of my teacher’s response. Re-examining the event increased its pedagogical value. Likewise, unpacking the second experience revealed the multilayered and paradoxical nature of the contestable emotion of disgust. In both cases, storying experiences and analyzing them provided the opportunity to challenge not only dominant cultural discourses but, perhaps more significantly, our own master narratives regarding identity construction and food’s role in it, and thus, illustrating the research potential and pedagogical value of food and food narratives.

Cross-References