Blog Topic# 3: Theme

Blog Topic #3

As an insecure person, Ruth struggles throughout her story with self-confidence as her love for feed establishes the underlining theme of the book. This theme is finding comfort through food in order to deal with problems. Ruth first displays this theme as a young girl when she is sent away to Montreal to attend a boarding school where no one speaks English. With no friends and little communication, Ruth decides to venture out and she finds comfort in the various food stores that remind her of home. This also leads her to make her new best friend, Beatrice, a rich French girl who shares Ruth’s appreciation for fine cuisine.

Another example where this theme of finding comfort through food is displayed when Ruth as her friends over to drink. She becomes nervous when the boy she likes arrives and believes the only thing she has to offer him is her cooking. She feels insecure about her body-type and looks and attempts to find acceptance through food. This same situation is brought up again when then Superstar visited her loft after she has married Doug. The Superstar asks, “’Did he marry you because you cook so good?’” (206). Ruth avoids the question because it appears that she believes it to be true. She is so self-conscience that she truly believes the only reason people like her is for her cooking and so she often resorts to it and food itself for help.

A final time this theme is brought up is in the last chapter when she attends the party for James Beard. Feeling out of place, Ruth writes on the experience, “Out of sheer nervous shyness I ate too many deviled eggs” (270). As she becomes nervous around these older, fancy people, she decides to turn to food for comfort. Whether this is healthy or not, it leads to her career as a writer and creates the theme for her story.