Heartburn

In Heartburn, food and the recipes interspersed throughout the narrative function as a motif related to The Entanglement of Love and Power. For Rachel, cooking is the primary way she expresses care and creates order. The recipes she shares are extensions of her storytelling, grounding emotional events with tangible sensory details. For example, she provides the recipe for the mashed potatoes she prepares for herself when she is mourning her marriage’s dissolution: “Put through a potato ricer and immediately add I tablespoon heavy cream and as much melted butter and salt and pepper as you feel like. Eat immediately. Serves one” (127). The fact that the recipe makes a single serving reinforces the thematic link between the dish and the end of a loving relationship.

Initially a tool for connection, the meaning of food shifts as Mark’s betrayal corrupts Rachel’s domestic world. The protagonist reflects on her own misplaced focus, admitting that she relied too heavily on cooking as “the easy way of saying I love you” (135). This confession reveals her realization that the very act she believed was strengthening her marriage was eroding it. Her remark that cooking was “easy” speaks not only to her professional interests but also to the gender roles she has implicitly absorbed.