Abstract
Eddie, in Carla Trujillo’s novel, What Night Brings (2003), says this to Marci, his eleven-year-old daughter. During a brief time while Marci’s mother holds a job, it becomes her responsibility to fix dinner. Her father rejects her cooking and demands the Mexican cultural familiarity of beans and chiles—food that according to Eddie “a man will eat” (126).
“This is what I think of the fucking mierda you cooked,” he said. He held the pot over my head and started to tip it. I screamed. He laughed … then moved it away from my head and poured it all across the kitchen floor. I felt the hot splatter from the sauce hit my arms and legs … He turned back … and pointed his finger as he spoke, “I don’t ever want to eat this spaghetti crap again. You hear me?!” (Trujillo 125–26)
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© 2013 Nieves Pascual Soler and Meredith E. Abarca
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Abarca, M.E. (2013). Families Who Eat Together, Stay Together: But Should They?. In: Soler, N.P., Abarca, M.E. (eds) Rethinking Chicana/o Literature through Food. Literatures of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137371447_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137371447_7
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