Gastro-Graphy: Food As Metaphor in Fred Wah's Diamond Grill and Austin Clarke's Pig Tails 'N Breadfruit‪.‬

ABSTRACT/RESUME This paper discusses the cultural significance of food as a multilayered trope and strategy in postcolonial life writing. Specifically, I read the use of food as a metaphor in culinary memoirs by ethnic Canadian authors Fred Wah (Diamond Grill) and Austin Clarke (Pig Tails 'n Breadfruit). As it mediates memory, this metaphor provides an axis for understanding the authors' explorations of their cultural backgrounds and inscription of subjectivity. The culinary language employed in the innovative discourse of these texts makes the notion of food a metonym of the elaboration of culture and identity. The manner in which these writers negotiate food imagery and the process of preparing (and consuming) food as part of their autobiographical exercises invites the reader to read beyond the possibly "exotic" representation of food to more complex versions of positionality, affiliation, and selfhood.