Blog 5-The Joy Of Cooking

    In describing the narrator's brother and sister's tongue and heart in The Joy Of Cooking, by Elaine Magarrell, the narrator explains how she would cook the body parts. Gross! The tone that is filled with adjectives and characteristics of the human parts, reveal characteristics of the siblings. Magarrell employs description and imagery to give the reader the idea that the sister has a big bad mouth and the brother, an unfeeling heart. The author uses, "..my brother's heart, which is firm and rather dry,"(Magarrell,handout). The foods which the author includes to suggest using in cooking the parts are related to some of the same attributes as her siblings. For example, an "apple-onion stuffing,"(Magarrell,handout). The combination of apple and onion is uncommon and interesting, as the speaker wishes the brother to be. I find it interesting that the speaker criticizes her siblings in a unappreciative way that comes off harsh without ever making any negative connotation towards herself. Something must have went wrong to have the speaker so bitter towards her brother and sister, enough to talk of preparing and cooking them.