CULINARY PRACTICES, GENDER RELATIONS AND CULTURAL CHANGE IN FELICIA MIHALI’S FICTION OF MIGRATION
CULINARY PRACTICES, GENDER RELATIONS AND CULTURAL CHANGE IN FELICIA MIHALI’S FICTION OF MIGRATION

Summary/Abstract: The paper analyzes portrayals of male and female Romanian – Canadian characters in recent novels by Felicia Mihali, a writer of Romanian diaspora in Canada. The analysis blends literary and cultural studies, relying on an interdisciplinary approach that fuses gender, diaspora/transnational studies and food studies. The essay will focus on Mihali’s novel, A Second Chance (2014), paralleled by references to Bigama (2022), in order to explore the relation between cultural/gender identity and the main characters’ culinary choices and cooking practices. By discussing aspects related to food preferences and patterns of consumption, the paper aims to establish whether one can identify ambivalent mechanisms of gender relations and hybrid cultural forces in the dynamics of the immigrant couples. Therefore, the paper sets out to answer questions like the following ones: in the context of displacement from Eastern Europe to North America, is cooking represented as an act of female submission? Do the characters’ culinary choices modify after migration and if they do, does this process reflect a cultural change, as well? Which native cultural values are preserved/discarded through food choices and which new values are taken over by the female characters? The comparative analysis of these novels suggests that there is a certain degree of cultural change illustrated by the female characters’ consumption choices and their attitude towards inherited patriarchal norms.

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