Food and its emotional and political significance pervades autobiographical writing
by lesbians. This article traces the connections between food, sexuality and
identity through four exemplary texts - Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges
Are Not the Only Fruit, Audre Lorde’s Zami, Dorothy
Allison’s ‘A Lesbian Appetite’ and Anna
Livia’s ‘Tongues or Fingers’ - where food is crucial
in both defining and contesting lesbian identity, sexuality and community. Food
memories and histories are portrayed as constitutive of the self, reaching back to
childhood and images of ‘home’. On the other hand, they are also
related to the social context of class inequalities and gendered hierarchies. Within
these autobiographical narratives, food both constitutes and expresses a sense of
self, playing a crucial part in the construction of the writers’ complex,
multi-layered narratives of identity.
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