Food and Women in an Italian-Canadian Novel: Tenor of Love by Mary Di Michele

Food is an important “identity marker” and plays a key role in the migration process: by consuming the food and maintaining the culinary habits of their country, migrants affirm their identity and culture. Moreover, food is often associated with memory and nostalgia for the country of origin: indeed, it is evident that the presence of food and its preparation in literature becomes a kind of mirror for society. In the case of Canada, this analytical perspective appears particularly interesting, because its cultural context is hybrid: half American, half European, and with a considerable number of immigrants from all over the world. In this “gastro-literary” journey I propose to take, I will try to show that nourishment is a solid and real principle in the construction of identity in Canada, through the works of Italian migrant writers. In this contribution, I will analyze the theme of food connected to pleasure in a novel by an Italian-Canadian writer, Mary Di Michele, entitled Tenor of Love. I will mainly consider the passages in this novel in which culinary practices are used as metaphors for situations typical of Italian migrants to Canada. Thereafter, I will examine the close link between the search for identity and female authenticity present in the novel, and how Di Michele manages to deconstruct the clichésassociated with Italian culture and tradition through the figurative value of nourishment, managing to restore, through writing, legitimacy to women.