Kitchenlessness, or The Migrant’s Affair with Food

Abstract

Research Article| May 01 2021 Kitchenlessness, or The Migrant’s Affair with Food Gema Charmaine Gonzales Gema Charmaine Gonzales Gema Charmaine Gonzales is a second-year doctoral student in General and Comparative Literature at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle—Paris 3. Before moving to France, she was a full-time French lecturer in the University of the Philippines Diliman. Her dissertation focuses on gastropoetics as an expression of resistance in postcolonial literatures by Southeast Asian women. She applies a multidisciplinary approach that encompasses the fields of postcolonial feminism, food studies, literary anthropology, and Southeast Asian studies. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Gastronomica (2021) 21 (2): 71–72. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2021.21.2.71 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Gema Charmaine Gonzales; Kitchenlessness, or The Migrant’s Affair with Food. Gastronomica 1 May 2021; 21 (2): 71–72. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2021.21.2.71 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentGastronomica Search Somewhere in the cobbled town of Saumur with a view of the Château and a band of faceless strangers, I wailed for rice. It was my first day as a Filipina immigrant in France. My French partner, who was just as tired from our long flight and jam-packed train ride, asked me what was wrong. Between sobs, I could only say I needed rice. I was bent down, crying and hugging my knees, because the black hole in my stomach felt twice as big with each breath. I cried because I was in an unfamiliar land that smelled only of baguette and pain au chocolat. I cried because seven thousand miles now separated me from my homeland. I cried because inside my luggage was a one-liter rice cooker that my dad had carefully packed for me, because we both... © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California2021 You do not currently have access to this content.