"Nurturing Individuals, Kinship, and Culture: Kitchens as Social Spaces in Wayson Choy’s The Jade Peony and Ruby Slipperjack’s Silent Words"

Abstract

Developing a strong sense of community and preserving cultural identity are key components of Chinese Canadian and Indigenous literatures; this shared identity provides a sense of ethnic and cultural solidarity for so-called “visible minorities” in Canada, a key concern in both Wayson Choy’s novel The Jade Peony and Ruby Slipperjack’s novel Silent Words. In these novels the locus of culture becomes the kitchen or the campfire, sites where culture is made tangible through the preparation and consumption of traditional cuisine. In The Jade Peony, the Chen family kitchen is a social space where three generations of Chinese Canadians reinforce their kinship ties by sharing meals and other elements of Chinese culture. Kitchens and campfires function similarly in Silent Words: Danny connects with other Ojibwa people in these sites, strengthening his cultural identity and alleviating his isolation while simultaneously learning traditional methods of subsistence hunting and food preparation. By comparing passages from Choy’s The Jade Peony and Slipperjack’s Silent Words, it is shown that kitchens and campfires are both sites of strengthened kinship connections and also function as vehicles for the preservation of culture through the preparation and consumption of traditional meals.