Eumaeus was a particularly interesting chapter for me because it featured food and cooking more prominently than in previous chapters. There are numerous references to food which have a symbolic meaning.
The first reference occurs when Leopold Bloom smells bread baking in James Rourke’s bakery. The bread is described as “our daily bread, of all commodities of the public the primary and most indespensable,” (16, 57-58). While the importance of bread in Irish life is stressed, there is also a religious undertone as seen in “our daily bread.” Bread is what people eat at communion and represents the very body of Jesus Christ to Catholics. The line, “earn your bread,” appears to be a call to piousness (16, 58).
Later, Stephen Dedalus muses on the memory of his family eating various foods including “cocoa that was in the sootcoated kettle,” oatmeal water, herring, an egg, and eggshells and charred fish heads for the cat, (16, 271-276). The food described is used to illustrate the Dedalus’ state of poverty. One can roughly tell someone’s relative wealth by the food that they eat.
The sailor brings up a fictitious story about Peruvians that he claims to have encountered who eat “corpses and the liver of horses,” (16, 470-471). Since the sailor has already been labeled as a fraud by Stephen and Leopold, his story should not be taken seriously. Regardless, the sailor’s choice of food to pair with the Peruvians reveals a sort of racism. There is no evidence to support his claim that he saw Peruvians eat corpses and the liver of horses. Even if this was true, the reader would likely take it as false because of the sailor’s unreliable nature.
A particularly interesting and peculiar way of talking about food occurs during the discussion of solid foods vs. liquid foods. The argument is made that regular meals of solid food are essential for proper work both mental and manual. Stephen is then urged to eat more solid foods because it will make him feel a different man. This seems to be a pretty logical argument, but Stephen, perhaps jokingly, says “liquids I can eat,” (16, 815).
A man known as Skin-the-Goat proclaims that Ireland is the richest country on the earth based on natural resources. He cites Ireland’s exportation of “coal in large quantities, six millions pounds of pork exported every year, ten millions between butter and eggs,” (16, 989-991). Food is used as a marker of natural prosperity. However, this prosperity is lost to the British who levy taxes on the poor. In this instance food serves as a symbol of British colonial rule and the pillaging of the poor by way of taxes. Of course this is only the view of Skin-the -Goat and might not be shared by Joyce. It is fitting that the Dedalus family was previously described by the foods they ate which reveals how the poor Irish cannot even afford their own exports having to “pay through the nose,” (16, 992).
