To eat, (not) to love, (not) to remember, (not) to forgive: gastronomic preferences of the characters in Ivan Chendei’s short stories

Abstract

This article explores the depiction of food in Ivan Chendei’s short stories, analyzing three levels of food representation: ethnographic, everyday, and existential. The study highlights how culinary tastes and customs reveal characters’ personalities, helping to recreate their traits and memories. In Chendei’s works, food is often humble and everyday, yet it signifies more than just material status; it reflects care or indifference, love or hate.

Food serves as a narrative device that reveals the protagonists’ inner worlds, often expressing emotions that words cannot. Cooking and sharing food symbolize love and care for others. The portrayal of food in Chendei’s prose captures the national and regional atmosphere, recreating the everyday life of the Transcarpathians in the past and preserving the traditions and rituals of cooking and eating, whether in daily life or during celebrations.

For example, in «Syn (Son)», cooking demonstrates a father’s love for his son, while in «Testament», it highlights indifference toward a sick, old mother. In «Zozulka (Cuckoo)», food becomes a ritualized act, signifying the impossibility of returning to the past. In «Havrylova ‘Zolota osin’ (Havrylova’s ‘Golden Autumn’)», it symbolizes hospitality, and in «Bili hvozdyky na Novyi rik (White Carnations for the New Year)», it represents reconciliation between family members.

Chendei’s describes the process of cooking in a special way, it seems that every word has a taste and flavour. Writer’s detailed descriptions of cooking and eating bring each scene to life, with recipes that are simple yet delicious. This aligns with Chendei’s creative style, which focuses on the real and familiar since childhood rather than the imaginary. Consequently, everyday scenes in his stories become rich with symbolism, and the worlds he creates transcend mere daily existence to encompass feelings and memories.

The narrow geographical setting of the Verkhovyna in these stories also influences the characters’ food choices. Ultimately, food in Chendei’s works is a significant form of non-verbal communication, revealing characters’ habits, daily lives, traits, and their capacity for both positive and negative actions.