Food,literature, art,and the demise of dualistic thought

In the early 1990s philosopher Deane Curtin proposed a “food‐centered philosophy of human being,” whereby food became a potential site for the elimination of the self/other duality so central to Western thought. Since food is ingested and becomes part of the self, it obliges us to reconceptualize not only the other but also the identity of a self that is so permeable, it can physically incorporate the other. Food/cooking/eating as a conceptual complex has further challenged the self/other dichotomy in barrier‐breaking new cultural artifacts such as “food books,” performance art pieces, and popular film.