Elspeth Probyn. Carnal Appetites: Food- SexIdentities. London: Routledge, 2000. 192 pp.

by Victoria Folks

Working on the review for this book today, I ate eggs and toast for breakfast, then a snack of chips and four cookies, a slice of cantaloupe, to be followed by grilled salmon on pasta this evening, possibly accompanied by a glass or two of wine. Grilled salmon and wine would suggest a certain demographic—wine drinkers tend to be college-educated with a certain amount of discretionary income, and salmon is a favorite fish of this group. Yet no one else I know will eat this exact assemblage of alimentary delights. Even if they did, the multitude of variables surrounding the consumption of such food would render two distinct experiences. Eating is a physical necessity that every animal has in common, yet the act of eating is, like sex, the most intensely personal and individual moment possible. No one else knows what it tasted like to me this morning to eat this toast with butter, washed down with this sip of coffee. Even if my brother and I both eat salmon and pasta this evening, if he says "This is good"—how does one know that our experiences of what is "good" are the same? We can explain taste in words and nod our heads in agreement, but we are still using symbols to recognize what might or might not be a similar memory from my own archival experience. It is impossible to know what it truly feels like to be the other. Eating, sex, or any other event happening within our own bodies (exercise, thinking) is a moment of complete isolation from others.