"The Absence of Appetite" in the Grieving process
In my previous posts I looked at how people consciously give up food, whether this be for positive or entirely negative reasons, I explored specifically that food is missing from a person's life as they choose for it to be absent, both temporarily and permanently.
But what happens when a person does not choose to stop eating? When they feel so distressed that eating becomes difficult and neglected? When they feel so overwhelmed that eating stops being important to them and they somewhat forget to eat? This is sadly a common occurrence when someone is grieving, particularly to those who have lost a significant person in their life like a mother or father.
Talking to my mother about the unexpected passing away of my grandma, almost ten years ago now, she told me that eating was difficult during this time. She felt so numb that eating was not a major concern to her personally and she barely ate for a couple of weeks whilst she took care of her Dad, making sure he was fed properly and had food in the house and making sure me and my brother still had cooked meals every day. Similarly, Nigel Slater in his biography Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger also neglected food when his mother tragically passed away, this time at a much younger age than my mother. He writes that he "ate almost nothing at school. For the first six months after Mum died I lived on cheese-and-onion crisps and chocolate marshmallow 'teacakes'" (Slater 108) that "The nearest thing I had to a meal was the cheese on toast or spaghetti hoops Dad made when he came home in the evening" (ibid).
Although I acknowledge food is not entirely absent and that Slater clearly still has some sort of appetite in this passage, he certainly did not eat much and the foods he did eat were restricted to comfort foods, foods that do not require much effort to eat or make, yet are enjoyable to most people.
Moreover, comfort foods play a significant part in Slater's narrative again when his father begins to give him marshmallow teacakes as a bedtime treat. He writes that after his mother's death what he missed the most about her motherly love was when she would "come in and kiss me good night" (102). Upon discovering Slater's school essay which compared a kiss to a marshmallow, "Soft, sweet, tender, pink" (ibid), his father not only allows Slater to indulge in "two, sometimes three fluffy, sugary marshmallows" (ibid) but also to bend the rules of eating in bed every night, a once strict rule.
Slater's father's decision to use food as a coping mechanism for his son reminds me of what my mother did when my grandma passed away, which was continuing to feed others and make sure they are well looked after, despite how hard the current situation may be and how much she herself did not feel like eating. I feel like the use of food in both of these incidents is primarily to control the situation. My mother said that she felt control in making everyone sandwiches the day her mother died and continuing to cook breakfast for me and my brother every morning because she was doing something she regularly does despite how irregular the circumstances were, which is feed her family and ultimately she told me this made her feel less helpless. Similarly, Slater's father uses food as a means of control to ensure his son is still feeling a somewhat sense of his mother's love, something which although he cannot bring back entirely he is still trying to reciprocate through the presence of the treat at bedtime as best as he can for his son's sake and also possibly for his own peace of mind.
Food therefore becomes a coping mechanism and a means of control in the instance of grief in both my mother's life and Slater's life. Food is used as a means of establishing routine, whether it be ensuring everyone is fed in my family by continuing to cook and go shopping or ensuring Slater gets his desired goodnight kiss, food most definitely becomes something which we rely on when we grieve and comfort eating during this time is just as common as not eating.
Whilst I acknowledge everyone is different when going through awful ordeals such as these and if someone feels that not eating is the best for them in such a difficult time then I certainly will not criticize them, but what I can say is that in these instances "The Absence of Appetite" and the overall principle of not eating would be entirely negative for the families who are grieving as food has become not only a means of retaining control and a routine but also a way to remember someone, to remember the way they loved you.
Whilst my mother did not eat and had "The Absence of Appetite" during this time yet continued to cook for others and Slater did eat during the grieving process they remain connected through food and its power to make someone, even if it is for a few minutes, forget the pain of what they are going through, that food, as Varadaraja V Raman writes in "Food: Its Many Aspects In Science, Religion, and Culture", is an "enjoyable necessity of life" (959) even when we are not the ones eating the food and instead are preparing it for someone else.
But what happens when a person does not choose to stop eating? When they feel so distressed that eating becomes difficult and neglected? When they feel so overwhelmed that eating stops being important to them and they somewhat forget to eat? This is sadly a common occurrence when someone is grieving, particularly to those who have lost a significant person in their life like a mother or father.
Talking to my mother about the unexpected passing away of my grandma, almost ten years ago now, she told me that eating was difficult during this time. She felt so numb that eating was not a major concern to her personally and she barely ate for a couple of weeks whilst she took care of her Dad, making sure he was fed properly and had food in the house and making sure me and my brother still had cooked meals every day. Similarly, Nigel Slater in his biography Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger also neglected food when his mother tragically passed away, this time at a much younger age than my mother. He writes that he "ate almost nothing at school. For the first six months after Mum died I lived on cheese-and-onion crisps and chocolate marshmallow 'teacakes'" (Slater 108) that "The nearest thing I had to a meal was the cheese on toast or spaghetti hoops Dad made when he came home in the evening" (ibid).
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| Nigel Slater, the English food writer and Chef who writes in his biography Toast about the hardships of losing his mother at a young age |
Moreover, comfort foods play a significant part in Slater's narrative again when his father begins to give him marshmallow teacakes as a bedtime treat. He writes that after his mother's death what he missed the most about her motherly love was when she would "come in and kiss me good night" (102). Upon discovering Slater's school essay which compared a kiss to a marshmallow, "Soft, sweet, tender, pink" (ibid), his father not only allows Slater to indulge in "two, sometimes three fluffy, sugary marshmallows" (ibid) but also to bend the rules of eating in bed every night, a once strict rule.
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| A Marshmallow teacake which Nigel Slater compares to a kiss in his biography Toast |
Food therefore becomes a coping mechanism and a means of control in the instance of grief in both my mother's life and Slater's life. Food is used as a means of establishing routine, whether it be ensuring everyone is fed in my family by continuing to cook and go shopping or ensuring Slater gets his desired goodnight kiss, food most definitely becomes something which we rely on when we grieve and comfort eating during this time is just as common as not eating.
Whilst I acknowledge everyone is different when going through awful ordeals such as these and if someone feels that not eating is the best for them in such a difficult time then I certainly will not criticize them, but what I can say is that in these instances "The Absence of Appetite" and the overall principle of not eating would be entirely negative for the families who are grieving as food has become not only a means of retaining control and a routine but also a way to remember someone, to remember the way they loved you.
Whilst my mother did not eat and had "The Absence of Appetite" during this time yet continued to cook for others and Slater did eat during the grieving process they remain connected through food and its power to make someone, even if it is for a few minutes, forget the pain of what they are going through, that food, as Varadaraja V Raman writes in "Food: Its Many Aspects In Science, Religion, and Culture", is an "enjoyable necessity of life" (959) even when we are not the ones eating the food and instead are preparing it for someone else.
I really enjoyed this post. It's a very interesting dive into the overlooked commonality of loss of appetite while grieving. I have experienced this, as I'm sure many people have, and your post here is a triumph in explaining the feeling. It is interesting too how food is something we can no longer enjoy, because food can be such a joy, a treat, and a way to bring people together, which we deny ourselves in guilt or sorrow. It is even more interesting how then food becomes our comfort, and once we can use it (our basic necessity of food) as a comfort, we can begin to move on. Excellent post!
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