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Food in literature goes beyond reflecting class, memory, desire, and belonging. It shows the quiet ways people decide who they are and whom they may become. In Joanne Harris’s Chocolat, chocolate is real food, a language of the senses, and an invitation to friendship. It also changes the way a person sees life. Studies of food in literature often treat it as a cultural sign, but its power to change a character’s outlook needs closer study. Using Ronald W. Tobin’s gastro-critical approach and Ruth M. Stauffer’s idea of Romantic-Realism, this article analyzes how Harris brings imagination together with the hard facts of daily life. Through Josephine Muscat, Armande Voizin, Guillaume Duplessis, and Vianne Rocher, this article argues that Chocolat tells the story of a “gustatory shift.” The change begins with taste, but it grows through personal choice, friendship, and care.
Ms. Jefflyn S, Dr. F. Shophet Peter Benedsingh. “Romantic-Realism and the Gustatory Shift: A Gastro-Psychological Reading of Joanne Harris’s Chocolat.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 785-797. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.48.
Open Access · CC BY 4.0 · Crossref DOI ·
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