New beginnings in reading (Irish) literature: A gastrocritical look at George Moore's 'Home Sickness' and Colm Toibin's Brooklyn

This chapter showcases gastrocriticism as a new beginning in literary theory and criticism, offering new readings of (Irish) literature. Gastrocriticism is an emerging form of literary criticism focused on human relationships with each other and to the natural world through food. It is informed by the concepts and insights of gastronomical scholarship and food studies and pays particular attention to the role food and foodways play in literary writing. The texts investigated here explore new beginnings themselves. In George Moore's 'Home Sickness' (1903), an emigrant on a return visit from America must decide between a farmer's life in Ireland and his new one as a bartender in the New World. Much later, Colm Toibin puts his protagonist in Brooklyn (2009) before a similar dilemma, as she finds love on a home visit to Ireland. In both stories, foodways provide not only colour, but also feed into the central conflict of the old versus the new. A gastrocritical reading of the two texts reveals how the old and the new are experienced through food and foodways in Irish literature.