Festín del horror: la comida siniestra en “Alta cocina”, de Amparo Dávila

Abstract

An aspect of the work of Amparo Davila (Mexico 1928-2020) that has not been much studied is that which has to do with food horror, the representation of food as a source of abjection and terror. Amparo Davila's first book Tiempo destrozado (1959) includes two short stories in which food and the kitchen are codified in a gothic register: «Alta cocina» and the homonymous story «Tiempo destrozado». In these stories, food becomes strange and repulsive, undergoes disturbing metamorphoses and generates intellectual uncertainty about its nature. In this work I will focus on «Alta cocina», which is the text where the experience of gastronomic horror is most developed, to investigate the way in which the short story complicates the boundary between the human and the animal and calls into question the civilization /barbarism binary concept. Also, I will analyze the way in which a space historically associated with women such as the kitchen appears as dark, sinister and threatening.