I’ve noticed something in my reading lately: in print, people are disgusting eaters.
I can’t help wondering whether editors are not bothered by such passages, or whether they make suggestions and the writers resist. I recently read two manuscripts for friends and pointed out half a dozen such instances. Both told me I was the only one who had objected. Some examples from published books I’ve read:
- “I was trying to follow her home,” Alden admitted, reaching for a piece of toast. He loaded it with marmalade and shoved it into his mouth.1
- He shoved giant handfuls of the jelly beans . . . into his mouth.2
- Too angry to speak, I stuffed my mouth with sugar-cookies.3
- At lunchtime, I wandered from department to department stuffing myself with food.4
- Shana picked up a soy taco and stuffed it into her mouth. . . . She finished one soy taco in a few gulps and then picked up the chocolate cake and stuffed as much as she could in her mouth.5
It’s not that I believe that rudeness is on the rise. After all, real-life violent crime statistics have been in decline for years, and as a measure of civility—well, you can’t get much ruder than violent crime. Statistics on food-related violence, real or imagined, are more difficult to locate. Pies in the face used to be a staple in films and TV (not to mention that shocking grapefruit); are they still?
Poor table manners and ravenous hunger are of course a writer’s shorthand for juvenile behavior. But most of the passages cited refer to adults, not children or teens. Giant handfuls? Stuffing as much cake as you can into your mouth? And is it as part of a cumulative effort to thwart gender stereotypes that almost all of the passages involve female characters?
I’m looking for guidance here. I’m curious—but maybe I don’t really want to know.
More examples
(I’ll continue to add examples as I encounter them.)
- Gilda and Juliet stuffed handfuls of popcorn into their mouths.6
- “I would be too,” Amie chirps, shoveling a forkful of potatoes into her mouth.7
- She grabbed the last cookie off the plate and crammed half of it in her mouth.8
- I start shoveling food into my mouth.9
- I tear off a section of the buttery warm bread, dip it in the chutney, and stuff my mouth.10
- I nod, shoving the rest of the food into my mouth.11
- She thought, while she finished an enormous mouthful.12
- I make a point of ignoring her by shoving the flaky crust into my mouth.13
- Georgia tore into hers and shoveled fries into her mouth.14
- He shoveled another huge forkful into his mouth.15
- Back in her car Georgia unwrapped the pastry and took a huge bite.16
- Strike put down his pen, swallowed a large mouthful of noodles and said: “Well, I don’t know about you two.”17
- Barclay was continuing to shovel pork balls into his mouth.18
- Mama returns with a big bowl, shoveling ice cream into her mouth.19
- I shove the last bite of breakfast roll into my mouth.20
- I shoveled another bite of blueberry pie into my mouth.21
- Ivy stuffed herself with Mr. Bishop’s famous maple-and-brown-sugar pancakes.22
- He was holding his Guiness Book of World Records in one hand and with the other was shoving a cupcake into his mouth.23
- I shove half in my mouth, put the rest in the fridge for later, and head upstairs.24
- I take a massive bite.25
- Judy took a monster bite.26
- I stuffed my face with shumai.27
- I shoveled an extra-large portion of the stroganoff into my mouth.28
- I shoveled more food into my mouth.29
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1. Frances McNamara, Death at Hull House: An Emily Cabot Mystery (Chicago: Allium Press of Chicago, 2009), 192.
2. Kevin Wilson, The Family Fang (New York: Harper Collins, 2011), Kindle loc. 105.
3. Mary Downing Hahn, Time for Andrew (New York: Clarion, 1994), Kindle loc. 116.
4. Gunter Nitsch, Stretch (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2010), Kindle loc. 2432.
5. Andrea White, Windows on the World (NH: namelos, 2010), Kindle locs. 739 and 1335.
6. Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator (New York: Sleuth/Dutton, 2005), 157.
7. Gennifer Albin, Crewel (New York: Macmillan, 2012), 10.
8. Libby Fischer Hellmann, An Eye for Murder (Scottsdale, AZ: Poisoned Pen, 2002), 63.
9. Samira Ahmed, Love, Hate and Other Filters (New York: Soho Press, 2018), 11.
10. Ahmed, Love, Hate, 114.
11. Ahmed, Love, Hate, 219.
12. Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (New York: St. Martin's, 1998; orig. 1948), 232.
13. Rae Carson, Girl of Fire and Thorns (New York: Greenwillow Books, 2011), 4.
14. Libby Fischer Hellmann, Nobody’s Child (Chicago: Red Herrings Press, 2014), Kindle loc. 572.
15. Hellmann, Nobody’s Child, Kindle loc. 1497.
16. Hellmann, Nobody’s Child, Kindle loc. 1902.
17. Galbraith, Lethal White (New York: Mulholland Books, 2018), Kindle loc. 6238.
18. Galbraith, Lethal White, Kindle loc. 6246.
19. Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give (HarperAudio, 2017), audiobook loc. 08:27:30.
20. Tana French, The Trespasser (New York: Penguin Random House, 2017), Kindle loc. 1089.
21. Kate Hannigan, Cape (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019), 111.
22. Ashley Herring Blake, Ivy Aberdeens Letter to the World (New York: Little, Brown, 2018), Kindle loc. 2413.
23. Judy Blume, Blubber (Scarsdale, NY: Bradbury Press, 1974), 11.
24. Victoria Schwab, City of Ghosts (NY: Scholastic Press, 2018), 37.
25. Schwab, City of Ghosts, 44.
26. Megan McDonald, Judy Moody Gets Famous (NY: Scholastic, 2001), 40.
27. Gloria Chou, American Panda (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2018), Kindle loc. 1396.
28. Naomi Hirahara, Clark and Division: A Japantown Mystery (New York: Soho Press, 2021), Kindle loc. 2450.
29. Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary (New York: Ballantine Books, 2021), 93.
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Photo: Christine Owens, Popcorn Face
The only one that really sticks out to me as bad manners is the last example. Just imagining someone eating like that makes me wince.
The other examples read, to me, as being less literal in their use of 'stuffing.' It seemed that they were just describing either the fact that they were eating quickly or a lot. But not that they were literally shoveling food into their mouths.
As for the jellybeans...yeah that actually happens (especially with things like popcorn...*cringe*).
I wouldn't hesitate to say table manners are on the decline, though. If you didn't grow up sitting down to dinner regularly, it's a lot harder to pick them up.
Posted by: Cieloan | 08/24/2011 at 07:52 PM
I don't work on children and young adult fiction, but I thought you might still like to hear my thoughts. All but the last one adds humor (to me--yes, I find these things funny). It's not really entertaining or fun to read about someone properly and slowly eating (and in that case you'd probably leave it out) but adding mentions about food makes it feel more realistic.
By the way, I love that you have Kindle references! Kindles are great.
Posted by: Michelle D | 08/25/2011 at 12:32 PM
I think what's going on is slightly different; it's less about manners and more about fiction workshops. Take any writing how-to book, and one of the first tips (one that you must follow or your manuscript will end up in the gutter) is to choose richer, more descriptive words, particularly verbs (and adverbs must be banished). For example, we can't walk in fiction; he have to galumph, or scuttle, or prance, and so on. Plain walking would say nothing to a reader. Or so the popular wisdom in those advice books go.
Hence, I think these writers cringed at the thought of producing such a bland verb as "eat," and they came up with those more descriptive, in-your-face, and less civil terms that you picked up on. In fact, the how-to advice worked, in a way, since you actually took note of those passages; passages in which people simply ate would probably have slipped by unnoticed. Now, whether that's sane advice for making high-quality fiction is another matter altogether.
Posted by: Federico Escobar | 08/26/2011 at 12:24 PM
The thing is, only hack writers make a reader notice something that is beside the point. Unless the point of the passage is that the character is uncouth, the verb should just be "ate."
Posted by: Carol Saller | 04/11/2015 at 07:14 PM