Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of gender discrimination. 

Rika Machida’s work with Manako Kajii transforms her perspective on food and cooking. As a 33-year-old woman living in Tokyo, Japan, Rika’s understanding of the culinary arts “is steeped in intense misogyny” (13). She’s been taught to equate cooking with her alleged female duty to men. Furthermore, because “a woman [who isn’t] slim” is seen as someone who isn’t “worth bothering with” (23), Rika has denied herself the enjoyment of eating. She lives a rigid lifestyle, ensuring her weight never surpasses 50 kilos. However, when she starts to connect with her research subject Kajii about food and cooking, Rika starts to reconsider the possibilities that food and cooking might offer her. With Kajii’s guidance, she begins to eat at different restaurants and cook new recipes. Over time, these pastimes grant Rika a new way to connect with others and to care for herself.

The novel’s inclusion of food descriptions shows Rika’s evolving relationship with cooking. The more food she eats and cooks, the more enriched her life becomes. In turn, the narrative becomes increasingly saturated with detailed descriptions of food and Rika’s eating experiences.