Volume VI Special Issue III March 2026

Name of Author : V.Deepika, Dr.J.Sobhana Devi

Title of the paper : Culinary Spaces and Domestic Ideals in Karma Browns Recipe for a Perfect Wife

Abstract: Culinary literature offers a valuable framework for examining cultural expectations and domestic ideals embedded within everyday practices. Karma Brown’s Recipe for a Perfect Wife employs food and domestic spaces as central narrative elements to investigate the formation and transmission of domestic ideals across generations. Through its dual temporal structure, the novel juxtaposes mid twentieth century domestic life with contemporary experiences, enabling a comparative analysis of enduring and evolving cultural norms surrounding home and domesticity. This paper adopts a sociocultural and spatial theoretical approach to analyze the symbolic significance of culinary spaces, particularly kitchens, within the narrative. These spaces function as culturally inscribed environments associated with duty, routine, and emotional regulation. Food and cooking operate as narrative languages that articulate inherited beliefs, unspoken expectations, and relational tensions. The study argues that domestic ideals in the novel emerge primarily from everyday culinary practices shaped by cultural conditioning rather than individual choice. By foregrounding cuisine as a medium of cultural memory and domestic continuity, the paper highlights the role of culinary narratives in representing social values in contemporary fiction.

Keywords : Culinary Literature, Domestic Ideals, Food Narratives, Domestic Spaces, Sociocultural Criticism, Cultural Memory

DOI :

Page Number : 264-269