The Testifying Table: Honey, Jezebels, and Forbidden Food

What it is

The specific food culture around Gilead's social rituals — the Salvagings, the Particicutions, the Prayvaganzas — and the specific forbidden foods and spaces, including the Jezebels club where the rules of Gilead are suspended.

The source work

The Handmaid's Tale (1985), Margaret Atwood.

How it's described

The Jezebels, a secret club for Commanders and their male guests, is staffed by women who have refused the Gilead system and been placed in a covert entertainment role rather than executed. The food and drink there are specifically described as different from the rest of Gilead:

"There are cocktails, there are canapés, there are what could be an array of fancy little foods... It's as if it's a different country. They can eat and drink here, these women, things not available outside."

The Jezebels' food is the food of the old world — alcohol, which is forbidden in Gilead; elaborate presentation; variety. It is the food of a simulacrum of freedom: an enclosed, controlled space where the appearance of freedom is permitted, because the appearance of freedom is what the Commanders and their guests are purchasing. The food is not free. Nothing in Gilead is free.

The honey — described in several passages as the Handmaid's specific comfort food, given to her by the Commander's wife as a form of bribery — is an interesting choice. Honey is a preserved, concentrated sweetness, produced by insects through a form of labor entirely controlled by the beekeeper. Its sweetness is intense and genuine; its production is a form of controlled extraction. Atwood's choice of honey as the specific kindness the wife offers is not accidental.

Reference notes

→ Honey (production, history); → Cocktail culture history; → Canapés and passed food service

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