Food in A Wild Sheep Chase

In Murakami’s literature, you may notice a particular emphasis on food descriptions. Murakami has said that he’d like the reader to become hungry or thirsty because of his vivid descriptions of food. Proof of his success in doing this can be found by taking a look at the numerous recipes inspired by Murakami’s books! (I think that Murakami would do quite well in the food marketing industry, but that’s besides the point). Just as food is very important in both Japanese and American culture, so too is food important in Murakami’s novels, especially A Wild Sheep Chase. There is also notable detail provided for the preparation of food. In this novel, the narrator, Boku, uses cooking as a way to ground himself and organize his thoughts after a particularly stressful day. The following are examples of how Boku uses cooking as a form of catharsis in A Wild Sheep Chase:

• “As a way to focus my thoughts, I went into the kitchen to fix some Salisbury steak...”
• “Scrambling eggs with a wooden spatula, I tossed these ideas around in my head.”
• "While waiting for the onions to cool, I sat down by the window and gazed back out at the pasture."

These quotes are from the end of chapter 35, “The Sheep Man Cometh,” after Boku encounters the Sheep Man for the first time. He asks himself whether the Sheep Man had been an illusion, and turns to cooking as a way to focus his thoughts. In fact, he ends up "cooking up a storm" with all of his free time stuck in the Rat's house in the mountains. To me, it seems like Boku cooks as a way to ground himself in reality and calm himself. When he’s feeling like things are out of control, he finds a sense of control in cooking. Boku thinks about opening a “mountain-chalet–style restaurant” where the Rat could run it and he himself could cook. He finds comfort in thinking about doing something that he enjoys doing and imagines it to help him feel better after a strange encounter with the Sheep Man. The juxtaposition between the mundaneness of preparing a meal and the more fantastical elements of Murakami’s books, such as the appearance of the Sheep Man, is a prime example of magical realism. Just as the act of cooking and eating is comforting to the character who performs these activities, so too is it comforting to the reader; it is one of the things that bring a sense of familiarity to the otherwise surreal novel.

- Christa (she/her)