Land of Milk and Honey

Throughout June and July, being in a relationship with Aida awakens the narrator’s hunger for both sex and food—desires she lost after her mother died. Aida had a similar experience, going on a hunger strike after her mother left until she and her father bonded over eating persimmons. After this, Aida no longer spoke about Eun-Young. The narrator compares the taste of Aida’s body to the ocean salt that flavors caviar.

They experiment with making mead and other foods that are more adventurous than what Aida’s father puts on the menu for Sunday dinners, joking about the outdated dishes he wants served.

She watches Aida assist with the birth of a Tasmanian tiger. When the zoologist tries to keep Aida from assisting, worried about the mother tiger’s health, Aida fires him. Another day, Aida brings the narrator a pomegranate; they joke about the underworld of Greek mythology. Aida brings a variety of other foods; seeing miraculous-seeming things, like starlings whirling in the labs, the narrator regains her faith and learns about her embodied desires.

When there is news about the smog possibly receding, the residents of the mountain become obsessed with weather reports and ignore Aida’s father’s warnings about the coming votes to ban the community. Blue sky is sighted over Oregon, inspiring the narrator to create a dish with scallops that Aida says needs more acid. Aida becomes concerned about the growing negative political opinion of the mountain community. When the Italian government sends inspectors, Aida’s father conceals the underground labs, claiming that they are having trouble growing food quickly. He and Aida make amends after their falling out at Eun-Young’s birthday party. This upsets the narrator.

The narrator notices that her cat has been well cared for by the kitchen staff but that he’s aged. Nevertheless, he now eats the dishes the narrator makes. The narrator thinks back on her relationship with the cat over the years.

In August, a lab technician accidentally tracks into the lab a disease that infects the entire herd of cows. The animals must be slaughtered; new cows will be grown from frozen cow embryos. This means no fresh milk on the mountain. Aida considers more regulations to prevent this kind of accident. The narrator sees this as an opportunity to make dishes with substitutes like macadamia milk. Aida is pleased with the initial milk experiments; the narrator thinks about the workers who produce the macadamias.

The Italian government votes to dismantle the mountain community and seize their privately stored food. Aida’s father rushes off the mountain to try to persuade politicians with delicacies. The narrator worries about how the kitchen staff’s jobs will be impacted. If she hadn’t been part of the mountain community, the narrator might have seen the law as a completely positive thing.

The next Sunday’s meal includes the last of their milk and butter. It is very hot, and the power goes out due to the air conditioner being overworked. Aida’s father asks his diners for money to build a solar grid to prevent further issues like this.

Aida says that it is the polar vortex that has cleared some of the smog. This might mean that the smog could be fixed.

The narrator’s employer claims that she isn’t sufficiently inspiring the investors to have faith. He orders a harvest feast with Roman Kandinsky as the guest of honor. Aida is to lead a hunt with her dogs during his visit, and there will be a bonfire. Increasingly desperate, he reads books on being persuasive and argues with the narrator about the menu. Aida, as peacekeeper, suggests that they cook the meat from the hunt. When her father is out of earshot, she whispers to the narrator that hunting is better than sex. The narrator feels excluded as Aida and her father become closer over planning the feast.

In one dramatic moment, Aida dances on “the edge of the cliff” at night (134), swearing that she won’t fall after years of dance lessons. The narrator wonders if Aida and her father are narcissists, brave, or just rich. One day, they get word that Kandinsky will come dine with them that night. As they talk about the menu, Aida says that she ate well when she visited Kandinsky—which counters her previous claim that she missed the narrator’s cooking. They focus on preparing dinner.

Kandinsky is the world’s wealthiest man. He has the attitude of a Silicon Valley tech billionaire, making rude comments about the narrator’s appearance and one-upping every dish the narrator serves with a story about hunting or eating something rarer. Aida flirts and caters to Kandinsky’s ego. She and her father try to persuade Kandinsky to come to the harvest festival. When the men aren’t paying attention, Aida assures the narrator that she is only acting and demands that she stop being jealous. Filled with desire for Aida, the narrator considers that the cheongsams they are wearing have been made too tight for them to run away.

When Aida and the narrator go into the kitchen to get dessert, Aida kisses the narrator. The narrator pushes her hip between Aida’s legs, hiking up her skirt. The narrator also messes up Aida’s hair. After Aida orgasms, the narrator helps Aida clean up. Later, the narrator wonders if Aida was asked to occupy the narrator while the men talked. The dessert includes snapping turtle blood; Kandinsky has no story to top this delicacy. As Aida makes up a legend about the turtle blood, the narrator realizes that Aida cannot escape stereotypes about women even if she is wealthy.

Kandinsky finds a hair in his dessert and throws the dish on the ground; he once choked on a hair at a different party. Aida’s father looks at Aida’s mussed hair and the narrator. Before Aida can speak, the narrator throws herself on the floor where Kandinsky threw his dish and pretends to speak Korean, repeating phrases from K-dramas. Aida interprets, claiming that the narrator is apologizing. The narrator thinks that this is her best performance as Eun-Young, who is supposedly breaking her vow of silence due to the magnitude of her mistake. Aida promises that Eun-Young will fast and burn incense in the family shrine, but Kandinsky wants more, so the narrator’s employer beats her.

Later that night, he visits the narrator in her bedroom. Aida is helping the narrator put ice on her face. Aida’s father has secured Kandinsky’s investment. Aida congratulates her father, and he thanks the two women. He says that the narrator behaved just like Eun-Young, gives her a spot on the top of the list, and leans toward her, as if he is going in for a kiss. The narrator pulls back. When the women are alone again, Aida apologizes. The narrator wonders why Aida didn’t stop her father from repeatedly hitting her. Aida explains that the list is the group of people who are moving off the mountain together to a new home. The narrator asks to sleep alone that night and considers Aida weak for the first time.

In the framing narration, the now-older narrator compares the short time in which a souffle comes out correctly to the ephemerality of her relationship with Aida.