Joy of Cooking

In the poem, "The Joy of Cooking", the speaker elucidate to her siblings character traits through their eating habits. The cook likes to prepare her sister's tongue with horseradish, a dish with a bitter, harsh taste. If prepared another time, the chef would prepare it with "a creole sauce or a mold of aspic (Magarrell, line 8)". The spicy sauce reveals that the sister has a blunt, almost brutal personality. The chef has "scrubbed and skinned it (line 2)", which means she has reprimanded her sister for her biting personality. Each time that it returns, she will remove it again with another wonderful dish. On the other hand, the chef desires her brother's heart for her next entree. She recommends a apple-onion stuffing, which would make it sweeter and hopefully less dry. The brother's heart is tiny, alluding to the lack of love and compassion. She expounds his personality, calling it heartless and boring. To make it better, he would need something sweet or sour to give him an extra hint of excitement.