Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder

by Asako Yuzuki

It’s weird, isn’t it? Why is it that with nobody to watch over them, men can’t stop themselves from falling into disrepair? And that disrepair is then looked upon kindly and excused by the world, seen not as a failure of personal responsibility but something poignant and tragic.’

‘I think not taking care of yourself properly is a form of violence.’

Mothers around the world didn’t put in the work of coming up with and then cooking the day’s menu because those foods were what they themselves wanted to eat, but because they were thinking of their family. From a certain moment on, Kajii had started making the food she wanted to eat when she wanted to eat it. She no longer heeded the physical condition or the palates of the men she was with. That was why her food had the wild deliciousness of something attained through black magic. She could enjoy the act of cooking because it didn’t pain her in any way.