The Joy of Cooking

The Joy of Cooking
Elaine Magarrell

Upon first reading this poem, I thought that the speaker was actually planning to cook her family's body parts. But then a thought occurred to me that the body parts could symbolize character traits of the speaker's siblings. The first stanza of the poem deals with cooking the sister's tongue. Because females are often accused of talking a lot and because the body part was a tongue, I would surmise that the speaker would like for his sister to stop talking as much as she does. "It(the tongue) probably will grow back"(Magarrell). In this quote, the speaker suggests that the sister talks a lot because her tongue would grow back out of necessity.
The second stanza talks about the brother's heart. Certain phrases suggest that the brother is unloving. The heart, symbolic of love, "is firm and rather dry" and it would "barely feed two" (Magarrell). This withered and small heart seems incapable of holding much love.
By picking specific body parts to cook from each sibling, the speaker suggests changes that she would like to see in their characters.