In Hiromi Goto's mushroom choir, the intense interaction between food, motherhood and sexuality produces a single harmonious product, pleasure, with which Naoe aims to reclaim the own complete identity. A forgotten woman, Naoe sits in her chair in the hall and sees everything that happens around her (Goto 3). Memories of miso-shiru and crispy daikon (5) wander through Naoe's mind, while her daughter's “abandoned identity” has transformed from “rice and daikon to frankfurters and beans” (13). Naoe's identity is deeply rooted in the foods of her childhood and her culture. Memories of his parents' wealth and power are intertwined with memories of food. In one particular memory, Naoe and his brother Shige are so proud of their father's success that they “play to goNaoe sumptuously describes a complexity of tastes and textures that evoke all the senses: hard shells, sweet, juicy and strong garlic, spicy ginger, cream , pungent, meaty, fresh and “sweet as the sea” (148). Alongside these sensual descriptions are sexual and slightly graphic depictions involving food. In the same scene, Naoe watches Tengu eat: “his mouth is full of lobster meat, a pungent ginger cream dripping from his lips… He licks his fingers from little finger to thumb. It's nice to see a body enjoy its food so much” (146). The vocabulary uses innuendo and implies an overtly sexual nature in the consumption of food with images of cream dripping from Tengu's mouth, licking his fingers and physically enjoying his food. Naoe simultaneously "[pulls] the flesh away from the tongs," her face "all flushed with the taste, filling the pain that [her] belly has missed" (146). The “pain” that Naoe satisfies through food is analogous to the “dull, throbbing pain…between [her] thighs (39). Likewise, Naoe states, “[food] nourishes more than my body. full” (147). After the meal, Naoe experiences post-climactic contentment, which suggests the complete and genuine pleasure that food brings her. This scene similarly parallels a scene in which Naoe strips naked in a mushroom in the novel, Naoe tries to recapture this feeling of “interconnectedness” found within this intersection. At the beginning of the novel, Naoe, regarding Keiko, states: “This Western food has changed you and you have become duller too. if your heart is broken” (Goto 13). In Naoe's perspective, Keiko's ability to cultivate, respect, and evoke “mutual pleasure” depends on her ability to feed her family Keiko implies a breakdown in the mother-son bond that Keiko shares not only with her daughter, Murasaki, but also with her mother. Keiko supplies but does not feed her daughter and mother with the burnt and tasteless “Western food” she cooks (13), signifying a loss of the “interconnectedness” that feeding another being entails. In contrast, the deep bond between Naoe and Murasaki is strongly rooted in Naoe's feeding Murasaki with pleasant Japanese foods: “We ate and drank in Obāchan's party bed. Now I was tired and all toasted, covered in cracker sheets. I nestled my head in Obāchan's bony lap and closed my eyes to listen” (18). Unlike his mother and father, Murasaki listens to Naoe, although he cannot understand “the words [Naoe speaks]” (18). This transcendence of language suggests the intensity of the bond between Naoe and Murasaki, which is explicitly strengthened through the sharing of food and involves, as Frampton states, “mutual