Ustopian Breakfasts: Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam

In the third novel of Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy, breakfast creates a sense of hope and adaptability in the most dire of dystopias. In this postpandemic world where civilization is all but destroyed, the human survivors, who form a makeshift community with the Crakers, initially cling to reverse-utopian breakfasts: nostalgic replications of past meals that offer solace but have no long-term future because the material circumstances of their existence have ceased. Eventually recognizing that storytelling and food are powerful, interrelated tools for humanity’s future reproduction, this tenuous community survives precisely because they imagine and reimagine themselves and their modes of consumption. In this way, MaddAddam offers a humble sense of hope through ever-changing breakfast foods that serve as both the physical means and symbol of humanity’s imaginative reconstitution into the future.