Significance of Saltines

Saltines are representative of one of Eliana’s most shameful food memories. Her mother monitors what she eats and so she is often afraid of eating snacks, even healthy ones, or sharing with her friends when they come over to the house because she does not want her mother to think she was overeating. When her mother caught her eating saltines, she pried her mouth open and forced her to spit it out and her parents had a huge fight that night. Eliana has not eaten saltine crackers since this episode.