The Buddenbrooks may be the biggest eaters but they are not the only ones. All Thomas Mann's novels contain important meal scenes. Eating is not just the intake of food for survival purposes. It is a cultic act. The references and allusions are immense in their raduis - Plato's "Symposium", the Last Supper, eros and redemption. From Christian Buddenbrook, the suffering hero who can't get a morsel past his lips, to Joseph the Provider in the "Joseph" tetralogy the eating habits of Mann's protagonists symbolize the problems they have stomaching the outside world and keeping their inward selves under control. Eating is something they all make a meal of - guzzlers and ascetics alike - and sacrifice is the order of the day. The book serves up the secret menu underlying this consuming passion.