Canadian author Margaret Atwood's debut novel 'The Edible Woman' (1969) features cheese as a recurring motif, using food—including cheese—to explore themes of consumption, identity, and female agency. The novel's protagonist struggles with eating, and cheese serves as a symbol of the roles and pressures society imposes on women, making it a central image in the text.

Atwood's use of cheese as a symbol of consumer culture and gender politics has influenced feminist poets and writers who similarly employ food imagery to critique social norms. The novel's success helped establish cheese as a potent literary symbol in contemporary fiction and poetry, paving the way for works like Susan Stewart's 'Poetry and the Fate of the Senses,' which explores the sensory and symbolic dimensions of food in literature.