ABSTRACT
The colloquial expression “you’re so cute, I could just eat you up” may seem bizarre or paradoxical (why would one threaten to eat a loveable thing?), but it also suggests a particular relationship between the edible and the adorable that will be my concern in this chapter. If an object that is “too cute” incites a desire to consume, then cuteness somehow suggests a strange association with edibility, and this is routinely evidenced in many of the titles of cute-related listicles on websites like Buzzfeed and Gizmodo that metaphorically describe cute objects as “mouthwatering” or “diabetes-inducing.”
