What is the author’s purpose in this excerpt?

to explain how easy it was to store food properly during elizabethan times

to explain how the proper way to store food was taught to elizabethan cooks

to explain the complexities of proper food storage during elizabethan times

to explain the errors people made trying to store food properly during elizabethan times

I think the third option is probably the best one, because the first and last options are contradictory and the third one refers more so to a reader's reaction to an excerpt as opposed to an author's purpose. The second one sounds like too specific of a purpose and an unreasonable assumption as to why an author would write something. The author was probably trying to add detail so that a 21st century reader could feel like they are there, and I would assume that food storage was not only taught to Elizabethan cooks.

as for symbolic actions, the narrator's tearing down the wallpaper in an attempt to find the "woman" in the wallpaper represents her struggle to retain or regain her sanity.   the wallpaper has been part of her confinement and by her tearing it down, she is freeing herself from that confinement.