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Many meanings of food

Last Updated 17 August 2016, 19:23 IST

In the introduction for the book Cooking Cultures Convergent Histories of Food and Feeling (Cambridge University Press), Ishita Banerjee-Dube writes that the book seeks to explore how food, cooking and cuisine, in different societies, cultures and over different periods of time, is essentially a result of confection and combination of ingredients, ideas, ideologies and imagination. According to her, the book has grown out of her long interest and passion for food and cooking.

“The belief that histories of food and cuisine, if studied closely, will offer important insights on society and culture and enable better understanding of historical processes is what the book is based upon,” says Ishita, who is a professor at the Centre for Asian and African Studies, El Colegio de Mexico.

The 245-page book features essays by several writers who have explored questions of authenticity and identity in relation to food across the globe. And each chapter looks at food from a different prism, allowing readers to see how it has contributed in the shaping of socio-economic, cultural and political processes. “Together, the chapters analyse the many meanings of food and underline the significance of food and cooking in all aspects of human life,” Ishita tells Metrolife.

However, she is quick to add that “India has not yet tried to develop food as a key element of national identity”. “Indian food is mostly served in restaurants abroad while regional, continental, and fusion food predominate restaurants within India,” she says.

“Fusion has been an essential element of food almost since its inception, but if the recent inclination toward ‘fusion food’ helps us see food as a ‘connector’, not just of ‘our culture’ but of cultures in general, it will lead to greater harmony and goodwill,” she adds.

Ishita, who not only has edited the anthology but also contributed an essay ‘Modern Menus: Food, Family, Health and Gender in Colonial Bengal’, says the volume took over three years in the making, and a lot of time was spent on research and reading academic publications.

“My chapter looks at Bengal over the late 19th and 20th century to argue that in this period of renascent nationalism, the discourses of family, nation, and the mistress of the family as the goddess Lakshmi were intimately tied to each other,” she says.

One of the chapters in the book The Hummus Wars:
Local Food, Guinness Records and Palestinian-Israeli Gastropolitics by Nir Avieli tracks issues of belonging and naturalness by following the conflict between Israel and Lebanon over a shared culinary passion: Hummus.

This dip of mashed chickpeas is ubiquitous to Middle Eastern public and private culinary spheres and is extremely popular among Arabs and Jews; and another chapter, ‘Sweetness, Gender, and Identity in Japanese Culinary Culture’ by Jon Holtzman widens the explorations of food and cuisine in South and Southeast Asia by examining the significance of sweets in Japan.

While these perspectives offer a glimpse into the past, Ishita says one of the silent, but significant food revolutions that have slowly simmered across the globe is that of “fast food”. “If noodles took over as street food and as a favourite snack food for youngsters in the 1980s and 1990s, from the beginning of the 21st century burgers and pizzas have changed dietary patterns causing havoc to health,” she points out.

“We need to wait for another such revolution, perhaps organic or vegan, to see how they affect food choice,” she adds.

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(Published 17 August 2016, 19:23 IST)

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