This post is part 8 of a series of reflections on the readings from the food learning group headed by Danielle (mysillylittletasks) on Instagram.
Summary
In this week's reading, Srinvas explores the emergence of an "Indian Identity" within the diasporic middle class in Boston. Srinvas focuses on the increasing popularity of pre-packaged foods within these communities.
Specifically, she explores how the increasing reliance on microwavable / ready-made meals offer an insight into how women within these communities navigate the multitude of pressures they face - from the anxieties of motherhood, to the demands of the workplace. From the career woman who hastily hides empty packages in the bin at a family dinner, to those who measure motherhood . From the obsession with making foods the way “mother” made them, to those who use home cooking to reclaim their sense of identity.
Srinvas explains how the emergence of pre-packaged foods reflects a community who self-consciously searches for their roots and identity through gastronomy, and how it feeds the nostalgia that is common to diasporic communities.
Favourite Quotes
The question of the authentic arises primarily about how it is created or manufactured. Rachel Laudan argues that culinary authenticity, is framed in the terms espoused by the viewer, or eater: as she says, Americans tend to say it's authentic if it is artisinal, pre-industrial, uses indigenous ingredients and no processed foods. It is also to us “historical” - meaning, what people used to eat, preferably familial, rural, regional foods, and now, natural and organic are added to the list of requirements.1
Shashi Tharoor states that Indian expatriates and migrants live in a nostalgic world:"...nostalgia is based on the selectiveness of memory...his (the immigrants) perspective is distorted by exile...his view of what used to be home is divorced from the experience of home”2
So paradoxically, as the local fades further and further away for cosmopolitans, the memory and the imagination of family, mother and place become more powerful. Self consciously searching for their roots - ethnic, local and caste based - these memories become located in the emotional and gustatory link between mother and family, symbolically located in a cultural utopia of loss.3
Thoughts and Impressions
This made me feel less guilty about the instant sachets of bah ku teh, assam laksa and herbal chicken that I have stashed in my pantry.
Again, this article hits some of the key themes of this course, such as:
how are relationships among people shaped by their relationship with food/ objects/ the environment around them?
how do global food flows (and trade) influence what we eat, and our understanding of our identity?
what role does ritualised food consumption play in constructing identities?
If anything, this course has exposed me to the vast academic studies and research in this area. I'm ashamed to say that its taken me this long; I wonder whether, had I been introduced to such writing earlier or been guided towards this area earlier, how it would have influenced some of the decisions I’ve made - you know, those decisions that society thrusts upon teenagers - the ones you see in shitty coming of age Netflix tv-series and Hollywood movies.
University admissions, jobs, careers, futures.
(on a side note, I also watched the Netflix Documentary on the college admissions scandal in the US and just wow what even)
D&I is a corporate buzzword these days. In the way work -life balance used to be, before it was surpassed by ‘work-life integration’ .
For all the benefits - financial, social etc. let's be honest, having a more diverse range of voices is just so much more interesting.
Well, I’d like to believe that we’re all so much more interesting than the article on sourdough starter that’s been recycled 101 times.
What gets me is that there seems to be a table within which we're all shoe-horned into. Why are we fighting over the same seat? Why aren't there more seats? Diversity gives us the option of coming in an saying "hey, why do we even need to sit at a table - let's sit on the floor and then we don't have to worry about seats".
I take a lot of hope (to use that word lightly), from those who are making zines, and the small communities that are cropping up online. For all its faults, I think of how technology has made this possible. It's allowed those who haven't had a voice to find their voices. Aside from the small presses and crowd-funded projects, I think of generations of children making zines - given them a space to find their own voices.
It doesn’t matter if it’s not “authentic”, or quicker, or “non-traditional”.
It's just made reading more exciting, is all.
And for that I am grateful.
In other news this week....
I wrote a little thing exploring diversity in the arts scene in Australia for the Shoes Off Podcast blog
I took a much needed staycation/ break but got violently seasick
I’ve experimented with a new newsletter format, heavily inspired by Ali Abdaal’s “Book Notes Template” on Notion
SRINIVAS, TULASI. “`AS MOTHER MADE IT': THE COSMOPOLITAN INDIAN FAMILY, `AUTHENTIC' FOOD AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL UTOPIA.” International Journal of Sociology of the Family, vol. 32, no. 2, 2006, p 209.
SRINIVAS, TULASI. “`AS MOTHER MADE IT': THE COSMOPOLITAN INDIAN FAMILY, `AUTHENTIC' FOOD AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL UTOPIA.” International Journal of Sociology of the Family, vol. 32, no. 2, 2006, p 211.
SRINIVAS, TULASI. “`AS MOTHER MADE IT': THE COSMOPOLITAN INDIAN FAMILY, `AUTHENTIC' FOOD AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL UTOPIA.” International Journal of Sociology of the Family, vol. 32, no. 2, 2006, p 211.