Description
In this extraordinary memoir, Nandita Haksar uses memories and ideas of
food to ask fundamental questions about what we eat, who we eat with, who
starves and who feasts, which foods are forbidden or denigrated-and what
all this says about our country. Starting with her childhood in the 1950s,
Haksar takes us on a fascinating journey through India, from wedding feasts
in her Kashmiri Pandit family settled in Old Delhi and Lucknow, to humanrights
activism on behalf of Nagas in Manipur; from listening to testimonies of
women working in Kerala's fisheries, to witnessing the impact of a globalized
food industry on livelihoods in Goa. She examines how our tastes and
attitudes to food are shaped by caste, class, religion, race and gender, and she
addresses the recent controversies over beef-eating, and 'Hindu' vs 'Muslim'
food. Scattered through the book are brilliant anecdotes-by turns startling,
amusing and moving-about culinary rituals and curiosities, and memorable
recipes from the many people Haksar has eaten with.
And always at the heart of the narrative is a fundamental question: How can a
people who won't eat together, as equals, stay united?