Food and Culture

Over the past two decades, research and investigations into the sociocultural significance of food and its manifestations have revolutionised our understanding of food, food spaces and active participants in food manifestations. The genealogy of critical food studies could be traced from the works of Sydney Mintz (2013: 91–103) and Claude Lévi-Strauss. Strauss in his ‘Culinary Triangle’ contends that ‘cooking of a society is a language in which it unconsciously translates its structure—or else resigns itself, still unconsciously, to revealing its contradictions’ (2013: 47). Barthes, on food from the vantage point of French society claims that ‘it has a constant tendency to transform itself into a situation’ (2013: 29), which is the same with all societies of every milieu. Pierre Bourdieu, explaining the dissimilarities between the eating habits of the working class and the bourgeoisie, takes our attention to the significance of form and substance, where ‘food is claimed as a material reality and a source of sustenance’ for the working class, on the other hand it stresses the ‘manner of presenting and consuming food and the organisation and setting of the places’ (2013: 38). Margaret Mead observes that the whole world is connected through food and it’s a commitment of adults to let their children be free to ‘think of shared food as a source of well-being for everyone everywhere’ (2013: 22). Understanding the history of food and food habits is relevant to the critical cultural readings of literary texts. In the treatise on the development of world cuisine, Jack Goody (2013) mentions the salt tax and what Europe gained from a country like India, but Mark Kurlansky (2003) gives a larger picture as he dedicates an entire text to discussing the history of salt, along with recipes that are historical. The chapter ‘Salt and the Great Soul’ speaks about the salt history, India’s revolt against the salt tax and how Gandhi played a prominent role in it. In the recent work by Shahu Patole, Dalit kitchens of Marathwada (2024) he describes the dietary habits and cultural practices of maang and mahar communities and observes that food habits and caste cannot be separated in Indian culture (2024: 14–30).

From a sociological perspective, Georg Simmel in ‘The Sociology of Meal’ argues that meals are representative discourses of social, cultural and political narratives as they manifest community, belongingness and identity (1997: 131). Hunger and famine can be understood in different ways: as a lack of food and an articulation of social inequality, which demands a form of critical sociological inquiry. The question of hunger and food speaks profoundly to us when we reflect on power, privilege and the rights to nourishment.

Simmel opines that meals become fundamentally an exercise in how they work as social rituals reflecting and moulding human relationships and social structures. Being a sociologist himself, he views meals as more than fulfilling a physiological need but rather a complex social event, satisfying roles within diverse cultural domains. According to Simmel, sharing a meal embodies something greater than merely having eaten something. It provides social interaction and cultural expression (1997: 131). Meals are symbolic of stages for social rituals; one communicates one’s position or status in the social order, rehearses certain community ties and generally seals social bonds. The form of a meal and the roles that people take, as well as the interactional vigour, reflects the group’s social fabric as much as its rhetoric.

Meals have symbolic dimensions, for the kinds of foods, the ways of preparation and the occasions of consumption, all invest food with meaning. What appears on one’s table often serves as a class or regional indicator or family marker. In communal or shared food, a sense of ‘oneness’ and equality is felt in every aspect where everybody is set to have equal, fair and complementary positions in partaking in common feasting. As Simmel states, cultural differences influence the sociological meaning of meals; hence, different societies have their own culinary traditions and eating habits. He ends it by comparing two principles of sociality: the former consists of the aspect of meals where the community forms a unitary identity and cohesiveness, while in others, individualism develops. In that respect, Simmel establishes the role of context in social life concerning meals.

In addition to the physicality of food, memories and emotions attached to cooking practices are very significant. These scholars include David Sutton, who discusses ‘prospective memory’ and ‘embodied taste memories’ and concludes that food is a vital mediator of social relations through its ability as an identity symbol and marker of cultural difference (2008: 160–70). As shown by Sutton, prospective memories bring to mind an essential point of the manner through which anticipation usually leads to controlling our food habits as well as preferences. If a person is preparing a holiday feast or a family gathering, people recollect what they did last time to make good choices while expecting similar results. Thus, dialectics between memory and expectation can be helpful not only for deciding what to cook but also for how to present and share it with others.

Sutton’s ideas on prospective memories also extend to the cultural uses of food. Cultures have their rituals and traditions that explain, in their best expressions, how, at times, people can remember and look forward to the food they are going to eat, like seasonal feasts, family dishes or community eating traditions. These frameworks, therefore, sew together a tapestry of rich expectations, guiding culinary choice and enriching the communal experience of eating.