Plating politics, serving food

A food plate amuses me no end. We bring our whole personalities on to our plate and the table. Our relationship with food is in more ways than one, our relationship with self. Too fussy with food, and it is likely that one is fastidious and stubborn. Experimental enough at the table to be pairing crunchy peanut butter inside a dosa, one is likely to be a curious cat -- exploratory and easy. Eating together is a sign of civilizational honour and oneness. No wonder a supper at the table forms the central dogma of Christianity.

The 1857 revolt in Indian history, widely regarded as the first rebellion against the British was triggered by food, and the strict laws in the subcontinent regarding it. The Enfield cartridges, which had to be bitten open before loading, was rumoured to contain beef and pork fat, the former being unacceptable to Hindus and the latter to the Muslims. With a greasy history like that, one was least surprised when the janta erupted over a Khan Chacha chicken roll-in-a-paper being eaten on a Tuesday by the leader of the Opposition. The nation wanted to know, among other things, how a God-fearing Hindu could violate the conventional wisdom of abstinence from non-vegetarian food on Tuesdays.

Food is a contested site. With clear laws on commensality that stipulates acceptance and rejection of kaccha and pucca foods, who could offer water, and whom you could eat with, India’s relationship with caste, as expressed in a few morsels and a few droplets, is still tenuous. Food is liberally offered to Gods in temples and served as prasaad to devotees. The food laws of the country, in all its diverse colours, can be hard to keep score of. Who eats what and at what time, widely varies across religious communities.

My own personal experiences with food and friends have been varied. My first room-mate in JNU hostel was a vegetarian and she was iffy about the bottle of fish pickle in the same room as her Gods sat on the windowsill. My super rich Jain friend in Bengaluru will not eat from a restaurant that cooks non-vegetarian in the same kitchen and so it is always Saravana Bhavan that we go to. Whenever I find myself in the Gurudwara, I question myself whether I go for the calm or the Kada prashaad. The longish train journeys that I have undertaken as a student to Delhi in the late 90s was my first tryst with national cuisine. In the pre-smartphone days, 50 hours of huddling together in Kerala Express meant free-wheeling conversations and free sharing of food. From the finest lemon rice to fiery mutton sukka, I have had it all from fellow travellers.

Packing food for the traveller at home has to be the highest form of love, which I have been fortunate to enjoy, whether it be neyyappams in Ziplock bags from Smita’s house or Galouti Kebabs Vinitha sends me from Lucknow. Not to forget pothichoru, or steaming hot rice packed in banana leaves complete with the ancillaries of omelette, chammanthi, vegetable and fish, that my mother is an expert at. When I left for Phase III training to Amsterdam, I faithfully carried masala puris and dal-stuffed parathas AC packed for me.

I am a person who famously brings food from her trips than fridge magnets. I am a daredevil packer, arguing with flight attendants in her valiant attempt to get KC Das matka roshogallas from Kolkata.

Bebinca from Sol De Janeiro in Goa, fish eggs from Amma mess in Madurai, tins of Mysore Pak from Anand Sweets in Bengaluru -- I have ferried it all. Let us not forget that what Sudama took for Krishna was a fistful of puffed rice, neither gold nor silver. 

The recently concluded BRICS summit threw up food politics again. The strictly vegetarian food that was served to heads of state, was debated for its appropriateness even though the menu had exotica like morel mushrooms. Khandvi Mille-feuille, the Gujarati twist to the classic French dish, is largely symbolic of the innovations in food fusion that Indian restobars are increasingly experimenting with. It is what you get in restaurants like Avartana, Masque and Indian Accent whose ingredient-over-everything menus make them shine in Conde Naste lists for India year after year. Yet when the same is served on diplomatic tables, it is news for no reason. When Xi Jinping fell ill during the BRICS summit, the blame quickly came to the food served, once again pointing to the delicateness of food as a relationship breaker.

Food has also been a bone of contention in the othering of cultures. Delhi Belly is something foreign travellers are warned of. Curry is the lowest common denominator most South Asians face while abroad with slurs being hurled at them and evictions from tenancy. Two decades ago, Jacques Chirac, the then French president, was caught with his foot in the mouth at the G8 dinner in London in which his aside of “you cant trust people who cook badly as that” was caught in the mike. It was classic French-British, love to hate and hate to love remark.

Food as a cultural metric has been receiving much attention. In the final minutes of Bourdain biopic Tony (2026), the young chef famously does his clam-bake at the beach drawing the entire community out. Our travel experiences are incomplete without trying the viral food joints and the Michelin Key holders. Supper clubs have come to stay in urban landscapes. More than ever, food has become the strongest representative of identity politics.