Anti or Pro curry ???
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Buettner describes the increasing British taste for so-called Indian food among white British youth in many ways. Firstly, it was seen as a rebellious action among British youth who had so-called “Anti-curry” parents. Many British youth of the new generation had parents who resented the smell of curry, many of whom worked in the British army in colonial India, believing curry to be a way of cooking used mask rotten or bad meats used in the food. These young Britons would go for curries for the same reason most other youth take part in the things their parents don’t like; to rebel. In another sense, Buettner describes this increasing change in taste as a way for British youth to get away from their parents’ bland and boring British food. At some point, British youth grew tired of their parents’ bland food, especially when they were exposed to the flavours of the increasingly multicultural cities they resided in. Although their parents resented the smell of curries, these smells enticed the youth because it showed them that there was a possibility that they could eat things they actually enjoyed, not just the sufficient meat and boiled potatoes. In a third sense, young British men used Indian restaurants as a place to display their masculinity, both to push their limits in what level of spice they could handle, and in another sense, to abuse the servility of the waiters at these restaurants and treat them with the utmost disrespect, thus displaying their masculinity. Young British men would push their limits and compete with their peers to eat the spiciest curry, thus displaying their strength. Despite this however, these displays of masculinity did not stop at spicy curries. Many of these young men mistreated the waiters at these restaurants who were often already servile to the customers, (probably because of the theme of oriental fantasies the early Indian restaurants were putting on the appeal the Briton customers). Their aggressive, sometimes violent treatment towards the waiters reflected a sense of masculinity of these young Briton men in front of their peers.
Food and eateries among diaspora communities have played a huge role in the lives of immigrants. Firstly, we have learned that they can act as a sort of security system for immigrants in areas that are not necessarily safe for them. This, we have seen in our readings about South Asian hotdog vendors in Harlem and New York creating a chain of protection from one cart to another, keeping young children accounted for as they make their way around the neighbourhood. Additionally, restaurants can be used as places of meeting for melancholic migrants missing home, missing their native food and longing for a place to discuss topics concerning their homeland with others in their native language. Additionally, restaurants and food can serve as a potential ground for assimilation. Although this is not liberation, and oftentimes acceptance of the immigrant culture is on the terms of the colonizer, increasing popularity for foreign foods, just like curries in Britain, can serve as an aspect of immigrant culture that is increasingly tolerated by the colonizer. Although the significance of this is not related to liberation or anti-racism at all, it is an aspect of the possible effects of eateries and restaurants among diasporic communities, specifically in the case of South Asians in Britain, as highlighted by Buettner.