Food is more than sustenance: South Asian Cuisine in Britain, and Being a Chef in Gaza

[leenah_qasrawi]

For migrants, cultural food is both a comfort and a source of nostalgia, adapting as it connects them to heritage and helps them navigate new surroundings. This connection feels especially meaningful for Muslim communities in Britain, where finding halal food can be a challenge and often requires creative adaptation. Thinking about food as a link to home reminded me of someone I often see on Instagram, Renad Ataullah, a young cook from Gaza. Her viral videos show the remarkable ways food can express resilience and preserve identity, even under harsh conditions. (For reference, here is the link to her Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/renadfromgaza?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==)

Buettner’s insights into South Asian food in Britain highlight a similar experience, where "South Asian restaurants and the cuisine they serve illuminate a persistent yet evolving dialectic between the rejection and embrace of the 'other.' ... Although these establishments spread throughout Britain to be found even in small towns with few Asian residents... their dishes normally differ markedly from what is consumed in the subcontinent and, for that matter, by most people of South Asian origin in Britain.” Many of these restaurants adapt their dishes to local tastes, a reflection of how migrants often have to compromise their identity for a stamp of approval. Similarly, limited access to halal food in Britain means Muslim communities adapt recipes to balance their cultural identity with the realities of a new setting that lacks the resources to support that identity.

Renad’s story in Gaza mirrors this in a much different context. With scarce ingredients, she makes traditional Palestinian dishes out of whatever she can find in aid boxes, providing a taste of home under unimaginable restrictions. Her cooking isn’t just about food, or even about being nourished while starvation is being used as a war tactic. To me, it feels more like a way of preserving Palestinian identity and sharing her culture with the world, despite the attempt to stifle it. Just like South Asian food in Britain has been reshaped by its surroundings, Renad’s recipes are adapted for survival but still rooted in her heritage, blending her memory of cultural food with her current reality.

Mannur’s idea of “culinary nostalgia” fits both situations. Muslim migrants in Britain, facing limited halal options, as well as adapting their food to their setting, find it hard to fully recreate the tastes of home, just as Renad’s limited ingredients make each dish different than what it would originally be - yet both comforting and melancholic. Her videos turn basic ingredients into symbols of Palestinian heritage, showing how food can be a symbol of cultural resistance - from Britain to Gaza.

So to answer the question: How is food linked to migrant melancholia? Under situationships of hardship, or situations where it feels like your culture is being stifled, food becomes a way to preserve culture and honour tradition. Food in diaspora (and conflict) settings is more than sustenance and becomes a desire to create a nostalgic sense of home, and in turn creates the bittersweet feeling of melancholia for migrants.

[arismita_ghosh]

Thank you for writing this - I always look forward to seeing Renad's posts on Instagram, and I really like the connections you draw between food and cultural resistance here.