Power through food
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Buettner describes South Asian cuisine as another product for the "multiculturalism boutique" for the British. It can be described as a boutique as there were clear indications that there was a choice in how they wanted to mix and match different cultures around the world to fulfill their desires and pleasurable experiences. For example, though Afro-Carrabian peoples were similar in terms of their numbers in the population with South Asians, their cuisine was not highly connected to immigration connotations, and their cuisine was not a major part of British diets and restaurant life as South Asians. However, their music was (p.144).
South Asian food was a means to bring wealthy, privileged, men and young people to enjoy the pleasures of food in a way that satisfies them without consideration of the possible oversimplifying and commodification of a culture that is not theirs, and what that implies. The increase in South Asian restaurants can be seen as a means to continue their dominance over the cultures and traditions of Indian peoples outside of India. This is especially noticeable when we learn that waiters of many South Asian restaurants were expected to dress a certain way to give specific feelings of pleasure and melancholy derived from an Orientalist perspective for the customers. We also see this because of the comfortableness of the British in creating many "fusion" recipes that offer no deeper cultural experiences, but instead are based on experiences of having their individual tastebuds satisfied. This led to many criticisms as food is connected to stories, families, land, and a home and so as Mannur says "seeing the past through the shards of a mirror inevitably distorts the idealized memory one has of a homeland" (p. 28). It can create deep feelings of melancholy of wishing to connect with a food that is not actually something one can connect with because it has been tampered with. Also, by advertising South Asian meals as authentic to what people eat in India, led British men to engage in an exclusive experience of food and cultures from the comforts of their homeland. This mirrors colonial hierarchies where the British continue to be served, while the South Asian is under their power, exemplifying the lingering influence of Britain's past to the present. Therefore, it is not just about food but is deeper than that because it shows that there are only limits to the acceptance of cultures, thus many hierarchal inequalities stayed intact for years.
Additionally, I find the question about how to develop tastes for food and how it is linked to migrant melancholia very thought-provoking. It got me thinking about my experience with food with my family. Many Bangladeshis, including my family members, share a tendency or the idea of how a meal is not really a meal if it is not rice. Meaning, that if I ate pasta for lunch or salad, my family members would consider me as someone starving themselves and in need of some serious dose of rice to help cope with hunger and be healthy. Rice is not just a comfort food, but a meal in their eyes that sustains life itself, and I assume it has to do with feelings of familiarity, comfort, and habit of generations having the same staple food for a long time when it was accessible. I wonder if my ancestors were able to afford rice because I am not familiar with that kind of South Asian history despite it being very important and interesting to me. Was it considered a luxury or the only thing available? Perhaps they were growing their own grains. No clue.