Eating India, By Chitrita Banerji
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.One chilly white morning in Boston, the food writer Chitrita Banerji receives an invitation to attend a family wedding in Calcutta, triggering potent memories of the dishes that she used to devour in her childhood, and of her particular delight in the dishes of her mother, "a culinary genius". Thereafter, the author embarks on a vividly conjured journey through Indian food – Bengali fish; thali in Karnataka; coconuts in Kerala – and an investigation of her own identity.
How much gastronomic "authenticity" can survive in the flux of modern India, and what indeed is "authenticity"? These are the issues that Banerji wishes to tackle. She shows her culinary prejudices being dissolved, and the belief that regional cuisine is the only authentic cuisine is challenged by the inevitable fusion of influences in contemporary India.
Overcooked clichés and florid prose pepper the book, but its more thoughtful, unforced passages engage. The author's depictions of geographical settings provide some evocative material. As Sybille Bedford notes, quoted in the book's epigraph, "Cooking is at once the most and least localised of the arts."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments