Culinary Practices and Ethnic Identity free essay sample

Culinary Practices and Ethnic Identity: A Study of  The Namesake  by Jhumpa Lahiri In the present era of globalization and immigration, the issues of ethnic language, ethnic cultural activities, ethnic costumes and ethnic cuisine have contributed in the formation of the diasporic identities in the foreign countries. In the mainstream culture, the immigrants or the diasporic communities generally endeavor to cling to the native land through forging the ethnic culinary practices to a great extent. The gastronomical factors exert an impact in the construction of the national identity and ethnic identity apart from the diasporic identities of the diasporic groups or the immigrants. Moreover, rather than the national cuisines, regional cuisines have enriched the kitchen of the diasporic communities in the alien atmosphere. The culinary items serve the purpose of prompting the distinction between the different ethnic identities in the foreign countries. From the socio-cultural perspective, gastronomical practice carries the significance. In addition to this, for the diasporic communities or the immigrants, culinary items generally provide a rich arena to excavate the complexities of the incidents and events involved with memory and nostalgia. In this article, my central concern will be to unearth the interconnection between the nostalgia and the ethnic cuisine in the foreign country. Nevertheless, I will focus how the cuisines are treated differently by the first and the second generation immigrants in the foreign culture. In my discussion, I would like to project the manipulation of the interplay between the local and the global concerning the culinary practices, in the formation of nationhood within the diasporic groups in the foreign countries. Through the lens of ‘global-local’ phenomenon, cuisine as an effective element bridges the gap between the different countries. More clearly, it can be construed that the diasporic identities are formed in the clashes of the native and foreign culinary dishes. Scholars like Wilk have viewed the formation of Belzian cuisine, the new generated form of cultural production is the consequence of the global-local turmoil (1999, 2002). Hence, in the foreign domain, when on one hand, gastronomical factor carries the national identity, on the other, the intertwinement between the global and local builds up the diasporic identities apart from their national identities. Nonetheless, the sustenance of national cuisine can be illustrated as the method for resistance of the mainstream foreign culture to ethnic minority culture. The discourses of immigration of diaspora have focused on the interconnection between the identity construction of the communities and the food consumption. Highlighting this issue, I shall demonstrate how food recipes of a homeland impel the exiles or the diasporic groups to reminisce the historical moments. Again, the examination over the national belonging and national purity which is embedded in gastrophilic histories is relevant here in this respect. The relationship of the food consumption with the diasporic identity can be explicated as ‘an expression of identity’ or ‘flags of identity’ as viewed by the critics like Murcott (1996) or Palmer (1998). Scholar like Mintz (2003) argues over the national cuisine and identity by articulating the national cuisine as an amalgamation of political and touristic artifact: †¦ a national cuisine primarily possesses a textual identity; produced textually, it can help to achieve a desired touristic and political effect. But there is no doubt not only that the particular foods or food habits may be chosen either for national self-definition or to stereotype others, but that they may emerge as strikingly convenient condensed symbols of identity conflict or division. (p. 32). As national cuisine basically has been endowed with national belongingness, some specific culinary practices function as a contour line to differentiate the culinary practices of other nations. In the present era of globalization, the proliferation of the food items of a particular country is no more restricted for this country, but infiltrates the other countries across the borders. Hence, different kinds of culinary practices usually pervades all over the countries. Similarly, the rapid increasing of the restaurants across the national borders with the availability of the different ethnic food embodies not only the identity of a single monolithic ethnic food habit; rather it indicates the diversion of food practices of different nations and regions. Regarding this perspective, I can mention here that the chicken tikka masala, a sumptuous dish around the globe locates the commingling of Indian cooking styles with those from central Asia. Indian cuisine is accepted worldly popular. Even, this kind of cuisine is relished among the Indian diaspora in North America, Europe, Australia and parts of Africa. The survey of 2003 has projected the calculation of expansion of 10,000 restaurants for catering Indian cuisine in the US. The statistics of 2007 has reported that since 2000, more than 1200 Indian food products have been commenced in the U. S. in 2007. Moreover, Britain’s presumed national dish, chicken tikka masala has replaced the dishes of fish and chip which are previously accounted as popular in Britain. According to the survey, it seems that there are 8000 Indian restaurants in Britain, 70,000 workers. hence , the rapid acceleration of the Indian culinary practices a and restaurants across the globe results in the popularity of the Indian cuisine This discussion of food consumption in the construction of the identities is articulated in the structure of hyphenated position. The proliferation of the Indian immigrants in the First world countries and expansion of the restaurants with serving the Indian foods has constructed a bridge between the native and the foreign cultures. Centred on the issue of the food consumption, the present paper will explore how among the diasporic community, Indian immigrant women usually sustains the ethic cuisine, religion and cultural festival to invoke the sense of the nostalgia to produce the past in this unknown atmosphere. In the study of the diaspora, the elements of nostalgia and memory across time and space have propelled the immigrants to invent the image of the homeland which is fragmentary, fissured and â€Å"irretrievably lost†. The diaspora women who thought culture eant being able to create a perfect mango chutney in New Jersey were scorned by the visiting scholar from Bombay— who was also a woman but unmarried and so different. Sujata Bhatt, ‘Chutney’ (29) In the diasporic voyage of the Indian immigrant women abroad, ethnic food symbolizes the retuning of the past in the lives of the immigrant women. The Indian immigrant women as a part and parcel of the domestic sphere provide the e thnic culinary for the older and younger generations of the family. Ethnic food arouses the longing for the nostalgia and simultaneously evokes the national identity. Hence immigrant women through cultivating the ethnic food in the alien atmosphere have constructed and produced the amalgamation of the past and the present. Many scholars like Jameson (1989) have not encapsulated the nostalgic element within the tapestry of the past, but also the present. Therefore, ethnic cuisine is leveled as â€Å"intellectual† and â€Å"emotional anchor† as focused by an Indian American cultural critic Ketu Katrak. Regarding ethic food Indo-Trinidadian Canadian author Shani Mootoo in the culinary related text  Out On Main Street(1993) and Sara Suleri’s memoirMeatless Days(1989) critique nostalgic longings for the native land and emphasize the pangs of the migratory dislocation. Usually, each individual ethnic group like the Indian retain the ancestral tradition of ethnic culinary, ethnic cultural activity, ethnic religiosity, ethnic language and certainly the ethnic robes in the dominant culture. So, ethnic tradition seldom seems to be shunned by the first generation immigrants. Critics like Sandhya Shukla have focused in the ‘homeland traditions’. In the opinion of Rayaprol, food indicates shared roots of the immigrants. Therefore, food is deemed as one of the preliminary symbols to carry and signify the adherence of the Indian and other South Asian communities to the natal land. As an individual ethnic group Bengali Indians and South Indians generally prefer the cuisines like rice, dal, and fish and dosa, idli and sambar respectively. In this article, I shall concentrate on how the gastronomical factor plays an instrumental role in the diaspoic or immigration studies. In the enriched works of the Indo-American diasporic authors like Jhumpa Lahir, Bharati Mukherjee and Kiran Desai, cuisine emerges as the leitmotif not only to construct the ethnic identities, but highlights the displacement or dispossession from the root. In the present article, my endeavour will be to explore the relationship between the food and the issue of nostalgia, memory, ethnic identity and national identity in Lahiri’s  The Namesake  (2003). In  The Namesake  the gastronomical issue is presented as a pervasive symbol and metaphor to be interwoven with the theme of the alienation, belongingness, hyphenated position and nostalgia as studied by Lahiri. Like the linguistic borrowings, the culinary borrowings frame the basis of the food cultures overseas countries as â€Å"assimilated foods become naturalized and normalized in the course of time† as examined by scholar like Njeri Githire. Nevertheless, Githire has concentrated on the interconnection between the food, diasporic consciousness, identity and belonging (2010; 858). Food as metaphor employed by the Indian writers usually is posited as a counter-culture within the framework of identity. Food is accepted as matter of taste which Pierre Bourdieu identifies as ‘the basis of all that one has – people and things – and of that entire one is for others’ (1984; 56). In the opening section of the novel, the Bengali immigrant Ashima Ganguli, the female protagonist in Massachusetts, craves for the rice krispies with other ingredients like salt, lemon juice, red onion, mustard oil, planters peanuts, salt and thin slices of green chili pepper during pregnancy. This gustative concoction not only appeases Ashima’s craving, but moves Ashima back to Calcutta where the sight of selling this kind of mixture is very frequented on the railway platforms. Hence, the taste is associated with the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, of belonging and not belonging. Through the lens of the reminiscence, Ashima visualizes the real or the imagined past in this faraway country. What can be demonstrated here is the recreation of the homeland by revisiting to the ‘imaginary homeland’.