Food as Metaphor in Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of

Maladies
Dr. Asha Choubey, Lecturer, Post-Graduate Dept. of English Kanya
Mahavidyalaya, Bareilly, U.P., India

Born and brought up at Calcutta, I have now settled in Bareilly. On our annual visit
to our home-town when the train reaches Asansol station, the vendor's call of
jhalmuri enters my ears as the song of the Nightingale announcing my physical
proximity to my home. I have come to associate jhalmuri with home; so much so
that for me home is where jhalmuri is. Food, though apparently a trivial matter,
serves as an important social as well as national role. Out of all the significant
aspects of community life, food (apart from arts) is perhaps the only one that binds
while all others separate one community from the other. Food and culinary items
define social hierarchies, and serve as a driving force behind people's actions. Food
delineates privilege, economic class, and social position. Food is a land issue and a
power issue. Food sustains life. As Chisaga points out, one's stomach is one's
ancestor -- it rumbles like a lion, refusing to be ignored.

Food is a motivating factor that propels action on the part of an individual, a

community or an entire society. Food is part of the cyclical pattern of life; food is
culture, but the question of the 'Indianness' of Indians acquires a particular
poignancy overseas, as Indians abroad are presumed to shed their regional,
linguistic, and ethnic identities in deference to the more general identity of being
an Indian. It is arguable that one is more easily an Indian abroad than in India; the
category of 'Indian' is not contested abroad as it is in India. This is perhaps all the
more remarkable, when one considers that the 'Indianness' of the Indian diaspora is
not as evidently conceptualizable, or even visible, as the distinctly Chinese
characteristics of the Chinese diaspora or the Islamic features of the Arab diaspora.
Hindi does not bind together diasporic Indians in the manner in which Chinese
holds together the Chinese diaspora; nor does Hinduism play in the Indian diaspora
a role comparable to that of Islam.

For immigrants and non-residents food certainly serves as an important part of

their identity. When away from home the food from one's land brings as much
pleasure as mother's voice on overseas calls. Food provides a link it induces a
sense a sense of belonging in an otherwise alien world. Food serves as a key to
binding. In a strange land familiar items of food are as welcome as familiar faces.
Just as music or art breeds familiarity, food also serves as a medium of link. Food
is an important part of cultural exchange and bonding as such its importance in the
study of diaspora cannot be undermined. The present study aims to trace how
Jhumpa Lahiri makes an effective use of food metaphor in Interpreter of
Maladies.
I

The personal life of Jhumpa Lahiri is the very prototype of diasporic culture.
Having spent more than thirty years in the United States she still feels 'a bit of an
outsider.' Though she has confessed that her days in India are 'a sort of parenthesis'
in her life, the fact that she is at heart an Indian cannot be denied. The stories
collected in her debut anthology Interpreter of Maladies deal with the question of
identity. The protagonists -- all Indians -- settled abroad are afflicted with a 'sense
of exile.' Alienation has become their lot. The absence of the sense of belonging
that these creatures experience makes them resolved to achieve communication.
There is always a lingering awareness of 'clutching at a world that does not belong
to them' but at the same time there is the propensity towards initiation, subsequent
reconciliation and final communication. The heart-breaks and aches of
acculturation are not absent but at the same time the strong will to adapt as well as
adopt also makes its presence felt. The process of initiation that Lahiri undertakes
involves besides other things food. Food becomes a motivating force in these
stories.

II

The first story of the collection A Temporary Matter focuses mainly on marital
alienation but food emerges as a metaphor in the story. Shoba's disinterest in
cooking comes about when the sense of alienation sets in after a miscarriage. As
long as marital bliss was much present the kitchen had also been well stocked.
Shoba's inclination to cook good food and to keep her kitchen in good shape is
proportionate to and concomitant with her pleasure in marital life. The author's
description of the happy days includes a detailed inventory of food items:

The pantry was always stocked with extra bottles of olive and corn oil, depending
on whether they were cooking Italian or Indian. There were endless boxes of pasta
in all shapes and colors, zippered sacks of basmati rice, whole sides of lambs and
goats from the muslim butchers at Haymarket, chopped up and frozen in endless
plastic bags. (1998: 6 All subsequent references to different stories are from this
book.)

Shoba had been quite a meticulous cook and revelled in entertaining guests. But
those were golden days of the yore. After a miscarriage things change and so does
the kitchen. The couples sense of alienation and lack of communication is
conveyed by their food habit:

For months now they'd served themselves from the stove, and he'd taken his plate
into the study, letting the meal grow cold on his desk before shoving it into his
mouth without pause, while Shoba took her plate to the living room and watched
game shows. (8)
The electricity repairs comes as a bridge for Shukumar to reach to Shoba. For five
consecutive days electricity was to be cut off paralysing all normal activities, hence
the pretext of their busy work schedule that the couple used to put up was not
affordable at the time. This one hour provides the couple with the much needed
intimacy which is necessary to mend the divide in a marriage. Besides playing a
truth-or-dare-like game, the only other means of communication to unite the
estranged couple is food. Rogan josh and a bottle of wine serve as the perfect
symbol of truce.

Shukumar plans the meals quite cautiously and lays the table quite romantically.
Four days of communion are marked by food exotica but the morning of the fifth
night comes with the ominous announcement that the lines had been repaired ahead
of schedule. The first thing that conveys Shukumar's despair is again food: 'He was
disappointed. He had planned on making shrimp malai for Shoba but when he
arrived at the store he didn't feel like cooking any more.'(20)

Whereas in A Temporary Matter food induces a sense of belonging between a

couple, in the next story When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine food comes as a fistful
soil from the motherland. Not only does food serve as a slice of native life for Mr.
Pirzada but also it serves as a strong bond between the protagonist -- Mr. Pirzada
and Lilia's family. Mr. Pirzada comes from Dacca whereas Lilia's parents are from
India. But the food that they relish as also their eating habits establish a bond of
affinity :

They ate pickled mangoes with their meals, ate rice every night for supper with
their hands. Like my parents, Mr. Pirzada took off his shoes before entering a
room, chewed fennel seeds after meals as a digestive, drank no alcohol, for dessert
dipped austere biscuits into successive cups of tea. (25)

Other items of cuisine that keep popping up through the story are: mincemeat
Kebabs with coriander chutney (28), ground areca nuts (29), lentils with fried
onions, green beans with coconut, fish cooked with raisins in a yogurt sauce. (30)

Not only the food but eating habits as well build up atmosphere. Lilia marks the
way Mr. Pirzada has his meals, 'calmly creating a well in his rice to make room for
a second helping of lentils.' (30) These food items which are typically Indian as
well as Pakistani not only set the rhythm of harmony between two people from two
different countries but also they serve as a refuge for Mr. Pirzada in his home-
sickness.

Interpreter of Maladies has Das family on a visit to India. Mr. and Mrs. Das
enjoy all things Indian. The couple is as if drinking its fill of Indian experience.
Just as the Suntemple at Konarak becomes a must see, they also
enjoy jhalmuri that is typical of Bengal and its adjacent states. Mrs. Das is quite a
foreigner in her dress and taste, the lady does not forget to carry her water bottle
lest she catches infection due to consumption of contaminated water. But she
cannot resist enjoying the jhalmuri: 'She walked slowly, carrying some puffed rice
tossed with peanuts and chilli peppers in a large packet made from newspapers.'
(46) The family also enjoys a hearty breakfast at a road side restaurant (Dhaba). If
on one hand they sip bottled mango juice with sandwiches they also enjoy the
typical Indian pakora throwing all apprehensions of infection to the wind.
However, the author once again does not use the Indian word for the same, instead
she prefers to define it as 'onions and potatoes deep fried in graham-flour batter.'
(54)

Mrs. Sen deals with cultural alienation that infests the wife of a mathematics
professor in an American University. She is a docile housewife who is bored to
death because her husband is busy with his job and she is missing her Calcutta
family, her neigbourhood and above all the community feeling that is totally absent
in the American culture. Mrs. Sen is a typical Bengali woman for whom fish is the
ultimate in food. Though almost all her stories use food as a metaphor, Lahiri's
Mrs. Sen is one story where food acquires a character as well. Fish which is almost
the staple food of Bengal becomes an obsession with Mrs. Sen as it is not always
that one gets good whole fish in America. With Eliot, for whom she works as a
baby-sitter, she shares her passion for bengali people, bengali food, fish and all
things from Bengal. The arrival of fish at the local store is greeted as a piece of
news from home and she is always too eager to hold it, to cook it and to serve it to
Mr. Sen. The homely lady is learning to drive, but whenever fish arrives at the
local store she troubles her husband with the job of transporting it from the store to
her home. If the husband is busy she takes a bus to fetch the fish, but absolute
happiness eludes her because the other passengers object to the smell. The
incorrigible Mrs. Sen, however, is not easily daunted. The next time when the fish
arrives she takes a bold step and taking Eliot with her, she decides to drive to the
store. The car meets with an accident and Mr. Sen has to be called to the lady's
rescue. Fish becomes the leitmotif in the story. Mrs. Sen's existence as also her
survival in an alien land revolves around and depends upon this food item. When
she gets it she is happy, and when it is absent from her kitchen for a long time, she
sulks like a child. For Mrs. Sen fish becomes her home, her state, her
neighbourhood, her friend and her family. Fish gives her a sense of proximity to
her people. The arrival of a tasty halibut gives her pleasure as nothing else does.

The last story in the collection, 'The Third and Final Continent,' presents the
alienation and gradual initiation of a Bengali gentleman. He pursues his higher
education in Britain and then his job takes him to America. Adapting to the ways of
three continents, the man and his wife succeed in retaining his original cultural
identity. Even in America the smell of steamed rice (192) marks a home as
different from an apartment. A dish of chicken made with 'fresh garlic and ginger
on the stove' (193) makes a sumptuous meal. Not only food but the eating habits
also becomes dear as it induces a sense of belonging. Eating with hands gives
pleasure as no spoon or fork does. Their son who attends Harvard University will
also inherit this habit of eating steamed rice with his hands. This habit, which is
becoming considered contemptible and uncivilized in India itself, is in great favour
with Indians settled abroad.

Food serves more as a symbol and acquires a metaphoric stature than mother
tongue for the simple reason that even in India most of these characters speak
English, but English food, though enjoyed occasionally, is still not an intrinsic part
of the Indian cuisine or diasporic identity.

Food as Metaphor in Jhumpa Lahiris Interpreter of

Maladies
Interpreter of Maladies is the title of a 1999 short story collection by Jhumpa Lahiri. Born in
the US, but of Indian extraction, the collection explores issues of diaspora, culture ritual,
otherness and difference. Her prose is spare and her narratives expose the drama in the every
day.

This text is from an oral presentation that explores the role that food plays in Lahiris collection,
as metaphor and cultural signifier. As such the language is less formal than you might usually
expect from an academic paper.

Food plays several roles in Jhumpa Lahiris work. My intention here is first pick out the main
signification before moving on to smaller ways it manifests as meaning in stories featured in Lahiris
collection Interpreter of Maladies. In doing that I think we see some of the themes that run through
the other stories too.

Theres an overarching sense throughout this collection that food its preparation and the rituals of
consumption are representative of the dislocation of Indian culture. Lahiris description of the
making and then the serving of meals serves as a shorthand for diaspora the transplantation of
people from one culture into another.

Theres often a contrast between the food prepared and the settings in which food is eaten.

For example

You made rogan josh Shoba observed, looking through the glass lid at the bright paprika stew

Pg 9 A Temporary Matter

Then, a little later, theres this description of the meat.

Its ready, he announced.

The microwave had just beeped when the lights went out and the music disappeared

The Western technologies of the microwave and HiFi are set here against another life, rich in other
ways, where another set of values is important.
I think its interesting that when the food is ready, the lights go off. As the story progresses, the couple
bond over this shared part of themselves a shared culture through food that is at its purest when
theres no electricity to power the American side of their lives; the computer Shukumar retreats to
when they were both grieving, for example. Thats made explicit in an observation that Shoba makes
on page 10 where, as they eat in the dark, she says Its like India

Later, in the story When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine the sense of shared culture between Mr.
Pirzada and Lilias family is underlined by the meals they take together even though he is Pakistani
and they are Indian. Again, thats contrasted against the trappings of the culture that theyve been
transplanted into.

We did not eat at the dining table, because it did not provide an unobstructed view of the television
set. Instead, we huddled around the coffee table, without conversing, our plates perched on the
edges of our knees. From the kitchen my mother brought forth the succession of dishes: lentils with
fried onions, green beans with coconut, fish cooked with raisins in yoghurt sauce

Pg 30 When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine

And this continues as an almost sensuous description of the meal one that emphasizes its diversity
and exoticism and the familys identity.. However, by placing the family in front of the television as
they eat, it also becomes a metaphor for dislocation and diaspora.

Analysing more deeply, food can be seen to stand in for more specific aspects of, mostly, Indian
culture:

Family especially in When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine

Love in A Temporary Matter

and

Home in Mrs Sens (which is about Mrs Sens house, her world as much as Mrs Sen hence the
possessive apostrophe).

Food is culture, and culture is family, love and home. And of course, most importantly, food is life.

This idea is at its strongest in Lahiris work when life ceases to matter to Lahiris characters. She
demonstrates this by showing that food no longer matters to her protagonists.

For example, food becomes secondary to grief during A Temporary Matter, in which Shoba loses
the will to cook and its up to her partner Shukumar to assume that role.
In one of the collections few instances of Western food being eaten the absence of culture, of family,
home or love and more literally the lack of money are illustrated by the protagonists eatign habits
in the last story, The Third and Final Continent

Waiting for his wife to arrive in the States, a student eats nothing but cereal throughout the story.
Lahiri describes this in plain, matter of fact terms.

Were left with the sense that the frugal, convenient consumption of corn flakes is the opposite of the
Indian cultural experience that unites families in the collections other stories. The protagonist here
exists rather than lives.

(An aside here, his landlady Mrs Croft only eats soup. Her daughter turns up and opens cans for her,
then she goes. So, the student and Mrs Croft have this lack in common. She is at the end of her life,
he is waiting for his to begin; they are both alone).

There are a few places where eating food has negative metaphoric connotations and when thats the
case eating or abandonment of food is the desertion of ones culture or morality.

In the collections key story, Interpreter of Maladies, the abandonment of an Indian staple snack food
leads to the storys focal event.

Mrs. Das a heavily Westernised Indian woman seeks the counsel of Mr. Kapasi anInterpreter of
Maladies.She wants advice about dealing with her feelings about an affair that lead to the birth of her
son, while the family are on holiday. The answer she gets is not the validation shes after but it is an
authentic reflection of her feelings.

What follows is a metaphoric representation of that cultural guilt. She storms off, dropping hot mix
behind her like breadbrumbs, trailing her culture behind her. Monkeys follow the trail and find her
son at the end of it then attack him.

Finally, in Interpreter of Maladies there are several mentions of bubble gum. A child tries to feed a
goat some gum, Mrs Das offers some to Mr. Kapasi on the ride out and on the way home a child
calms his traumatised brother by offering him gum.

Just as the meals described elsewhere in the collection are iconic of Indian culture, displaced
bubble gum here is Western and particularly American.

The Indian food we Lahiri describes is carefully prepared, colourful and nuanced. In comparison
the gum is pre-packaged, disposable, artificial and provides no nourishment. You cant even eat it. All
you get is a thick sweet burst of liquid on the tongue then its over. Its tasty, but temporary and
offers no nutrition.

The intended comparison is clear.

Kameshwari Ayyagari - Cuisine in Indian Literature

 Served on Plantain leaf. Image credit - connect.in.com

Citation of cuisine in Indian Literature - A Critical Review

Introduction:

Having good health is very different from only being not sick - Seneca
the Younger. A vast number of claims have been made over the years
regarding dietary and health practices. Sometimes there seem to be a
never ending procession of health experts promoting often contradictory
advice. As with any controversy, we could endlessly analyze the data and
arguments behind each new and conflicting claim. There are easier ways
however. Societies have empirically adjusted to dietary changes. Over
thousands of years, most cultures develop standard diets, food
preparation methods, and health practices based on trial and error. This
wealth of knowledge represents the cumulative experience of millions of
individuals over hundreds of generations.

Rather than theorise or conduct limited studies, it is almost always

simpler and more effective to learn what our ancestors traditionally ate,
and how they prepared their food when given choices. It is also useful to
recognize that every sub-population and individual has genetic variability.
In order to arrive at the optimal individual diet at any given period of life
it helps to keep an open mind, experiment with traditional practices, and
follow the instincts. Lets explore the literature for the practices of old
generation to know whether they simply followed the tradition or was
there any reason for health also.

The Food in India is classified into three major categories. Satva, Rajas
and Tamas. Satva, stands for balance, Rajas stands for passion, and
Tamas stands for indulgence. Food is consumed according to the lifestyle
of the person. For E.g.: A King has to be aggressive to defend his
country; he would be taking food which would give much passion and that
aggressiveness which is required. When a person tries to lead his life in
want of self realisaiton, he would prefer a Satvic food or known as Satvic
diet, which would help to keep his mind in balance. Tamasic food is to be
taken only if its required, like consumption of Alcohol. This is the reason
why many Indians try to abstain drinking.

The multiple varieties of Indian cuisine are distinguished by their

sophisticated and subtle use of many spices and herbs. Each family of this
cuisine is characterised by a wide assortment of dishes and cooking
techniques. Though a significant portion of Indian food is vegetarian,
many traditional Indian dishes also include: chicken, goat, lamb, fish, and
other meats.

A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food (Oxford India Collection), Oxford

university press 1998 by K. T. Achaya (Author) gives us plenty to chew
on. This is a truly valuable reference book.

The Chinese pilgrim, Zuan zang, who traveled all over the 118 kingdoms
of India between AD 629 and 645, describes about food in his time. Rice
and corn are most plentiful. With respect to edible herbs and plants, we
may name ginger, mustard, melons and pumpkins. Onions and garlic are
little known and used by a very few people. The most commonly used
foods are milk, butter, cream, soft sugar, sugar candy, oil from the
mustard seeds, and all sorts of cakes made from grain are used as food.

Fish, mutton, gazelle and deer are eaten fresh. They are forbidden to eat
the flesh of the ox, ass, elephant, horse, pig, dog, fox, wolf, lion, monkey
and all the hairy kind. Those who eat them are universally reprobated.

With respect to juices and drinks, the juice of the sugarcane and grapes
are used by the kshatriyas as drink. Vyshyas used strong fermented
drinks. Brahmans and sramans used a sort of syrup made from sugarcane
or grapes but not the kind of a fermented wine.

There is the mention of Annaprasana which is a ceremony in which a child

about 6 months old is given its first solid form of food which is
called paramanna (of boiled rice, milk, sugar/jaggery and honey.),a little
of which was gently placed in the mouth of the baby. This all can be
known from the writings of the Chinese pilgrims.

In some books the qualities, person gains by the consumption of certain

kind of food are mentioned. e.g.: ram's meat would confer physical
strength, partridge meat saintliness, fish a gentle disposition, and rice and
ghee glory.

Antelope meat is listed among others in Vishnupurana (3rd to 4th c. AD)

as very meritorious for use in the ancestral shraaddha ceremony. Emperor
Jahangir found the milk of the female antelope palatable and remarks that
it was said to be of great use in asthma.
Appam, a circular pan-cake of a toddy fermented batter of rice, baked on
a well seasoned clay dish to yield a thick spongy centre dish with lacy
browned edges. It is breakfast food in Tamilnadu which was mentioned in
Tamil Sangam literature. Another food item mentioned in Sangam
literature is the Idi-Appam (called nu-puttu in kodagu, and string hoppers
in Srilanka.

The Apple: the first mention of apple is in Charaka's Sinchitika Phala,

which could have been an apple of Chinese origin and also the paravata,
which as palevat still grows in Assam. In about 1100 AD, Dalhana
describes " a ber as big as a fist and very sweet" grown in the northern
regions of Kashmir, which surely suggests an apple. Amir Khusrau
mentions apples in India in about AD 1300.

India is known for its love for food and spices, and it plays a role in
everyday life as well as in festivals. Indian cuisine varies from region to
region, reflecting the varied demographics of the country. Generally,
Indian cuisine can be split into 5 categories northern, southern, eastern,
western and north-eastern.

Despite this diversity, some unifying threads emerge. Varied uses of

spices are an integral part of food preparation, and are used to enhance
the flavour of a dish and create unique flavours and aromas. Cuisine
across India has also been influenced by various cultural groups that
entered India throughout history, such as the Persians, Mughals and
European colonists. Though the tandoori originated in Central Asia, Indian
tandoori dishes, such as chicken tikka made with Indian ingredients,
enjoy widespread popularity.

Indian cuisine is one of the most popular cuisines across the globe.
Historically, Indian Spices and Herbs were one of the most sought after
trade commodities. The Spice trade between India and Europe led to the
rise and dominance of Arab traders to such an extent that European
explorers, such as Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus, set out to
find new trade routes with India leading to the Age of Discovery .The
popularity of curry, which originated in India, across Asia has often led to
the dish being labeled as the "pan-Asian" dish.

Mention of Cookery in Ancient Texts:

"Nalabhima pakam refers to the preparation of food by a cook duo Nala

and Bhima who lived in different periods of history, who are known for
their excellent culinary skills.

When Yudhistira opened the banquet, there were hills of food cooked by
Bhima. He served 18 kinds of barbecued meat, wild rice and sesame
seeds in 30 kinds of sauce, grains boiled in milk and butter, hot candies
of, sugar, ginger and pepper, sour and sweet preserves, fruits fresh and
dry,70 kinds of vegetables raw and cooked, 93 soups,11 stews,29 kinds of
fish cooked in 51 ways, unleavened bread baked and refried,100 kinds of
pie and cake, and curds, raw sugar, roots, salty fried leaves, broiled nuts,
honey light and dark and in the comb, and oceans of wine and rivers of
clear water and lakes of milk.

In Nalacharita there was the mention of Nala (Hundika) cooking a dish

and the king after eating presents him ornaments, a lakh rupees and 500
villages.

The ancient Indians wrote books not only on religion and philosophy but
also on the art of cookery, calledSupasastra. There are many works on
cookery in Sanskrit and other languages from the Southern part of India.
Of the many works on cookery, one written by Mangarasa (1508 AD) is
important. He states that his work is in accordance with the tradition of
ancient Indian celebrated cooks like Nala and Bhima. It is of interest to
note that generally women have been doing cooking at homes but
tradition remembers men Nala and Bhima as great cooks.

Another work dealing with cookery was written by Kannada writer

Chavundaraya in 1025 AD. His work,Lokopakara, contains a full chapter
on the art of cookery. It includes preparation of many delicacies also. As
rice was the staple food of Karnataka, the author has referred to the
preparation of rice first (anna).

Gandhasali rice when cooked gives sweet smelling aroma. He states that
de-husked rice should be washed thrice in pure water and should be
cooked and after sometime it should be passed through a stainer. By
mistake if it becomes sticky, water mixed with ambili should be added to
get good cooked rice. He has also described various methods of preparing
sweet smelling anna (rice) by adding various herbs and leaves like tulasi,
lamancha, clove, cinnamon etc.

Idli was and still is, a popular dish in the South India. It was referred to
as Iddalika and Kadubu. Spongy and smooth idlis are prepared by making
a paste of rice and black - gram and adding buttermilk mixed with
asafotaeda, coriander, pepper and ginger. Obviously Chavundaraya was
referring to what we call masala idli today. However, it is disappointing
that he does not refer to dosa.

Chavundaraya describes in detail the preparation of curds and buttermilk.

He has specially described the preparation of curds of different colours
and tastes. This is particularly popular in United States as scented yogurt,
though Indians love plain curds. He has also described methods of
preparing fresh fruit juice from pomegranate, myrobelan, madala,
tamarind etc. Many inscriptions refer to the preparation of puliyogare
(crudely translated as tamarind rice), as it was an important food item
offered to the God in the temples.

Food in Epics:

In the Valmiki Ramayana, there was the description of Rama and

Lakshmana bringing home sackfuls of slain beasts (wild boars, iguanas,
three or four varieties of deer. We are also told that their favourite family
diet consisted of spike-roasted (meats) (shalyapakva), known nowadays
as shik-kebab or shish-kebab); unfortunately, no other detail is supplied.
Who skinned the carcasses or made the fire or turned the flesh on the
spit, what were the greens and fruits eaten with the meat or the drinks
with which it was washed down - all this is left to our conjecture. But in
some places the information given was that Lakshmana roasted the meat
on fire.

Nevertheless, we are eternally grateful to Valmiki for the passage

describing the entertainment provided by the sage Bharadvaja to Bharata
and his entourage. When Bharata visits Sage Bhardwajas Ashram, he
gives feast to the king and soldiers. Sage Bharadwaja gives a feast to 11
akshauhinis of soldiers. (In 1 akshauhini, there will be 109350 infantry
soldiers other than 65610 horsemen, 21870 charioteers etc.)In that no
one was there to serve the food. The soldiers sat in two lanes. Between
the lanes there was facility for 16 canals of food. They have to serve
themselves. Like our buffet. May be the first of its kind in any of our
ancient books the mention of buffet. The soldiers after taking the feast
said that they want to live there as they had the best feast in their life
time.

There is nothing to compare with it in the Mahabharatan accounts of the

Raivataka feast or Yudhishthira's Horse-Sacrifice. For once in our ancient
literature we find the courses itemized--savoury soups cooked with fruit-
juice, meat of the wild cock and peacock, venison and goat-mutton and
boar's meat, desserts consisting of curds and rice-pudding and honeyed
fruits, and much else of lesser importance. All this is served by beauteous
nymphs on platters of silver and gold, wines and liqueurs flow freely, and
there is dance and music to heighten the spirit of the revels. Granted that
the whole account is somewhat fantastical--it was the gods who had
showered this splendour on that forest hermitage--a splendour that rivals
that of Ravana's palace in Lanka; but this at least tells us what Valmiki
thought a royal banquet should be; evidently he had experience of a
highly sophisticated culture.

In the book Andhra Puranam by Sri M. Satyanarayanasastry, there was

a beautiful story of Vijayaraghava, son of Raghunathanayaka the Tanjore
ruler. He used to feed 12000 Brahmins daily. Only after they were
satisfied, he used to have his food. One rainy season, there was shortage
of firewood for cooking as there were incessant rains for several days. He
gives all the valuable things from his mansion and also the basic structure
of the mansion was given to use as firewood. But the cooks wont turn up
to cook. Maa Annapurna comes to cook in disguise and she lost her nose
ring while cooking. As a result, the priest of the temple was about to be
punished by the king for the loss of the nose ring of the goddess. She
appears in the dream of the king and tells that when she cooked for the
Brahmins on that day, she lost her nose ring in his kitchen. He founds that
and the temple priest was released.

Kavyas:

When I think of mention of food in Telugu Literature, the reminiscences of

literature by different authors comes to my mind. They are firstly, Sri
Bammera Pothanas Sri MadBhagavatam, in which Pothana describes
SriKrishna, the cowherd, eating his breakfast (chaldi) with his friends. He
describes how they ate rice with taravani, and butter, and the pickle
avakkaya and curds. Kuchela fed Srikrishna with puhe (atukulu) and gets
all riches.

In Krishnadevarayas Amuktamalyada, he describes how Vishnuchitta,

father of Goda prepared different items of food for offering to Lord
Ranganayaka. Kavisarvabhouma Srinatha travelled to Kanchipuram to
convert Tippaiah Chetty, a leading trader to his side. Although Srinatha
produced and dedicated a host of books to kings and enjoyed a luxurious
life, penury struck him at the end. He mentioned many varieties of items
of food in his writings and chatu padyams( one kind of poetry) He used
not only vivid descriptions, but also metaphors shined like stars in the
night sky. He also describes many trees which give fruits like mango, jack
fruit etc along with fields of rice and trees which give nuts in
Bhimakhandam.

Srinatha, who used to eat the royal food in Rajamahendravaram and

Kondaveedu circled many kingdoms. When he was in Palnadu, he was
forced to eat the poor mans food, which includes only, garlic, til,
buttermilk with broken rice soup. He was not able to drink the jowar
soup / upma made with broken jowar. We can know about the character
of Srinatha from his chatu padyams (poems).

Whenever the occasion for a royal feast emerged, Srinatha described it

vividly. He mentioned eating dal with ghee, grape wine, (draksha
panakam) sugar and cow milk,bananas, he mentioned, boorelu, bobbatlu,
pulihora, kajjikayalu etc different snacks and sweets which are purely
made in telugu kitchens.

A special observation by Srinatha reveals that even selection of the

banana leaf in which one supposed to eat is very important. It should not
be very tender at the same time it should not be very rough. It should be
of a middle of these two as it wont be torn while eating and it enhances
the taste of the food. As he travelled, Palnadu, Renadu, Gurajaala,
Karnataka, Dravida Desa, the non- availability of proper food made him to
express his dissatisfaction in the way of poems (padyam which has its
chandas, yati and prasa). Warm rice spread in golden plate / banana leaf
gave him great pleasure and satisfaction. The inaccessibility of such food
made him to write about his discomfort in the form of poems. He even
challenges Lord krishna like this in a poem in the style which is mark of
Srinatha.

phulla saroja netra yala pootana channula chedu travi naa

dalla davaagni mringiti vatanchunu nikkedavela ,Tintrinee
pallava yuktamau nuduku bachhali saakamu jonna kootito
mellana nokka mudda diga mringumu nee pasa kaananayyedin

Oh, lord, who has the eyes of a lotus flower, when you were young, you
drank poison from Pootana, the demon. Thats not a great act. Now you
try this. If you can eat a curry made with leaves of tamarind tree and
leaves of spinach with jowar rice, then Ill agree that you are great.

He also mentions that if the divine nymph from Indras court, Rambha
comes to Palanadu, she has to make thread from cotton and even though
he is a king, he has to plough the field and even though he is Manmadha,
he has to eat jowar rice in Palanadu.

Tenali Ramalinga Kavi, who was in the court of Srikrishnadevaraya,

penned Panduranga Mahatyam, an epicnovel. In that a short story
Nigamasarmopakhyanam appears. In that Nigama Sarmas sister
prepares food for his brother and offers him with love and affection. Gutti
Vankaya Koora (Eggplant Fry) is one of the famous Andhra dishes. This is
one of the traditional recipes prepared with stuffed baby brinjals cooked in
authentic Andhra style. A special mention of this was made by the poet
Dr.Duvvuri Ramireddy in his poem Sankranti Laxmi.

19th C. Literature

It is only in our prose fiction from Rabindranath and Saratchandra down

to the present times that we find adequate accounts of what the Bengalis
eat, each according to his station in life and individual taste. Menus are
often mentioned, variations noted; some lady-novelists have done us the
additional favour of describing methods of cooking. In Tagores beautiful
story Cabuliwallah in which there is the mention of nuts, raisins and
almonds. Its not only mere mention, but the first link between
Cabuliwallah and Mini.
Of food as a means of characterization the best example could be Tagore's
novel Joga jog. Madhusudan has made his millions by honest toil, is
aggressively proud of his wealth, is fond of vain display, his dinner service
is all silver; yet his favourite diet is coarse rice, one of the inferior
varieties of dal, and a mash of fish-bones and vegetables. The addition of
this little gastronomical detail makes it all the more clear what a "tough
guy" the poor ethereal Kumudini has to confront in her new home. On
another level food has made its way into Bengali verse--and not merely
for comic effects as in Ishwar Gupta. In a poem entitled Nimantran ("An
Invitation") and addressed to an unnamed lady, the aged Rabindranath
imparted a touch of his lyricism to mundane food, albeit half in jest and
with a slant on the "modernist poets. No golden lamps or lutes are
available now," (I am giving a rough rendering of the passage.) "but do
bring some, rosy mangoes in a cane-basket covered with a silken-
kerchief, ... and some prosaic food as well--sandesh and pantoa prepared
by lovely hands, also pilau cooked with fish and meat--for all these things
become ineffable when imbued with loving devotion. I can see
amusement in your eyes and a smile hovering on your lips; you think I
am juggling with my verse to make gross demands? Well, lady, come
empty handed if you wish, but do come, for your two hands are precious
for their own sake." The last two lines lift the poem to a non-material
realm, but the reality of the mangoes and pilaus remains undiminished.

In Chokher Bali, since tea is a Christian thing, one must observe their
tenets. The women then ask Gods forgiveness for drinking the tea and
then continue to do so. After Binodinis affair with Mahendra, Lakshmi
rejects Binodini and her foreign tea. By giving me tea once a day, you
think you control me? Lakshmi screams. Binodini snaps back, Is only
physical desire a sin? As a pious widow, why this need for tea every
evening? Even Binodini has to eat the chocolates in secret. Thus we
come to know about the restrictions imposed on women and traditions
beside knowing about the practices of preparing and consuming food.

Conclusion:

Past societies often ate bitter vegetables that were believed to have a
cleansing effect on the system. Perhaps the bitter compounds assisted in
the production of bile or were intermediary products used to bond and
flush toxins from the body. At any rate, such vegetables are almost
completely missing from the modern diet. Stimulants such as caffeine
have been around for millennia. Many groups with the strictest and most
advanced dietary guidelines, however, refrained from these drugs. It
appears that most cultures, after a period of exposure, come to the
conclusion that stimulants over-tax and tire the nervous system.
We find the mention of a variety of food in contemporary literature which
is somewhat different from that of the traditional texts and some authors
utilized the food customs and dining traditions of Indian-American
characters to illuminate the importance of family, culture and community.

People, traditions, habits and especially food habits in the present society
are changing. People are adapting themselves to get curries from fast
food centres and slowly the traditional way of cooking different dishes for
a unique cause is disappearing. In order to arrive at the best as well as
healthy individual diet at any given period of life it helps to keep an open
mind, experiment with traditional practices. The old tradition is giving way
to the new and thus after some time, people may forget the traditional
practice of cooking and some names of dishes will be limited only to
books. But whether it is a conventional or non conventional, the health
factor is more important for the generations to lead a healthy and happy
life.

References:

Achaya, K. T. A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food (Oxford India

Collection) [Paperback] OUP, first edn. 1998, reprinted 2002.P 10 -34.

Andhra puranam: Madhunapantula Satyanarayana Sastry p 68-75.

Khare, R.S., and M.S.A Rao, eds. Food, Society, and Culture: Aspects in
South Asian Food
Systems. Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic P, 1986.

Mahabharata: William Buck, Motilal Banarasidass Publishers Pvt Ltd., New

Delhi.

Nalarayadavadanticarita (Adventures of King Nala and Davadanti) Edited

by Ernest Bende. The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1951.

P.T. Srinivasa Iyengar. Life in Ancient India,( 1912)Asian Educational

Services, New Delhi, reprinted 1982 a) p23-24 b)p.86 c)pp47f.

P.L.Bhargava. India in the Vedic Age. Upper India Publishing House Pvt
Ltd., Lucknow, 2nd Edn.,1971., ch2 pp 80f.