“As Mother Made It”: The Cosmopolitan Indian Family, “Authentic” Food, and the Construction of

Cultural Utopia - Tulasi Srinivas

Paula Daniela Casas Rojas a,

a Cultura gastronómica del mundo II, Gastronomía,Universidad de La Sabana, Bogotá.

Around 1998 middle-class housewives in India and working women excited about packaged foods that had
begun to flood the urban Indian market. But at the same time, that situation starts happening around the world
on the Indian culture, an example of that was united stated working women of the Indian diaspora equally
excited about the same products that had begun to enter the “Indian” markets in the United States.

Tulasi Srinivas with that in mind focuses its study on recent trends in the consumption of a variety of "Indian"
packaged and prepared foods among Indian families both at home and abroad and symbolic trends that these
represent.

But to understand the above, Tulasi Srinivas addresses the packaged food industry in India; and the anxiety over
the loss of identity experienced by South Asians both in urban India and abroad.

First Tulasi Srinivas highlights the Indian Family, most of the families in India use to live in joint families
comprising of many members related by networks of kinship, where the mother must develop the role of the
good mother, this role is framed as a nurturing relationship between mother and child. This is framed in a
relationship of care and dependency. Within this, mothers and women are the ones who provide food to the
home. But over the years a social change has been evidenced, where women have entered the labor force in
urban India, women start work out of the home. However, this notion is socially accepted on the condition that it
can women will be able to devote themselves to this work in addition to their innumerable domestic tasks.

So contemporary Indian women are forced to order food from local restaurants or resort to "heat and eat" or ask
family members, such as mothers and elderly relatives, to cook.

This is where Indian packaged foods come in. The "time crisis" and people who are out of the country has
allowed food manufacturers to take advantage of this demand. The Indian packaged foods industry takes the
Indian recipes, simplifies them for fast production, and decreases the time and cost for the consumer. But not all
of India's packaged foods come from India or even the subcontinent.

But these new ways of looking at food and the supply of culture, no matter what it is, have created anxieties and
the unwanted consequences of cosmopolitan consumption. As people live abroad or move away from what they
consider their "home culture", the idea of "homeland" becomes an important core of nostalgic feeling, what
worries their parents because feeding is part of their culture and identity added to the negation by children who
do not eat Indian food at all what worries their parents because feeding is part of their culture and identity. That
creates social, economic, and cultural changes.
Leaving that aside, and focus on the authentic mothers, narratives of Subterfuge, and false memories Tulasi
Srinivas highlights how Indian packaged foods serve to supply other social desires related in part to the anxiety
for authenticity. But in turn leads to the loss of traditional knowledge of recipes, ingredients, and cooking
methods. However, in society at large, women's expectations of being able to produce authentic food. That is
considered one of the main ingredients in the descriptions of foods that appeal to gastro-nostalgia is the
evocation of home cooking or how mommy made it.

After having all the previous information and take it into account that Tulasi Srinivas as Way of a Conclusion
ask if Are We What We Eat?, the answer is yes, No matter where Indian people are, they consciously looking
for their roots ethnic, local, and caste-based - these memories allow for the generation of an emotional and
tasteful bond between mother and family, symbolically situated in a cultural utopia. The prepared food industry
packages authentic foods so that cosmopolitan working women can return home and cook a "home-cooked
meal" to reclaim their identity for themselves and their children (Srinivas, 2006).

Point of view

This article shows the construction of an Indian ethnic identity which is reflected in the consumption of food,
the relationship between the authentic consumption, through canned foods, tries to supply the anxieties of
motherhood. All this creating social, political, economic, and cultural changes.

The trend of consumption of packaged foods, the habits that are paradigms that shape the emotions of people as
with respect to food, what you eat generates habits that can feel good or bad to people. On the other hand the
acculturation once a person leaves his country and reaches another culture is possible to evidence it.

However, the article also shows the importance for Indian people to keep their culture alive. Especially for
women, it is crucial to maintain that culture by teaching their children. But the lack of time and often of
ingredients allowed the development of products that allowed them to continue with their traditions.

Finally, from my point of view, It is incredible to see the connection between food, culture, and family
dynamics and how this becomes an identity and how a concept is built that is actually at home (as canned foods
are) in an industrialized world but at the same time the authenticity of the concept is lost

Bibliography

Srinivas, T. (2006). “As mother made it”: the cosmopolitan indian family, “authentic' food and the construction
of cultural utopia. Food and Culutre. Routledge.