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Eating ‘Modernity’: Changing dietary practices in colonial Bengal*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2011

UTSA RAY
UTSA RAY*
Affiliation:
Rabindranath Tagore Centre for Human Development Studies, Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (IDSK), Salt Lake Campus, 27/D, DD Block, Sector 1, Salt Lake, Kolkata 700064, India Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Colonial transformation of the relations of production contextualized the cultural articulation of a new set of values, prejudices, and tastes for the Bengali Hindu middle class. These cultural values, together with the political and economic conditions of colonialism, formed the habitus of this class. This paper tries to understand this self-fashioning by the middle class through their construction of a ‘Bengali’ cuisine. A distinct enthusiasm for new gastronomic possibilities defined this cuisine, and yet, at the same time, it possessed important elements of continuity from pre-colonial times, evidenced especially in the reinstitution of caste-based norms of gastronomy. The resultant cuisine was cosmopolitan yet still Bengali.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , May 2012 , pp. 703 - 729
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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