In this extraordinary book, Nandita Haksar recounts her culinary journey in search of answers to the fundamental questions posed by the recent controversies over food—what can we eat, who can we eat with, what foods are forbidden or denigrated, and what this says about our country.
In this memoir by an unashamed Indian, Haksar writes about how food shaped her awareness of politics, patriarchy, nationalism and socialism, from her childhood during the Nehruvian era onwards. She takes us on a thoughtful journey through India, from her Kashmiri Pandit family settled in Old Delhi and Lucknow, to human-rights activism on behalf of Nagas in Manipur; from grappling with feminist ideals, to considering the impact of a globalized food industry in Goa.
On a wider scale, she explains how our tastes and attitudes to food are shaped by caste, race, gender and class, exposing latent prejudices and bigotry. Haksar explores questions posed by food anthropologists and ecologists, and revisits debates between Babasaheb Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi on inter-dining. She also addresses the present controversies over beef-eating, vegetarianism and ideas of Hindu vs. Muslim food, in a milieu where debate is silenced.
With wry accounts of sharing meals with Burmese and Iraqi refugees, and arguing about bourgeois vs. proletarian tea in the Naxalite movement, the book also contains memorable recipes from the many people she has eaten with. At heart is her question that if Indians cannot imagine sitting with each other and sharing food with a sense of equality and respect, how then can a national unity be built?
The introduction to the book is titled “The Justice of Eating”, which takes its name from the poem “The Great Table Cloth” by the Communist Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. Through this poem, Neruda expresses his wish for a world free of hunger. Nandita Haksar quotes the poet to bring forward the still pertinent question of inequality, when it comes to accessibility of food in Indian society. That the farmers continue to commit suicide, that some of those unprivileged go without square meals for days, that the social fabric is still marred by discrimination and oppression practiced towards people with respect to their food choices because of their caste/class/religious/regional identities, are some of the questions that the author grapples with in this book.
| Book Review | The Flavours of Nationalism. • Thank you for the copy @speakingtiger • "But Nagas have the last word on the origins of inequality between the sexes and the sufferings of women: if only Adam and Eve had been Nagas they would have left the apple and eaten the snake!" - Nandita Haksar. • The Flavours of Nationalism was my first attempt at reading a food memoir and it turned out to be a brilliant one. Albeit I was familiar with her name, I didn't have a clue about her writing style which is why this book blew me away. I expected to find an ordinary memoir but was pleasantly surprised to see how well she addressed many critical topics including feminism and politics. This book is crafted with care with various references to old texts and history. Imagine looking at the food that you eat every day in a new way because of this beautiful book. Nandita Haksar is a human rights lawyer, writer and was once a journalist. Her sense of humour and wittiness shines throughout the book all the while focusing on important issues both nationally as well as internationally. • Spread out across five chapters, Nandita begins narrating her own experiences of tasting many dishes ever since she was a child. Being a Kashmiri Pandit, she tells us about her cuisine and what makes it special. She gives us a detailed picture of her family and how they pushed her to try new cuisines. Having born into an influential and political family, she learns about the many facets of Indian government. In each chapter, she stresses on a particular topic. But my favourite of all was Feminist Furies in which she talks about how women are subconsciously made to cook dishes for men just because they're women. Most people don't realise the patriarchal side of it but she explains it with ease and it makes you consider the way you handled things in the past. I was pleased to find few recipes shared by the author that she found special through friends and families. • I was surprised to know how food influences a particular culture or even a community. For example, I wasn't aware that the Naga men cooked during their community weddings, that Kashmiri Pandits eat meat but didn't initially eat onions and garlic. Apart from being interesting, this book was immensely informative. Her journey of working with communists and how every place led her to meet new people, their mindsets and particularly their food was very enjoyable to read. In the later chapters, she speaks openly about government and how it even threw many people out of business which led to starvation and death. She also talks about how religion sets apart people from enjoying all kinds of food. Her relationship with her husband Sebastian and their many adventures in experimenting with food made my mouth water. It's beautiful how food brings people together as she talks about the many lunch and dinner parties her parents hosted for important delegates. • Before you choose to read this book, make sure you are open to reading various topics that are part of the society. From the beef buying ban to many attempts made by the government in introducing fast food to our country while shunning street vendors from earning their share, all these are derived from facts. While she goes on to make several crucial points about how and why our country is both united but also shows severe differences when it comes to different cuisines, you cannot help but wonder how true she is in this context. I'm going to pass on this book to many others and I'd recommend everyone to pick this gem of a book. I feel strangely happy that food memoir has now joined my favourite genre list. This book is beautiful in every sense and I cannot thank Haksar enough for penning it down. A must read. • Rating - 5/5.
I simply loved this book for a couple of reasons. First, it was like travelling around India, and even outside India, accompanying the author as she explores all the different cuisines and cultures. Respecting other people's diverse cuisines, while being proud of one's own cuisine was imbibed early in her life. As the book progresses, the author gives anecdotes, her opinions on a broad range of issues. I loved the book because she was able to string together her autobiographical account through recipes she admired, remembered from her wide-ranging travels while being an activist lawyers. You get to understand cuisine of Kashmir, north-eastern India, Delhi and Goa in addition to diverse cultures and reality of peoples whose lives revolve around producing, fetching, cooking or eating these foods.
If there is something I love more than watching people cook then it might be reading about food lmao. This book explores the themes of politics, caste, feminism with the help of food. Apart from food, the author also talks about the lives of people who are involved in the food industry. Little did I know about the food we consume every day and how it influences the society, hence throughout the book I was taken by surprise. It was a good read, except for the fact I felt hungry throughout.
The Flavours of Nationalism . This was my first time reading a book telling stories based on eating habits of people from different parts of the world. And it was unique, informative and fun to know the reason/s behind the choices of food in different places. Nandita Haksar talks about how food can have influence on political, social and interpersonal relationships. And that how we can either build or break friendships through food. She starts this book by narrating her childhood stories and of the Kashmiri pandit community. It was surprising for me to know that Kashmiri Pandits used to offer meat and fish in temples and they were hard core meat eaters. This is something unique in a country where majority of the brahmins are vegetarians.
My personal favourites were chapter three and four, where author talks about feminism, caste, class, ethnicity and religion. She has explained why most of the people expect women to cook or serve food at any gathering and how good Naga men are at cooking, which makes them different than men from rest of the Indian states. The book also gives us a glimpse of cuisines in different parts of India and the world and how people are proud of their own cuisine and eating habits. The book also explains how the modernisation and entry of foreign fast food giants and corporations is negatively impacting the traditions and diet of tribals and rural population. And also how we're losing many of the traditional recipes.
This book is a must read for all those who are interested in knowing the history and reasons behind food habits in different places and how it is linked to the current friendships or differences among people from various backgrounds. The book also has few important recipes passed down from the author's ancestors and friends. Overall it was a good reading experience.
I love how she was able to mix her journey of life with the food spicily mixed with all the anecdotes, politics and just the nuances of indian life.
I can see she has seen so much, and everytime she meets someone new she can always talk about food, something that everyone can at the end connect to.
Even if you eat different food, at the end food is what unites us together. Would recommend to anyone wanting to have something different and easy to digest.
My most vivid memories of traveling through India are tangled up in experiences with the country's cuisine: thick creamy curries heaped onto a torn piece of garlic naan; narrow market lanes where flatbreads, stuffed with spiced vegetables, sear on a hot pan; onion pakoras eaten out of newspaper as my early morning train rocks across the Rajasthan desert. In her memoir, Nandita Haksar explores this fundamental position Indian food holds in the nation’s cultural politics. Haksar grew up in a Kashmiri-Brahmin family before working as a human rights lawyer and activist. She begins by recounting a childhood where her interactions with food unknowingly signified her place in the caste system. While later chapters focus on her unique adult experiences with food, such as sharing meals with Burmese and Iraqi refugees. The memoir also debates larger questions regarding vegetarianism, inter-dining, a globalised food industry and the social distinctions between Hindu and Muslim food. Haksar’s early life and career provides her with a deep understanding of how food not only concerns the domestic lives of Indian people, but also is intertwined with their politics, gender and class.
When I started "The Flavours of Nationalism" i thought it would turn into another writing of the privileged. From meat eating to Brahmins to living in Central Delhi, it read like it was from the perspective of privilege.
However, the book reveals all of the author's experience and she touches on some uncomfortable subjects - from the dilemma with beef to the discomfort with dog meat.
Sure, we are aware of this. But it is interesting to read the real life stories behind this. It connects us better. And that I think is what I learnt from it. It questions my vegetarianism and my non-vegetarianism.
Its more about the personal memoir related largely to food culture and habits in India. In this sense, it is an interesting book.
However, my expectation of finding a detailed, deeper and a more thorough linking and analysis of food culture and habits with that of the social, caste and class, purity and pollution, ancient cultural, religious and other socio-political milieu and their interconnections have not been fully satisfied.
Started reading this book thinking it was going to be a generic account of the various Indian cuisines, but Haskar's style of writing it as a memoir and relating her experiences with the larger experience of the Indian population divided by prejudice and inequality was captivating. A must read if you want to explore India (and the world) and educate yourself on the inequality that leaves more than 3 million Indians starving, all through the eyes of someone who appreciates food.
In the era of frivolous writings making it to bestsellers this is a gem of a book. The story begins by describing the family history of the author through the delectable dishes of the Kashmiri Pandit community and then moves effortlessly to diverse Indian cultures and cuisines while simultaneously discussing pressing social, political and economic challenges. The relevance of food in establishing the uniqueness in the culture of a country/state/community has been well established in this book.
I really loved reading this book. The author weaves the narrative beautifully. My key takeaway from this book is how food unites us, and divides us. Food has a way more important place in our culture than we realize and this book highlights it well. The book is so well written that I am really keen to meet the author and her husband some day, if I could.
Enjoyed this immensely. Did feel the writing style was a little too abrupt for me. Anecdotes were sprinkled everywhere starting and ending like a bullet train track and didn’t seem the cohesive to the chapter’s themes. But I still liked the educational aspect behind it because they all do have one overarching theme of how food and society mingle
Wonderfully written. Provides a great perspective on how food divides and unites us as a nation. It shows the many disparities in food habits of this huge nation and how they came to be and how the food in any part of the country is still uniquely Indian. Provides some unique recipes in between the text. A good read over a few weekends.
This is a crisp book to read, great to read if you're in a slump. Even for someone who does not enjoy food (yes, you read that right) this book felt like a delicious take on love, friendship and hate.
Nandita Haksar has a tag line to it, recipes for love, hate and friendship. The book is a collection of essays on her Pan Indian life and her life as the daughter of a diplomat patronized by the Nehruvian regime also speaks through. The first essay on the meat eating kashmiri Brahmins, she refers to them as downstairs Kashmir where Kashmiriyat was diluted with the merging of Delhi culture into it. Some things that struck me in the essay was. • Kashmiri Pandits are meat eating but did not eat garlic and onion. • Mangoes were not indigenous to Kashmir, so there are no mango recipes. • Also when people dine to together some smells could cause problems. Nandita talks of the gradual erosion of the elegant UP influenced Delhi culture by the invasive loud Punjabi culture. One interesting observation she makes is eating various cuisines may be adventurous and accommodative but it also comes with a sense of rootlessness.t Nandita presents the meat eating Kashmiri Brahmins as a unique existence, of course Kashmiri Pandits are unique, Maharashtrian Brahmins particularly the Puneri Brahmins are quite often meat eating. Some recipe’s to look up, • Kudaya-handa bhaji. • Karachi halway • Bedmi • Nagoris In page 131 she makes an observation that fat says, ‘screw you!” In another place Nandita talks of her grandmother who told her grandfather, that he has married to her and not his mother, this changed his behaviour he began respecting her more. Interesting maybe some of us should try this on the men we married. In page 158 she compares the Naga style of parenting with the Pan-Indian Urban parenting. Her observation is that Naga children are made to be useful contributory members of the society by the time they are 8-9 while Urban Indians do not allow their children to become adults for as long as they can. In a conversation with her friend Ulka she observes that our inability to appreciate the other is more about our own limitations. The book documents the changing culture of the subcontinent through the eyes of a much travelled person, her travel is both through geography and her who identity. Her journey at through feminism is to the human rights in Nagaland is very interesting. There are few recipes in the book, though personally I think it was dinning that seem to dominate. In her final chapter she does question the random tourism growth in Goa the 5 star boom, causing a fish famine. She also comments on the vanishing frogs as their food has diminished with increased pesticide uses. Over all an interesting book, serious issues have been put across through musings and observations, Nandita does not really pronounce a judgement. On a personal note I should thank her for the Menu card on page 78 it kind of resolved a challenge for me. Though through the book one question kept bothering me, why equate Hinduism to Brahmanism, also why potray brahmanical culture as inhuman? Isn’t it like saying all muslims are terrorists.
Nandita Haksar tries to connect food to identity of India in this book. Initially, the book has a solid start but as it progresses, I found many offhanded statements made by the author without giving it enough attention those statements deserved.
Author narrates many experiences she has had through out her life which are very interesting. Various journeys of author are engrossing to read but they dont feel coherent. It feels like they are strewn about the book haphazardly. For example, at one point author talks about Jarawas of Andaman islands and how food offered by tourists is having a negative impact on them. But then immediately moves on to story from the north without giving a reason or conclusion for Jarawas. There are many such small stories in the book.
Throughout the book, RSS and other Hindutva outfits are blamed for damaging Indian cultural ethos but reason for that is not given. The only explanation was an excerpt from Ambedkar's book but it wasn't enough for me. I understand where the author is coming from and I do agree with her, I just think it should have been presented with more clarity. In the end, author blames junk food for rising obesity in kids. I found this to be really funny because throughout the book, author has talked about food which is rich in ghee, oil, sugar and all sorts of fats. So it felt pretty counter-intuitive to me.
I read the book during Covid-19 lockdown so when I read author's remarks on regional eastern food versus western "civilized" food, I felt there should have been more to it than western = civilized and regional = uncivilized. There is definitely more to the issue than simply blaming eastern societies for eating exotic foods. This is the main issue for me. Author is well read and she of course knows more and understands better but it never translated in the book. It felt one-dimensional to me.
Average read......I still doubt whether this book has lived up to it's basic idea....I see a lot of distraction from the the theme....lot of here and there which does not helps but confuses the reader.