The Flavours of Nationalism: A Memoir with Recipes for Love, Hate and Friendship

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Description

In this extraordinary memoir, Nandita Haksar uses memories and ideas of

food to ask fundamental questions about what we eat, who we eat with, who

starves and who feasts, which foods are forbidden or denigrated-and what

all this says about our country. Starting with her childhood in the 1950s,

Haksar takes us on a fascinating journey through India, from wedding feasts

in her Kashmiri Pandit family settled in Old Delhi and Lucknow, to humanrights

activism on behalf of Nagas in Manipur; from listening to testimonies of

women working in Kerala’s fisheries, to witnessing the impact of a globalized

food industry on livelihoods in Goa. She examines how our tastes and

attitudes to food are shaped by caste, class, religion, race and gender, and she

addresses the recent controversies over beef-eating, and ‘Hindu’ vs ‘Muslim’

food. Scattered through the book are brilliant anecdotes-by turns startling,

amusing and moving-about culinary rituals and curiosities, and memorable

recipes from the many people Haksar has eaten with.

And always at the heart of the narrative is a fundamental question: How can a

people who won’t eat together, as equals, stay united?