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Crossing the Veg/Non-Veg Divide: Commensality and Sociality Among the Middle Classes in Madras/Chennai

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 31; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00856400701874742

1479-0270

Pat Caplan,

Culinary Culture and Tourism

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes I am grateful to the following for reading and commenting helpfully upon earlier drafts of this chapter: Lionel Caplan, Henrike Donner, Caroline Osella and Penny Vera-Sanso. 1See for example L. Caplan, Class and Culture in Urban India: Fundamentalism in a Christian Community (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1987); and S. Mascarenhas, 'Catholic Goan Food', in J. Kuper (ed.), The Anthropologist's Cook Book (London: Kegan Paul International, Citation1997). 2See A. Mayer, 'Some Hierarchical Aspects of Caste', in Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol.12, no.2 (1956), pp.117 – 44; M. Marriott, 'Caste Ranking and Food Transactions: A Matrix Analysis', in M. Singer and B. Cohn (eds), Structure and Change in Indian Society (Chicago: Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology No.47, Citation1968), pp.133 – 72; and T. Selwyn, 'The Order of Men and the Order of Things: An Examination of Food Transactions in an Indian Village', in International Journal of the Sociology of Law, Vol.8 (Citation1980), pp.297 – 317. 3A. Appadurai, 'Gastro-Politics in Hindu South Asia', in American Ethnologist, Vol.8, no.3 (Citation1981), pp.494 – 511. 4 Ibid. 5See for example R.S. Khare, The Hindu Hearth and Home: Culinary Systems Old and New in North India (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, Citation1976); R.S. Khare, Culture and Reality: Essays on the Hindu System of Managing Foods (Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Citation1976); R.S. Khare, 'The Indian Meal: Aspects of Cultural Economy and Food Use', in R.S. Khare and M.S.A. Rao (eds), Food Society and Culture (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, Citation1986), pp.159 – 83; and R.S. Khare, 'Hospitality, Charity and Rationing: Three Channels of Food Distribution in India', in R.S. Khare and M.S.A. Rao (eds), Food Society and Culture (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, Citation1986), pp.277 – 96. 6B. Harriss, 'The Inter-Family Distribution of Hunger in South Asia', in J. Dreze and A. Sen (eds), The Political Economy of Hunger Vol.1 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, Citation1990), pp.51 – 71; B. Harriss, 'Nutrition and its Politics in Tamilnadu', in South Asia Research, Vol.24, no.1 (Citation2004), pp.51 – 71; H. Papanek, 'To Each Less Than She Needs, From Each More Than She Can Do: Locations, Entitlements and Value', in I. Tinker (ed.), Persistent Inequalities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Citation1990), pp.162 – 83; and A. Sen, 'Gender and Cooperative Conflicts', in I. Tinker (ed.), Persistent Inequalities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Citation1990), pp.123 – 9. 7The situation is somewhat different in Bengal: see Donner in this issue. 8Although Gandhi took a vow before his mother to eat only vegetarian food when he went to study in London, while he was there he read an English book on vegetarianism, noting: 'From the date of reading this book I may claim to have become a vegetarian by choice… The choice was now made in favour of vegetarianism, the spread of which henceforward became my mission'. M.K. Gandhi, An Autobiography or the Story of My Experiments with Truth (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, [1927] 1959), p.39. 9Especially ruler or warrior castes of the Kshatriya varna in north India. 10This was funded by the Social Science Research Foundation (SSRC), and its successor the ESRC. Later shorter trips were funded by the Nuffield Foundation. I am grateful to all of these bodies. 11H. Papanek, 'Family Status Production Work: The "Work" and "Non-Work" of Women', in Signs, Vol.4, no.4 (Citation1979), pp.775 – 81. 12See P. Caplan, 'Women's Organisations in Madras City, India', in P. Caplan and J. Bujra (eds), Women United, Women Divided: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Female Solidarity (London: Tavistock, Citation1978), pp.99 – 128; P. Caplan, 'Joiners and Non-Joiners: A South Indian City Suburb and its Women's Club', in Sociological Bulletin, Vol.29, no.2 (Citation1980), pp.206 – 21; P. Caplan, 'Women's Voluntary Social Service in India—Is It Work?', in K. Ballhatchet and D. Taylor (eds), Changing South Asia (Hong Kong: Asian Research Services, Citation1984), pp.69 – 80; P.Caplan, 'Women's Voluntary Social Welfare Work in India: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Class', in Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Vol.17, no.1 (Citation1985), pp.20 – 31; and P. Caplan, Class and Gender in India: Women and Their Organisations in a South Indian City (London and New York: Tavistock, Citation1985). 13See Caplan, Class and Gender in India, pp.68 – 73. 14P. Caplan, 'Food in Middle-Class Madras Households from the 1970s to the 1990s', in K. Cwiertka and B. Walraven (eds), Asian Food: The Global and the Local (Richmond: Curzon Press, Citation2002), pp.46 – 62. 15These castes are of Sudra status but, given the dearth of sub-castes which claim Kshatriya status in Tamilnadu, they were considered of relatively high or middle status and several such castes have improved their ranking in the last few decades. See R. Hardgrave, The Nadars of Tamilnadu: The Political Culture of a Community in Change (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, Citation1969); N. Dirks, The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press in association with Orient Longman, Citation1987); and Y. Nishimura, Gender, Kinship and Property Rights: Nagarattar Womanhood in South India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, Citation1998). 16Caplan, 'Joiners and Non-Joiners: A South Indian City Suburb and its Women's Club', pp.206 – 21; Caplan, 'Women's Voluntary Social Welfare Work in India', pp.20 – 31; and Caplan, Class and Gender in India. 17In north India, food cooked in water is called kaccha and would only be accepted from an equal or a superior. The other category is pakka food, which is considered to be less vulnerable, and thus may be accepted from a wider range of persons. See A. Cantlie, 'The Moral Significance of Food among Assamese Hindus', in Adrian C. Mayer (ed.), Culture and Morality: Essays in Honour of Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Citation1981), pp.42 – 62. 18Mandelbaum also makes the same point: 'In South India this distinction between ghee-fried and unfried food is not as clearly made'. D.G. Mandelbaum, Society in India: Volume 1 Continuity and Change (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, Citation1970), p.199. Daniel too notes that the situation is more complex than originally proposed by Indianists and argues for a caste- and person-specific distinction. E.V. Daniel, Fluid Signs: Being a Person the Tamil Way (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, Citation1984), pp.186 – 7. 19Lionel Caplan noted: 'I am reminded of the mid-day meals served in Madras "hotels" which cater to workers (eg rickshaw-wallahs) and others who are not normally vegetarians. Most of these eating places, in which I often took lunch, offer very cheap vegetarian meals (a few offer non-vegetarian meals): the meal consists of rice, several vegetable dishes, rasam and, if you pay an extra rupee, curd, so people who could afford that, would keep a little of their rice aside until the end of the meal and make curd rice. The vast majority of people eating in these places are not Brahmins' (personal communication). 20Khare, 'The Indian Meal: Aspects of Cultural Economy and Food Use', p.67. 21 Ibid., p.169. 22Khare, 'Hospitality, Charity and Rationing: Three Channels of Food Distribution in India', p.280. 23Khare, 'The Indian Meal: Aspects of Cultural Economy and Food Use', p.174. 24B. Beck 'Colour and Heat in South Indian Ritual', in Man, Vol.4 (Citation1969), p.561; and A. Cantlie, 'The Moral Significance of Food among Assamese Hindus'. 25For a similar view from Calcutta see B. Mukhopadhyay, 'Between Elite Hysteria and Subaltern Carnivalesque: The Politics of Street-Food in the City of Calcutta', in South Asia Research, Vol.24, no.1 (Citation2004), pp.37 – 50. 26M. Trawick, Notes on Love in a Tamil Family (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, Citation1990). 27These included some of the 'activist' club members whom I knew well, plus their daughters and daughters-in-law and some of their male relatives. Most were Hindus, but the sample included one Christian and one Tamil Muslim. 28Eggs are considered living things and thus should not be eaten by vegetarians. 29However in many households this would be overcome by using the right hand for eating and the left hand to serve or take food from the serving dishes placed in the centre of the table. 30A series of inter-locking containers which is used for all kinds of food, meals as well as snacks. 31 Dubba is the term used for the containers in which food is stored. A dubbawallah is a man who collects a number of tiffin-carriers from various houses and delivers them to the designated workplaces. 32This was a remarkably short period of time in which to prepare a meal, even given that this woman had the help of a maidservant and her mother-in-law. My time budgets carried out in the 1970s showed that most women spent between three and five hours daily cooking food. 33Caroline Osella asked me whether the practice of giving food to take away was connected with the removal of inauspiciousness, citing particularly G. Raheja, The Poison in the Gift: Ritual, Prestation, and the Dominant Caste in a North Indian Village (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press 1988). This is a question I cannot answer, and it did not occur to me to ask it back in the 1970s. People certainly never explained the practice in this way. 34I well remember the wife of a middle-ranking government servant, who had five daughters, telling me that the marriage of one of them would be 'just a small affair'. I asked how many guests she was expecting. 'Only about a thousand' was her reply. 35A few upper-middle-class weddings have more recently begun to be held in large hotels, where obviously catering arrangements are different, and may include non-veg food, which is however always placed separately from vegetarian food. 36Penny Vera-Sanso commented: 'If the Brahmin was a good friend, more educated, younger or poorer she may have been serving the food to express close affection, a refutation of rank based on education, respect for age, a sense of service to a patron either along with or without any consideration of the pollution issues.' All of these are possible. 37Daniel, Fluid Signs, pp.186 – 7. 38Most catering companies in Madras are either Brahmin-run or employ Brahmin cooks. 39The all-vegetarian option is the easiest way to deal with a mixed eating group, but it does not always satisfy all. In planning the meeting of another women's group, that of professional women, where the core activists were both vegetarian and non-vegetarian and included women from Andhra and Kerala, as well as Tamilnadu, the non-vegetarians, led by a lawyer from Kerala, put in a special plea to have 'the kind of food we like', meaning meat. At the event, both kinds of food were served but placed on different tables from which people helped themselves. I doubt if this issue would have arisen had all members been Tamilians.