Volume 13 | Issue 4
Volume 13 | Issue 4
Volume 13 | Issue 4
Volume 13 | Issue 4
Volume 13 | Issue 4
Food is constantly part of a socio-cultural identity and it paves way to understand the complexities of identity which are visible and invisible. Food is an identity marker of social group identification based on caste, tribe, lineage, family, ethnicity, religion, class and kinship. To analyze the manner in which one eats and with whom, what, when and why is vital in comprehending the socio-cultural landscape. This expands to the interplay of relationships, the gamut of emotions, the status hierarchies, and the myriad of social transactions that take place within this context. The culinary act, therefore, transcends sheer sustenance, becoming a rich text through which the intricacies of postcolonial identity and social structure can be interpreted. Food Studies surfaced from the interdisciplinary nexus of social sciences—mainly anthropology, sociology, and history—and cultural studies, expanding to include the arts and humanities. This academic field now includes the examination of food ways, literature, gastronomy, and culinary history. Food Studies scrutinizes the numerous dimensions of food-related phenomena: the means of production and consumption, the social roles and purposes of eating, surrounding habits, rituals, and the selection of dining companions. Such analyses aim to elucidate the intricate connections between human society and cultural identity. This article analyses the treatment of food in Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace (2000), Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.