“How Many Cooks in This Kitchen?”: Reflecting on Autoethnography

Abstract

In this article we combine an autoethnographic narrative by the first author and analytical reflections by the second, exploring the complexities of autoethnographic reflection on fields of cultural practice. The autoethnographer describes Indian Delights, a cookbook that is iconic among South African Indian Muslim women, as a shifting cultural collage and social repository, which also has a particular status in her life. The second author’s reflections apply the ideas of Michel de Certeau and Luce Giard regarding writing, practice, and meaning. The two strands of writing complicate the relation between practice and commentary, addressing the value and limits of the compositional process and its outcomes.

Keywords:

• autoethnography
• life writing
• food writing
• South African Muslim women