Everyday Exotic

Abstract

The relationship between food and identity grows more complex every day as globalization and the accompanying movement of peoples, cultures and capital define new ideological and sensory frontiers. This article examines the changing gastronomic landscape of Bangalore, India, during the past decade of rapid globalization through writings on food in the city. The entry of transnational food companies have moved Bangaloreans away from the tastes and eating practices of their agrarian ancestors in one decade. The article suggests that culinary difference and gastronomic consumption are seen as symbols of a changing Indian social order in which gustatory activity becomes a moral quest for a new self. The article argues that the new Bangalorean self is shaped through constructed narratives of desire and difference that enable a shift in identity by articulating two paradoxical discourses of “gastro-adventure” and “gastronostalgia” through their polysemic food consumption choices.