Menus matter: examining class and Bengali cuisine culture through restaurant menus in Kolkata

ABSTRACT

Bengali food, especially in the domestic context, has received much attention in recent academic scholarship, but there is a relative scarcity of studies on cultures of public dining practices in restaurants. This paper attempts to address this gap by exploring how a burgeoning ethnic restaurant industry serving Bengali food in Kolkata conditions class-inhered food practices. Based on in-depth interviews of 46 respondents who assessed the content of restaurant menu cards, this paper examines the branding of a local cuisine and the moulding of a neo-ethnic ‘global’ identity by steeping tradition and authenticity in an aura of the global. The acts of eating out in Bengali restaurants manifest an attitude of ‘gastro-cosmopolitanism’, practiced mostly by Bengalis who live or are perceived to live in the scope of a transnation. The paper observes that while the global latitude in the culinary order has paved the way for blending of cultures, as evident in fusion cuisine, it has simultaneously reproduced a revalorisation of an ethnic cuisine as heritage, exotic and exclusive. Further, class inflections have opened up more options to select from diverse multicultural food items revealing gustatory antinomies among consumers, who are eager to stake a global cosmopolitan identity while attempting collaterally to align with a past that is only alive in their imagination.

KEYWORDS:

• Food
• restaurant menus
• class
• Bengali cuisine
• neo-ethnic global identity

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editor of this journal John Zavos and the two anonymous Contemporary South Asia reviewers for their helpful criticism and suggestions. The views expressed, however, are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Runa Das Chaudhuri was awarded a PhD from Jadavpur University, India after having worked under the Doctoral Programme at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. She is interested in the study of cultural aspects of urban consumption in India. She has contributed to several edited volumes and has published in journals including Society and Culture in South Asia, International Sociology Reviews, Entanglements and Journal of the Asiatic Society.

Notes

1 Paribesh in Bengali means ambience.

2 In her work, Janeja (2013) has provided an elaborate analysis of eating out by Bengalis who wish to taste gharoa ranna (homely cooking) or what constitutes a ‘normal’ authentic meal in Bengali restaurants.

3 No data sets of diners or feedback forms were available at Bengali restaurants. So snowballing was used to collect data by locating information-rich key informants who had knowledge of potential subjects in their acquaintances.

4 Of the 27 Bengalis interviewed, five stated an individual annual income ranging between 3.5 and 5 lakh while the remaining 23 earned more than 5 lakh. Of the nine female respondents, four were housewives who stated an annual family income exceeding 7 lakh.

5 The 10 anonymised menu cards used in the present study included those of Oh! Calcutta, Kewpies, Bohemian, 6 Ballugunge Place, Aaheli, Saptapadi, Bhojohori Manna, Koshe Koha, Suruchi, and Kasturi.

6 Pice hotels, deriving their name from paisa, are commercially cheap hotels existing from colonial periods in urban Kolkata. Full meals are served here, each item is priced individually and menus are prepared on a daily basis according to availability of raw ingredients.

7 Prasanta Ray quoted in ‘The Dinner Bong’, The Telegraph, October 28, 2007.

8 Gaurchandrika is the tradition of singing padabalis (lyrics) to invoke Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, before the commencement of leela kirtan in the Bengali kirtan tradition.

9 Mughlai paratha, a popular Bengali snack made of flatbread stuffed with keema (minced meat) originated in Emperor Jehangir’s time. Prepared by his cook Adil Hafiz Usman, who was originally from Burdwan in West Bengal, the recipe remained a family secret for seven generations before it travelled to Calcutta when Adil’s descendants became chefs in Mughlai restaurants. Mughlai paratha over time became Calcutta’s own dish, relished by Bengali gourmets for its mouth-watering tastes.

10 The babus were the high-class, rich Bengali people during the late nineteenth century, who came into being as a result of intimate interaction with the British in Kolkata.

11 Held in the summer season (Bengali month Jaishtha i.e., mid May–mid June), Jamai Sasthi is an auspicious day when families organise a party and a grand feast, dedicated to the son-in-law, (jamai) to mark the occasion.

12 ‘Koshe Kosha Celebrates its 10th Anniversary and You’re Invited!’, The Telegraph, T2 edition, August 26, 2017.

13 Kasha Mangsho is a time-honoured spicy Bengali mutton curry cherished for its velvety gravy and juicy pieces of mutton.

14 Bati is an acronym coined by joining the syllables ‘ba’ from bangal and the ‘ti’ from ghoti. The bati refers to a person born out of intermarriage between a bangal and a ghoti. Amongst the Bengali Hindus of India, bangal and ghoti are terms used to refer to social sub-groups indicating the ancestral origin of a family. Those whose families came from erstwhile East Bengal (now Bangladesh) are bangals and those whose families originated in West Bengal are ghotis. Both bangals and ghotis belong to the same ethnic category, namely, Bengali.