Examining Food as Diasporic Practice

Mannur’s article explores the significance of food to her ethnic identity, “Eating Indian food was what made me Indian…I wanted to probe how food forms community in various places where Indians have migrated in the late 20th century” (Mannur, 2). Mannur’s experiences in the US, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea are examples of communities, and identity being bult around and shaped by food. As I was reading the article I was really struck by her descriptions of roti canai in Malaysia, because that’s an experience I share and it was interesting to read a description from a complete stranger that I could identify with so strongly. I have the same vivid associations of the oily paper that the roti comes wrapped in and the curries that come in plastic bags—it’s the quintessential Malaysian Indian breakfast. And I think only a description of food could be so evocative for me because unlike other objects food has more of a bodily connection and presence. Through this fuction food can have a significant role to play in the repositioning of objects, as Lee writes, ““Bodily memory problematizes Cartesian separation of mind from body by shifting the body from being objectified knowledge to a source of existential meaning” (Lee, 219).

De Certeau’s exploration of the significance of bread and wine rang less true for me to a diasporic experience because his article was centred around how the bread and wine in a French household cannot be replaced. These are not fungible commodities, but as Mannur’s article articulates, I think diasporic food practices are more a process of mixing, matching and collaging than having specific traditions and positionings of food that are always adhered to. For example in my family we have always eaten Tamil, Singaporean/Malaysian, and Western food, but there are always elements of each of these different styles of food intermingled. My dad who is Sri Lankan Tamil, is sometimes amused at the way my mothers’ Singaporean/Malaysian Tamil family engages with food, and will point out that even though they are eating the same things no one in Sri Lanka eats specific items or cooks curries in that way. To take it even further, my Canadian cousins eat pittu like cereal with milk and sugar whereas my dad would only eat it with curry. In a way these practices can be positioned as less authentic, or inauthentic, and this is the anxiety Lee explores in her article about Koreans living in Japan. The interviews with Korean residents in Japan who can no longer eat the ‘authentically’ spicy Korean food consumed in Korea demonstrates an interesting tension that is evident in the food practices of diasporic communities.

The formation of diasporic communities around food, both cooking and eating practices is evident in Toronto. Last year I did a service-learning placement at an Access Alliance program called Newcomers Cooking Together where migrant women gathered and shared different recipes from their own cultures and traditions every week. Or, I should say that was the idea behind the group but often the participants would ask the facilitators how to prepare so-called ‘Canadian’ foods like chicken noodle soup, or pasta because it was evident to them that they didn’t share or couldn’t partake in what were generalized national food practices. When the group did prepare recipes that participants were sharing the discussion was often about how they had a similar version in their own culture, for example talking about the many different forms or versions of biriyani. Food then is an important and interesting site of negotiation for diasporic communities, and it holds the potential for both creativity in the exploration of culture and identity, as well as a vehicle for collective memory and community-building in particular because of the many conversations it can raise around authenticity.

Q: Is food an object, an experience, something in-between?
Q: Food is often the focal point of celebrations and gatherings, have you experienced dietary restrictions that then limit your participation in such events? How does this affect the dynamic of a gathering?