Aastha - Week 9


Aastha Bhardwaj
Reflection Paper 8
Food
One of the best ways to learn about a culture is perhaps through a historical and current study of the food consumed in that particular culture. Food ties together cultural practices, community values and several other important parts of any given nation or state, there are different foods and even different spices assigned as notable influences of a particular community or nation. However I had never actually thought of food as a way of understanding the various class and caste biases pertaining to different communities around us, which is why the piece 'Caste on Your Plate: Where is Dalit Food?' has been one of the most interesting reads in a while for me personally as it shows how the food consumption in Dalit communities is innate to the discriminatory practises they have faced historically and still face every day to the date.
It is an important realization that caste biases seep into every aspect of one’s life, and understanding the same is important. Despite the varied history related to food when it comes to Dalit cuisine we seem to have a basic shallow understanding of the same and go off of what is portrayed in popular media, which is savagery.
A similar importance is placed on the influence of caste system in the piece 'Freedom to Eat', which talks about consumption habits, and their history. The two important terms one comes across are 'Sanskritisation' and ‘Dalitisation’, which relate to the history of beef consumption and talks about how the upper castes traditionally did consume beef as well but with the shift in the up keeping to lower castes, it was given it eventually and considered a part of prohibited foods.  

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