While giving JC the right to take all the necessary potshots at his favourite bugbears, I'd like to add the following:
* Caste, being a social construct, is all in the mind. We can be part of some group, fall out of it, or imagine ourselves to be superior -- whatever we want. In such a setting, and when recipe books are widely available anyway, how relevant is this issue to the debate? * More importantly, when we define "food" in such terms, whom are we "othering", and at what cost? It reminds me of the past (and the present too), when everyone-who-is-not-like-us was condescendingly labelled as "non-Christians"! How relevant is a label of this kind? * We are quick to label people-who-are-not-like-us in other ways too. So we'd talk about food cooked by a Gawda, but not label food as cooked by a Bamon (whether Hindu or Catholic) or Chardo/Kshatrya, assuming the latter is the norm and others are exceptions. This only shows our bias! * In my view, if we are not careful, the logical extreme of such thinking would be something like this: Caste-based food served at Muzaffarpur medical college http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-09-14/india/28080549_1_caste-muzaffarpur-medical-college-canteen ‘Untouchable’ in the classroom http://www.anti-caste.org/children/ Parents protest 'lower caste' women cooking food in schools http://twocircles.net/2010jul28/parents_protest_lower_caste_women_cooking_food_schools.html 'Caste' cloud over school meal scheme http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-06/bhubaneswar/30118383_1_midday-meal-meal-scheme-upper-caste HUNGER IN THE CLASSROOM http://sccommissioners.org/News/Documents/MDMS_hungerintheclassroom.pdf FN -- FN +91-832-2409490 or +91-9822122436 f...@goa-india.org Books from Goa,1556 http://scr.bi/Goa1556Books Audio recordings (mostly from Goa): http://bit.ly/GoaRecordings --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Protect Goa's natural beauty Support Goa's first Tiger Reserve Sign the petition at: http://www.goanet.org/petition/petition.php ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
