Food, Culture and Identity

A story of food, culture and identity

Possibly my favourite cookbook, and certainly my most used, is Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. I can't recommend it highly enough, even if you're not vegetarian (I'm not). I might have mentioned before that I mainly cook because I like eating, and so I'm naturally drawn to the work of cookery writers who are motivated by a similar enthusiasm, rather than home economics or chef training. Madhur Jaffrey is such a person, having learned to cook as an adult so that she could enjoy some of the food she loved.

After twelve years of owning this book, I still find recipes I haven't tried or even much noticed. I recently came across this story in the introduction to the section on corn:

'Corn belongs to the Americas. However, I have been to parts of the world that believe otherwise. On a remote East Indonesian island, where rice cannot survive in the dry volcanic soil, it is corn that is the chief source of sustenance. Brought by the Spaniards and Portuguese five hundred years ago, this grain has been so intricately woven into the island's mythology and culture that locals assume it was always there. The women don mannish hats and dance corn dances in the black earth under the banyan tree, miming the sowing, reaping, drying and even, in undulating motions, the ‘popping’ of the grain. Corn has caused the habitants of older mythologies (such as spirits of the banyan tree) to intertwine with the not-so-old. Corn has entered the islanders’ souls.'

What a great example of a human society reinventing themselves. Through food, they merged their old culture with a new identity. And before we have any patronising thoughts about isolated peoples and what they don't know, let me tell you that we all do this all the time. Modern society exists on a bed of often fictional assumptions. These usually involving concepts or commodities now so ubiquitous that they are widely accepted as fact. Indeed, it is the challenge that is posed when groups of people with different sets of assumptions interact at scale that is causing the so-called 'culture wars'.

Culture

I confess that, being a woman and a bit eccentric, I have never been attracted by the concept of culture. In general, it seems to involve a lot of rules about what you have to do to fit in with everybody else. Through much of recent history, for women that has involved a lot of restrictions, telling-off, victimisation and abuse (particularly if you didn't comply, even by accident).

But we do need it. You can't begin every interaction as if you are interacting with someone from another planet. We have to take some shared knowledge as read. It's rather like having caching on a website. If you called up every website completely from its main server every time you used it, it would be slow and use a lot of energy. So some of the static parts of the site are stored nearer to you, in your browser even, and taken as a given when you visit different parts of the site.

In a similar way, every time that you mention a car in a new conversation, you don't have to explain what it is to the other person. They know because it's part of your common culture.

Ghost Train and a rapid change in identity

My type of fiction

I love fiction that works on many levels. That's why we describe our books as entertaining literary fiction at Castle Sefton Press. The English language is a wonderful thing and we like to make the best use of its expressive potential. That's where the 'literary' element comes in. It means neither 'difficult', 'intellectual' nor 'elite'. Our books are for everyone who reads English.

We love well-plotted stories with twists and turns, interesting characters and humour. This is where the 'entertaining' element comes in. Hopefully, you can read our books just for amusement and be satisfied. That's one level. You might find yourself musing on some overall theme that a book seems to have, and that's another.

If you've read Ghost Train – and if you haven't, obviously I recommend that you do, because if you follow this blog you're likely to enjoy it – you might have pondered on some of its themes. And different readers will find different threads of interest in the book, perhaps ones I wasn't aware of myself.

Themes

To some extent, the book is about how we can retain good ideas from the past and merge them with the best modern innovations to create a synthesis that is better than the old or new on its own. I've talked about carrying things through before. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a balance where we could enjoy the benefits of modern times and some of those things that people miss from earlier days as part of our everyday lives?

But the deepest theme that motivated me to write the story was a fascination with how quickly our societal paradigm has changed. Not particularly whether the old one was better or worse, but just the fact that in my lifetime, British ideas of what matters and how we organise our society have changed out of all recognition. I'm fascinated by people older than me who seem to have so immersed themselves in the new that they have forgotten that those old ideas ever existed, let alone that they engaged with them and benefitted from them.

English Culture and Identity

If you asked people about defining features of Englishness in the twentieth century, you would have probably heard mentioned the famous 'stiff upper lip', repressed emotions, afternoon tea and a just, non-violent society where police never carried guns. That's who we thought we were. And yet if you read The Pickwick Papers, which the same people would doubtless have assured you was quintessentially English fiction, it's nothing like that at all!

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens was first published in serial form in 1836, so not that long ago. Less than a hundred years before the ideas listed above became mainstream. But there are no stiff upper lips and repressed emotions on display. In fact, everyone is quite quick to tell others exactly what they think of them and display a range of passions. There isn't much brave forbearance.

Moreover, it takes place in a society that ranges from unregulated to anarchic, where people take the law into their own hands often with accompanying physical violence, and where venturing outside your home territory was truly an adventure. Dinner was taken in the afternoon and tea in the evening. (The book is a terrific romp, full of memorable characters and humour. Well worth reading.)

So, twentieth-century England seems to have made up its own version of the corn dance. And yet you still read and hear its ideas of 'traditional' Englishness referred to all the time. It's quite a modern tradition.

Madhur Jaffrey

About Madhur Jaffrey's work

There is a food, culture and identity story relating to the World Vegetarian cookbook itself. Madhur Jaffrey is a widely travelled person, with friends and contacts all over the world. She loves food and eating and is clearly very good at getting people to share their recipes! Many of the dishes in the book have attributions to their originators, and often they have entertaining introductions telling us how she encountered or created them.

If you have heard of Madhur Jaffrey, it is probably as a writer and television presenter on Indian food and cookery. I do have several of her excellent Indian cookery books, and the World Vegetarian has many Indian recipes too. But it has so much more. It is packed with authentic recipes collected from North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. They haven't been adapted or standardised and often feel exotic in method and sometimes in ingredients. But Jaffrey is a great translator of food: she can make the cooking and eating of something very new accessible without adapting it.

Restricted by Racism

I was therefore deeply saddened to hear her speak of a kind of racism she encountered in her career as a cookery writer and broadcaster. She had wanted to do many more books and series on different cuisines, but was always told that as she was Indian she could only write about Indian food. White cookery writers could of course write about whatever type of food they liked. A very colonial attitude.

I'm so sorry that she experienced this and that we missed out on all the wonderful cookbooks that she might have created. But I'm also very glad to be able to enjoy and celebrate one book when she was able to extend herself with wonderful results.

Madhur Jaffrey recipes in Ghost Train

Given my liking for her books, it's not surprising that several of the recipes mentioned in Ghost Train are Madhur Jaffrey recipes. I think the second cookbook I ever owned was her Quick and Easy Indian Cookery, and as I remember it made meals made in a one-room bedsit – bed in one corner, baby cooker in the other – much more tasty and satisfying.

World Vegetarian Recipes

• The first Madhur Jaffrey recipe to appear in the book is that for the veggie burgers that Clyde makes for the bonfire barbecue (p.74 for paperback readers). I was thinking, and I'm sure Clyde was too, of the Bean Curd Vegeburgers on p.237 of the World Vegetarian. These would need to go in a frying pan on the barbecue rather than over the coals directly. (I use a Netherton Foundry cast iron pan). They're still the best vegeburgers I know of.
• We don't know exactly what kind of pasta dish Zeno gives Clyde when he is shocked and consequently tipsy after seeing the apparition in his living room (p.82). But I think it would be some kind of short pasta dressed with the Simple Tomato Sauce on p.477. This is the perfect quick, tasty, cheap, store-cupboard meal. (Especially for me, as it's a speciality of my partner and fellow CSP author John Blake, which means that I don't have to cook it myself!) It's also the ideal stomach-lining, savoury, easy-to-eat food for someone 'alcoholically emotional.' I like it topped with some grated mature cheddar cheese rather than parmesan. I expect Zeno does the same.

Other Madhur Jaffrey books

• The Courgette Meatballs that Clyde considers making but doesn't on p.169 are indulgent and delicious. It's one of my favourite recipes of all time. Luxurious enough for entertaining, it's also fairly economical and easily rendered vegan by leaving out or substituting the cream in the sauce. It's also quite an easy recipe if you use a food processor for the grating and chopping. It's on p.41 of Eastern Vegetarian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey.
• The quick Vegetable Biryani that Clyde rustles up for the dénouement discussion (p.218) is based on the recipe on p.171 of Curry Easy Vegetarian. This is one of Madhur Jaffrey's most recent books. I no longer put the rice in the oven but cook it on the hob. Using the oven in Britain today is expensive! I like to serve this with a yogurt chutney. Onion and Mint Raita on p.445 of World Vegetarian for example.

The Indian Banquet

I love Indian snack food: all those delicious 'pastries, fritters, kebabs, fried vegetables, salads and chutneys' that Clyde and Zeno make for the Indian banquet (p.226, paperback edition). I don't make that much of it because it's mostly hard work. Many of the world's great cuisines developed using cheap or free labour – slaves, servants or female family forced to stay at home – and hence could be as time-consuming and intricate as they pleased. But here are my favourites that I would have recommended to Clyde and Zeno:

Pastries

• Cabbage and Onion Patties p.226 of Curry Easy Vegetarian.
• Potato Patties on p.228 of Curry Easy Vegetarian.

These are easy because they use puff pastry, which you can buy, and they go into the oven. Everyone loves them, and they are great for picnics and packed lunches too.

Fritters

There are so many Indian fritters! I love:

• Cabbage Fritters on p.23 of Curry Easy Vegetarian
• Cauliflower Fritters on p.57 of World Vegetarian
• Prawn and Onion Fritters on p.26 of Curry Easy
• Probably best of all, the Fritters made with hulled and split mung beans on p.215 of World Vegetarian.

Kebabs

Again there is a lot of choice, so I stick to easier recipes:

• Baked Paté Kebabs on p.25 of Curry Easy
• Anglo-Indian Sausage Patties on p.127 of the same book
• Delicious Chicken Bits from p.17 of Quick and Easy Indian Cookery
• Zeno's friend's Chapli Kebabs (p.224) use the recipe on p.25 of Quick and Easy Indian Cookery but using minced chicken leg. They are made small and very thin, which makes them deliciously chewy.

Fried Vegetables

My favourites are:

• Buttery-soft slices of deep-fried aubergine on p.34 of World Vegetarian
• Okra Fries on p.32 of Curry Easy Vegetarian.

Salad

I generally make a salad of finely chopped tomatoes, onion, cucumber and fresh coriander seasoned with salt, ground roasted cumin and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Chutneys

Another of my most favourite recipes of all time, and one that I'm sure Clyde and Zeno would like, is the Fresh Red Chutney with Almonds on p.105 of Quick and Easy Indian Cookery. The Peshwari Red Pepper Chutney on p.238 of Curry Easy is essentially the same recipe. Hot from cayenne, rich from almonds, yet fresh from mint and raw peppers, this is truly one of the world's most delicious condiments. It goes with most things, but is especially good with kebabs. I think Clyde and Zeno would also have served:

• Bengali-style Tomato Chutney on p.239 of Curry Easy
• Plain Tamarind Chutney on p.474 of World Vegetarian
• Mango and Ginger Chutney on p.491 of the same book.
• I don't know if they would know the very unusual Afghani Sour Cherry Chutney on p.457, but I'm sure they would serve it if they did.

The main courses (p.224) are Bangladeshi White Chicken Korma, p.93 of Curry Easy, and Fresh Indian Cheese in a Butter-tomato Sauce on p.262 of Curry Easy Vegetarian. I'm sure Clyde would make his own paneer. It's not difficult, and the recipe is in World Vegetarian. I'm not sure what mango dessert Clyde has in mind, but it's probably something like Mangoes Mumtaz on p.334 of Curry Easy.

Cooking our books

Most of Madhur Jaffrey's wonderful recipes are not online, so I do encourage you to explore her books, especially World Vegetarian. Good cookbooks become old friends that are there day-in, day-out to support us in our daily lives. They help us to find pleasure, satisfaction, health and nourishment in one of our essential activities. Hopefully they make it easier too.

If you have favourite recipes from any of the books I've mentioned, please share them in the comments. Or recommend your favourite Madhur Jaffrey cookbook.

Back to culture and identity

The early history of Europe

I've been reading Early Medieval Europe 300–1000, by Roger Collins. It's over thirty years old now, so doesn't include recent archaeological findings, but is still an excellent book. Apart from being short on maps. I have absolutely no idea where, for example, south-western Noricum and western Pannonia were, and it disrupts my reading to have to keep looking things up. (There is a more recent edition, but disappointingly they don't seem to have added extra maps.)

That the Roman army was not made up of people from Rome or even Italy necessarily, but of various peoples from the vast Roman empire is now widely known. In its later years, it extended recruitment farther still and included mercenaries from regions outside the empire. In Collins' book we learn that in the early years of his period, groups of people in Europe outside the empire were equally fluid in what I suppose we now call ethnicity. So not everyone arriving in Britain with 'The Saxons' was originally Saxon, and not everyone fighting with 'The Huns' was a Hun.

What did they think they were up to?

But it's more complicated still, because everyone seems to have moved around a lot, fighting – that they did a lot of fighting is perhaps one of the things about this period that we can be fairly certain of – and groups with names like 'Saxons' and 'Huns' might have called themselves something different not long before. It's not clear where these names and identities came from. And how the people themselves thought of these identities, and what they meant to them, is certainly very obscure indeed.

Changes to culture and identity

What is clear, is that by the second half of the century, those ideas of identity had changed. The names of these groups of people now took on a fixed identity. And frequently spurious histories of them, detailing their origins and distinctness from other groups began to appear. The West Saxons in England, the Visigoths in Spain, the Franks in Gaul and the Lombards in Italy for example, all had such written accounts of their early history and origins.

Christianity may have had an influence on the style of these books, given that the Old Testament is supposedly a history of the Jewish people. What seems certain is that people's idea of ethnicity and belonging to a group had universally changed, and they reinvented history to support that new identity. Another corn dance.

Nationalism

These new distinct groups of people may have had a new sense of identity, but they had no idea of nationalism. It may surprise you to learn that national determination, something that is widely regarded as a human right, hadn't really been thought of 250 years ago. The idea that these ethnically and historically different groups of people that we have seen created should each have a right to their own government and territory had not occurred to anyone as a theory.

So a national identity is not a fundamental part of being human because for most of history it didn't exist. To think that it is is another corn dance. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with national determination if that's what people want, any more than it's wrong for the islanders to eat corn. But one of the reasons nationalism has, and is, causing so much strife, is that it's a fairly new idea that can't be forced onto the prior arrangement of peoples without disruption. (There are other reasons of course, such as colonial exploitation.)

The corn dances of culture and identity

So are you doing a corn dance? Am I? Probably. None of us has complete knowledge of history and who we are. But it's always good to seek more knowledge and expand our horizons. The islanders can know that corn came from the Americas and still choose to continue their corn dance tradition without harming anyone. If they choose to.