Eat what is not (un)popular

Our choice of food is driven by our cultural standing and the social structure we belong to. What we eat must determine our social status, and it does so by telling us about our identity in the society. The dominant food is what is essentially elitist in its creation. The elitist menu is what each geographical region has on its range, guided primarily by what is hugely popular amongst the elite. What is palatable to the mainstream gets popular coverage and becomes the identity of the region itself. An individual’s eating practices play a vital role in determining social status, which is closely aligned with class divisions.

What the poor (or the Dalits) eat every day? The social walls of caste and class are so strong that the upper castes never get to know about the food culture of the lower castes. In other words, the food culture of the upper caste/class has been considered the food culture of the entire society. Come to think of it, the food culture of most marginalized social groups continues to get ignored. Written as a memoir with recipes, Shahu Patole's Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada explores the politics of food culture and how it reinforces social divisions. However, food also holds the transformative power to connect communities and preserve cultural identity.

Like the food culture of Punjab is narrowed down to makke-ki-roti and sarson-ka-saag, and the Konkan region gets distinction as a land for fish, curry, and crab, the Maharashtra as a whole is summed up into puran poli, aloo bonda, and kande poha. The identity of regions is equated to particular dishes, all belonging to the upper-class. In the process, a vast local biodiversity gets missed out. Many traditions and practices are equally lost, and so are essential components of the recipe. These recipes can’t be recreated as these are based on the local products, local practices, and local wisdom.

Dalit kitchens offer an exquisite culinary landscape. The wide variants of bhakri are in vogue but only the generic is commonly consumed - pithala bhakri (gram-flour and sorghum roti), khandeshi bhakri (mashed eggplant curry), varhadi bhakri (coarsely ground chillies and garlic) and many others are often ignored.

Food chronicler Shahu Patole has drawn the rich repository of dalit culinary traditions. Cooking is a time-consuming process, women being at the centre of what finally gets cooked. That is not all, cooking entails a great deal of attention to detail, and warmth and affection. Far from being documented, the cooking practice is only sustained through inter-generational transfer of recipe. What is ignored gets lost forever! Patole has made a pioneering effort to document dalit food culture and history, through the culinary practices of two communities – Mahar and Mang.

Why should the dalit kitchens get such a significance? Should the culinary skills of the poor be counted? What is its use in the social structure? They are probably so far in the social and cultural façade to deserve any attention. Yet, they deserve attention. For instance, many beans are best suited under dry situations and may have multiple usage under varying climatic conditions. As dalits use less oil for cooking, the recipe could be healthy. There could be numerous uses the dalit recipe can be put to, provided it gets systematically studied.

Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada is a book of culture and customs. It shows many culinary traditions as special dishes. There is something novel about their novel food culture. However, there is little doubt that dalit food culture was often ignored. Many dalits don’t acknowledge what their forefathers ate, the deep-rooted shame and guilt continue to disturb them. The process of erasing social history has already begun. It would be rather naïve to assume that the woke writers and bloggers are oblivious to this development.

Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada

by Shahu Patole

HarperCollins, New Delhi

Extent: 356, Price: Rs. 599.

Commissioned by the Hindustan Times, Printed on www.raagdelhi.com on Oct 8, 2024. 

The palm oil’s curse on life and the environment

The story of palm oil is the story of colonialism, armed gangsters, murderous executive, and corrupt politicians.

There are moments in life when doubts on closely held beliefs begin to surface, as truth gets distilled out of social delusion. It eventually guides us to hold our  assumptions to a deeper scrutiny. That is what award-winning journalist Jocelyn Zuckerman has succeeded  through her groundbreaking research, compelling the reader to examine the connections between the choices we make at the grocery store that keeps the  planet under siege. That palm oil’s overwhelming presence in soap and lipstick to baby formula and dog feed is the cause for persistence of poverty and hunger in other parts of world would unsettle any sane mind.

Having insinuated itself into every facet of our lives over the past few decades, palm oil alone counts for one-third of total global vegetable-oil consumption. With annual purchase of 9.2 million metric tones in 2019, India is the world’s number-one palm oil importer. Far from being a boon to the world economy, the multi-billion dollar palm oil business has been a bane instead. Our growing appetite has worsened the situation - more forests are cleared for new plantations, forcible evictions have escalated human sufferings; and enhanced carbon emissions remain the resultant outcome. Despite its long term health and environmental implications, the worrisome aspect is how a lesser-known oil suddenly became an indispensable consumer product? Did consumers really demand it, or had it somehow been the other way round?

Zuckerman unearths palm oil troubled colonial legacy to draw a parallel with its current fetishism, promoted by ruthless industrialization of our modern food systems. With multiple uses and an economic life of a quarter century, palm oil productive potential could not escape the attention of maverick George Goldie, credited for securing Nigeria for the Crown, and quirky businessman William Lever, for establishing oil-palm plantations in Congo, whose disturbing ways of the 19th century continue to loom large over the palm oil industry today. The story of palm oil is the story of colonialism, which is sinister in its present-day design involving armed gangsters, murderous executive, and corrupt politicians.  

Planet Palm is not only a disturbing expose on contemporary ills associated with the palm oil trade but holds unsuspecting consumers complicit in the corporate monopolisation of $65 billion global business. Trade liberalisation has contributed to this inconspicuous consumption, easing crossborder peddling of ultra-processed junk foods by multinational companies. ‘Part of the problem, ‘ explains Zuckerman, ‘is the sort of nutrient-deficient, heavily processed junk that all of this cheap oil enables’. And land planted with oil palm across the developing world, an estimated 104,000 square miles, is land which is diverted from growing healthy foods. Having traveled across four continents, from Indonesia to Honduras and from Liberia to India, the author is unsparing in her revelations, providing disturbing evidences on the world’s most environmentally damaging product – something most of us unknowingly use every day. 

It is an extraordinary work of investigative journalism that will make the discerning reader rush to look differently at the items stacked in its kitchen and bathroom. The collective power of consumer choices  is critical to turning things around as incidences of violence against those opposing the industry has grown – half of 212 eco-defenders reported killed in 2019 were opposing palm oil interests. Such intimately linked are national economies (those of Malaysia and Indonesia) to the palm oil industry that even the governments remain obliged to defend the commodity. What could be more shocking than the fact that France was diplomatically forced to drop plans for a tax on palm oil in 2016, as Indonesian government had made it clear that passage of the law might result in the execution of a French citizen then being held in Jakarta on drug-trafficking charges. Palm oil business is reviving the colonial-era historical horrors. 

Engaging, intriguing and disturbing, Zuckerman provides compelling account of the darkest underside of late-stage capitalism. While there is no denying that our food systems need overhauling, equally important for the consumers is to raise their voices to demand more transparency from the industry. Zuckerman leaves the reader with an optimist note to wean ourselves away from palm oil by using synthetic versions of the oil and convincing companies to adopt no-deforestation policies in their production codes.

Planet Palm is a riveting account blending history, science, politics, and food as seen through the lives of people upended by this hidden ingredient. Instructive and provocative, Planet Palm makes an essential reading for everyone who wonders if our food choices matter. 

Planet Palm 
by Jocelyn C. Zuckerman
Hurst & Co, London 
Extent: 335, Price: Rs. 1,606.

First published in the Hindu on Feb 27, 2022.