Food in Middle-Class Madras Households from the 1970s to the 1990s

This chapter considers foodways in middle-class households in the city of Madras in the period between 1974 and 1994. It begins with a discussion of pan-Hindu ideas around food, showing the exceptionally heavy symbolic load which it carries in this culture. It then moves to a consideration of material collected from informants during the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. During this period, Indian economic policy moved from import substitution to economic liberalisation, and, by the time of my last visit in 1994–5, it was plain that major changes in food processing and marketing were taking place. The question raised is how a cuisine which is so tightly constructed allows new food items and new dishes to penetrate and be accommodated, even domesticated, an issue which has been well explored for Japan by Cwiertka (1997 and 1999).