Food and identity: the sentimental stuff

For all that wider social and cultural processes, such as globalisation and commercialisation, have a part to play in shaping the links between food and identity (see my last post), for now I want to focus on the part we can all relate to: childhood memories, nostalgia, family connections and traditional values.

The unit we did on food, memory and identity for the MA Anthropology of Food was one of my favourite topics and has become the main focus of my studies. The core readings we did for that unit all touched on migration in one way or another and this is probably why it resonated with me.

I was born in Cambridge, England, but grew up in Sydney, Australia. I have always felt a strong attachment to England, one that my sister, who was born in Australia, does not share. I always felt compelled to come back here. As a kid growing up in Australia, I was proud of my English heritage. In some respects it defined me, or I wanted it to. I was sad when I returned to England and people told me I had an Australian accent.

Food was an important part of my childhood visits to the UK. I looked forward to my grandfather’s apple puree made from apples grown in his back garden, the toffees he used to hide at the top of the cupboard just out of reach, Waitrose smoked salmon pate and spaghetti hoops. I also had an unhealthy obsession with English junk food and I loved taking back things for my friends that you couldn’t get in Australia.

Thankfully, I left that obsession behind in my teenage years, as I came to appreciate the wonderful diversity of food that Sydney has to offer. When I first moved back to Cambridge on my gap year, I was disappointed with the lack of variety and often poor quality of the food. In particular, I missed the pungency and vibrance of good South-East Asian cuisine and the freshness and range of seafood available in Sydney. I love cooking, but getting the right ingredients in Cambridge also proved difficult and eating out anywhere with half decent food was outside my budget.

Now, thirteen years later, I live in London, a city that has woken up to the possibilities of good food, diversity and accessibility. I still have my Mum bring my favourite chilli sauce over when she visits from Australia but, for the most part, I can find the ingredients I need to make the foods that remind me of (my other) home. But I remember what it felt like to long for certain foods and I still feel a thrill when I encounter an ingredient or dish that I haven’t seen here before.

The papers I read for the food, memory and identity unit reflected some aspects of my personal experience and were the inspiration for an essay I wrote on the role of food in the construction and reproduction of national identities amongst migrants. In the essay, I look at how migrant foodways tend to be influenced both by the country of origin and by the new context. I argue that food is used consciously by migrants in constructing their identities, both as a marker of difference and as a way to assimilate with the new culture.

Food takes on a particularly significant role in the context of exile. Monica Janowski (2012a) focuses on seven Polish women who were deported from the eastern borderlands of Poland by the Soviet Union in 1940. They each had different journeys, via Russia, the Middle-East and Africa, before ending up in London in the late 1940s.

Polish food and foodways played an integral role in maintaining a sense of ‘Polishness’ among these women. Family was an important part of Polish identity, but even more so in the context of deportation. Sharing a meal with family, as well as the structure of meal itself (what was eaten and in what order) were of central importance. At certain points along their various journeys to London it was not possible to maintain this structure due to families being torn apart and lack of access to food; “Family breakdown was seen as mirrored in the breakdown of food habits” (Janowski, 2012a: 334).

In the African camps, where food was more readily available, there was “great emphasis on maintaining ‘Polishness’ [...] and this was expressed through the preparation of foods seen as iconic of ‘Polishness’ for communal meals on special occasions” (Janowski, 2012a: 339). One such occasion was Polish national day when they made pierogi (dumplings). These are considered simple, everyday fare in Poland, but in Africa, where flour was scarce, they were only made on special occasions. There they gained increased significance, coming to symbolise “the kinship of all Poles, as one big family” (Janowski, 2012a: 340).

In this example, food is used as a marker of identity in exceptional circumstances, but it is just as relevant to everyday foodways. For example, Parvarthi Raman (2011), discussing her own experience as a Tamil Indian in London, explains that her mother had to learn to cook from scratch upon arrival in the UK, having left behind the luxuries of servants in Madras. A conscious decision was made not to cook English food, but “Some western foods inevitably entered our culinary lives” (2011: 171). Her mother's cooking came to reflect a hybrid Indian cuisine, as she substituted ingredients available in London and took advice from other Indian migrants hailing from different regions. When Raman went back to India she found that she craved the Western foods that had crept into her diet and she and her mother sought them out as treats. 

Disappointment with the quality of food in the new context is also common. In her study of Polish migrants in Cork, Linda Coakley (2012) explains that “bread has long been a symbol in the Polish imagination for fulfilling basic needs” (2012: 313). Many of her respondents thought that the bread in Ireland was of inferior quality. One person said that she and her husband had cried when they smelt fresh bread on a return visit to Poland (Coakley, 2012: 314). This was even more significant for the Polish women in Janowski’s (2012a: 333) study, who were sometimes unable to get hold of any bread at all. In exile, bread came to symbolise life. One woman said she “dreamt about bread every night” when she was in the Soviet Union. “Due to the shortage of food, the women’s memories from Russia are almost entirely focused on food”.

A central theme in all these examples is the link between food and memory. In his book, Remembrance of Repasts, David Sutton (2001: 74) argues that the sensory experience of food endows it with a particular power in the evocation of memories. This is particularly significant in the migrant context since the sensory plays a role “in reconnecting and remembering experiences and places one has left behind”.

Coakley (2012) also emphasises the sensory nature of food, stressing its affect on emotions. She suggests that because eating is a visceral and corporeal experience, it has the power to stir feelings and emotions in the body. This, too, is evident in all the examples I have looked at. Ronald Grigor Suny (2006 cited in Özkrimli 2010: 202), a scholar interested in nationalism, argues that emotion is key to processes of identification; “They are stimulus to action; they are fundamental to self-identification, to thinking about who we are and who the “other” is; they are involved in the social bonds that make groups, even whole societies, or nations, possible”.

I have focused here on national identity, but in reality there is no hard and fast boundary. Raman identifies with her Tamil origins - regional, not national, and her experience is shaped by London, rather than a sense of Britishness. The themes of family, sharing and togetherness that come through in Janowski’s case study are attributed to Polish identity, but are important markers of identity in their own right.

The migrant context is particularly pertinent because it forces the individual to think more consciously about their identity, but these themes are relevant to all of us. Marta Villa Rosales (2012: 252) highlights that “Food-related practices hold a remarkably expressive potential, arguably greater than all other daily practices”. Food is not only a way of remembering, but as a sensual experience, it is a way of reliving. It is perhaps for these reasons that food studies are now widely recognised in anthropology as an important tool “in understanding the ways in which people construct their ideas of who and what they are” (Janowski, 2012b:175).

References

Coakley, L. 2012. Polish Encounters with the Irish Foodscape: An Examination of the Losses and Gains of Migrant Foodways. Food and Foodways: Explorations in the History and Culture of Human Nourishment, 20 (3-4), 307-325.

Janowski, M. 2012(a). Food in Traumatic Times: Women, Foodways and ‘Polishness’ During a Wartime ‘Odyssey’. Food and Foodways: Explorations in the History and Culture of Human Nourishment, 20 (3-4), 326-349.

Janowski, M. 2012(b). Introduction: Consuming Memories of Home in Constructing the Present and Imagining the Future. Food and Foodways: Explorations in the History and Culture of Human Nourishment, 20 (3-4), 175-186. 

Ozkirimli, U. 2010. Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction. 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Raman, P. 2011. “Me in Place, and the Place in Me”: A Migrant’s Tale of Food, Home and Belonging. Food, Culture and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 14(2), 165-180.

Rosales, M. V. 2012. My Umbilical Cord to Goa: Food, Colonialism and Transnational Goan Life Experiences. Food and Foodways: Explorations in the History and Culture of Human Nourishment, 20 (3-4), 233-256.

Sutton, D. E. 2001. Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory. Oxford: Berg.

Comments

[Bruce Austin]

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[Today Chicken Rate]

The relationship between food and identity is deeply personal, shaped by childhood memories, family traditions, and cultural values. For migrants, food plays an even more significant role, bridging the gap between their homeland and new environment. It serves as a way to remember and maintain cultural identity while also adapting to a new context.

In moments of exile, like the Polish women in Monica Janowski's study, traditional foods become powerful symbols of home and kinship. Migrants often consciously use food to define their identity, balancing old traditions with new influences.

Food evokes strong memories and emotions, as its sensory nature allows us to relive moments from the past. Just as "1 kg chicken price in Pakistan today" connects people with current realities, food connects us with our roots, memories, and identity.