Bad Table Manners
Bad Table Manners
Whetstone Radio Collective
How Indian Food Became Frustratingly Hip
33 minutes Posted Feb 23, 2022 at 10:05 pm.
: Meet Rumya Putcha
: Meet Vidya Balachander
: The root of the frustration
: Logic of “cool-ification”
: Marketing Otherness
: Wellness as a form of travel
: Displays of diversity in supermarkets
: Aesthetics of Otherness
: Going beyond outrage
: Question of authenticity
: No easy answer
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33:38
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Show notes
Thanks to the cool-ification of Indian food, traditional ingredients from the subcontinent, like turmeric and ghee, are now repackaged and resold in Western and Westernized markets as if they were “new” discoveries. Cleaned up, minimalistic design labels are often employed to give the familiar and unfamiliar look, and conceal what one can argue is a recolonization of the Global South by the Global North. The U.S.-based academic Rumya Putcha tells us why this hipster Indian food is problematic, while Vidya Balachander, current South Asia editor at Whetstone, helps us unpack the idea of the global supermarket.
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Learn more about this episode of Bad Table Manners at www.whetstoneradio.com, on IG and Twitter at @whetstoneradio, and YouTube at WhetstoneRadio.
Guests: Rumya Putcha (@snailmobile821), Vidya Balachander (@vidya83)