Indian Girl sans Indian Cuisine: A story of culture, food, and family.
I grew up with a curious mind and an open stomach.
From a young age, I was taught that food is the gateway to the heart, mind, and soul, and that to love someone is to know what they eat and why. Personally, I learned to love food through family tradition: watching my mom and grandmother infuse mountains of flavor into their rasam recipe within mere minutes, and smelling the fragrant comfort of idli sambar made by my dad on a lazy Sunday morning. Food was “Good morning cookie” , “I’m sorry you had a bad day”, and “I’m thinking of you”s manifested in their most delicious and hearty forms. To me Indian food in the home became synonymous with my family’s strongly held cultural values of respect, community, and love. Outside, food was used as a cultural weapon to other me, but none of that mattered when I got to come home to a bowl full of Maggi noodles with chili tomato ketchup after a long day.
But when I got sick, all of that changed.
Instead of finding comfort in my family’s paneer tikka masala, I found myself needing reprieve from eating it for fear that my body would immediately reject it. All of a sudden, the smells and spices that were once my safe haven became my body’s personal nightmare. With new chronic illness also came an identity crisis. Who was I if I couldn’t eat recipes my family spent decades perfecting? As an Indian girl, who was I if I couldn’t even eat Indian food?
I was thrown for a loop thinking about what I took for granted: the delicate combination of garam masala, turmeric, and chili powder in every meal, the soft, warm chapatis rolled in butter and sugar that my grandmother would make for me when my mom wasn’t looking, the yogurt rice with mango pickle my dad would feed me when he couldn’t decipher what I wanted to eat.
But my family’s mind over matter mentality didn’t help them come to terms with my new reality either. Any time my dad talked about the idlis he was making for Sunday morning breakfast, I’d grin and bear it, but horribly regret it later. Eventually I had to learn how to advocate for myself-to tell my dad, who came all the way from India with no money and a dream for his future-that the food he was nourished by and that helped nourish me was now the very food that made me unspeakably ill. When I had to tell my grandmother that I couldn’t ever eat her special chapati rolls again, she shed a few silent tears at the abrupt loss of our special tradition, but always made some extras when she came to visit in the unlikely case my body would let me have some.
All of a sudden, my life became about avoiding of the foods I couldn’t eat, rather than about savoring all the foods, memories, and traditions I could and once had. And I became deeply upset-upset at my body for making me lose a part of myself. I desperately craved the food that formed me, and I wanted nothing more than to rebel-to eat the chapatis, taste all of the curries, and remember my childhood with every morsel. But I knew the consequences that awaited me if I followed through. For a while, I came to a standstill, for I’d just recently started loving all that I was in every form, and then..this happened.
But in thinking more, I realized that the way I now have to navigate my relationship with the food of my culture mirrors the way I navigate my complicated identity as an Indian American and in so many ways the two are intertwined. Speaking more negatively — on one hand, my situation gives those who tell me I’m not Indian enough yet another argument to add to their list, while on the other hand, those who think I’m too Indian to be American have been given illicit permission to congratulate me for coming out of the rigid cultural box they’d imagined was drawn around me. But the eternal optimist in me eventually saw a workaround. Different paths-new foods to try and new ways to thrive-were right around the corner. I just needed to figure out how to get there.
Eventually, I stopped mourning what I’d lost and instead looked at what I still had, and what I do is pretty remarkable. I have peanut ladoos that my dad and I eat just one too many of; we have the sweet tooths in the family. I have the chronic illness and allergen friendly capsicum curry my grandma started making just for me. And I have the everlasting love of my family, who is always ready to sit down for a meal.
