Archiving Food, Archiving Power

Food possesses the unique ability to unite communities while simultaneously perpetuating the exclusion of marginalised voices. A critical examination of the politics embedded in our food archives reveals the enduring influence of caste and colonial legacies.

What determines the foods we come to know and consume? This panel brings together artists, researchers, and scholars to explore how social hierarchies, particularly caste, have shaped Indian culinary narratives. Whose recipes are celebrated in history books as authentically Indian, and whose have been overlooked? How does this play out in something as seemingly simple as the power of naming, whether of plants, recipes, or adaptations made for Western palates?