Abstract :
Food is one of the basic human needs. But it also serves as the signifier of and is studied
with a close relationship to the issues like cultural identity, history, gender relations, social
status, behaviour, and intelligence. This research paper explores the subtle and complex
significance of food and cuisine in a contemporary Pakistani author Kamila Shamsie‘s
novel Salt and Saffron in which power, gender, class, race, history and cultural identity get
produced and articulated through culinary negotiations. It will be seen that food, like history
and mythology, has been used to centralize certain discourses about gender and power
relations. Central to the present discussion is the role of kitchen as a space which is used by
the novelist to construct the notion of cultural superiority, gender biases and class
consciousness. Moreover, kitchen is also studied as a carnivalesque space which helps to
resist and subvert the traditional binaries of male/female, master/servant and speech/silence.
The paper further explores the subversive ways in which food and its imagery has been used
to demythologize historical personages and deconstruct grand narratives in the Indo-Pak
history. As the taste of a food is affected by the presence or absence of a minor ingredient
like salt, the novel treats history of the Indian sub-continent like a dish whose course can be
altered by the inclusion or exclusion of minor narratives and details.
Keyword :
Subversion, Food, Identity, Culinary, Indo-Pak History, Discourse, Gender