A Runnable Feast

For many people what we are may be what we eat, which is why so many phobias revolve around food. Caste taboos in India often determine what we eat and who we eat with. Now councillors in Italian cities are banning new outlets for foods considered foreign, kebab shops being a primary target of their ire. If authorities in Lucca or Milan are to be believed, a citizen biting into a succulent kebab has some part of his Italianness taken away.

It's not enlightened to look at citizenship this way. Food could be the area where parochialism is least applicable. Look at pizza and pasta, considered quintessentially Italian foods. The idea of spaghetti used in pasta came from China, while the humble tomato, a staple in the preparation of both pizza and pasta, came from Peru and Mexico. Hernando Cortez, the Spanish conquistador, brought the tomato from Mexico to Spain, from where it moved to Italy. The range of foods made available by the discovery of the New World is astonishing. It includes the tomato, the potato and the chilli. Indian food, which relies heavily on these staples, wouldn't have been what it is had the Spanish and Portuguese not journeyed to Latin America in the 15th and 16th centuries and conveyed what they found there to Europe and Asia. Or, conversely, taken Indian spices around the world.

Tea comes from China, coffee from Ethiopia. That doesn't mean one can accuse the young urban professional sipping mocha or latte at a cafe anywhere in the world of worshiping alien, Ethiopian gods. Tea and coffee are now universally consumed, as are pizza and pasta. Think how ridiculous it would be if, in reaction to Italian cities clamping down on 'ethnic' eateries, other countries were to abolish pizza and pasta from their menus because of the Italian connection these foods have.

Something equally ridiculous happens in India when politicians rise against 'pub culture' because of its supposedly foreign origins, despite a hallowed tradition of drinking places in India. Thus we have health minister Anbumani Ramadoss, who likes to appear in public wearing western-style suits, pontificating about how alien 'pub culture' is to the Indian ethos. The crudely sexist subtext of this kind of warped nationalism was exposed by the assault on women, in the name of defending Indian culture, by right-wing goons in Man galore. Globalization started several centuries ago, with the trading of spices across continents. It's too late to roll it back now.