Thing is of course that because my mother worked, and her mother-in-law worked, and my aunt couldn't cook when she got married, and both my grandfathers cooked, and my uncle is the best cook in the family but also works the longest hours and hasn't been living with us for years... well, mostly we eat what the cook makes and she's neither a good cook, nor amenable to corrections and instructions. So culinary identity for my family is a bit less stable than in Bengali families where the women of the family cook. We depend a fair bit on cookbooks ourselves, and my grandfathers both moved around for work, and so did at least one of my greatgrandfathers, so there's a lot of influences that maybe don't get noticed? Which is to say Bengali food is fascinating and some day I'll bribe/coax filia_noctis into writing up her notes from when cuisine was going to be a big part of her thesis.
But at the same time, being rooted since 1620 should give you a *lot* by way of tradition, oughtn't it? A lot of American food seems very much a hybridisation to me.
I have only eaten Bengali food at restaurants like, thrice in my life, because I live not-at-home and sometimes I long for it. I always regret the decision later, but at least I regret it less often than my decision of buying momos in Hyderabad.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2018-12-05 06:07 pm (UTC)Thing is of course that because my mother worked, and her mother-in-law worked, and my aunt couldn't cook when she got married, and both my grandfathers cooked, and my uncle is the best cook in the family but also works the longest hours and hasn't been living with us for years... well, mostly we eat what the cook makes and she's neither a good cook, nor amenable to corrections and instructions. So culinary identity for my family is a bit less stable than in Bengali families where the women of the family cook. We depend a fair bit on cookbooks ourselves, and my grandfathers both moved around for work, and so did at least one of my greatgrandfathers, so there's a lot of influences that maybe don't get noticed?
Which is to say Bengali food is fascinating and some day I'll bribe/coax
But at the same time, being rooted since 1620 should give you a *lot* by way of tradition, oughtn't it? A lot of American food seems very much a hybridisation to me.
I have only eaten Bengali food at restaurants like, thrice in my life, because I live not-at-home and sometimes I long for it. I always regret the decision later, but at least I regret it less often than my decision of buying momos in Hyderabad.