Call for Chapters in an Edited Volume:

Since time immemorial, culinary culture, the politics abounding in the kitchen space, and the practice of eating have found significant treatments in the literary texts that we, as readers, encounter every day. It is undeniable that in recent years, a spate of literature concerning culinary practices, habits of eating, and tracing family history through shared recipes has emerged to dominate the scenario of popular taste and critical reception. While talking about the opposition between vowel and consonant in a language, the structuralist thinker, Claude Lévi-Strauss makes a very interesting statement, where, he identifies similar traits in our eating practices which also act as viable medium of communication. This judgment by Strauss leads one to revise any one-sided perception which quite often limits food to an umbrella term for several ingredients that are consumed for the sustenance of living bodies. A serious rethinking on food shows how it acts as a system which is intertwined with several social structures and institutions like class, caste, gender, religion and so on. It is striking to note that the kitchen may exist in the innermost quarters of several households and is customarily identified as a private space whose sanctity needs to be preserved; however, cooking and eating practices are dictated by the larger socio-political and economic scenario which undergo transformation with time. For instance, hundred years back in Bengal, joint families demanded large kitchen space, huge cooking vessels and more helping hands due to lack of modern gadgets. With the advent of neoliberal economy and rise of private sectors that led to the mushrooming of nuclear families, two or three bedroom flats can afford very limited space for kitchen, where human attendants have been replaced by powerful gadgets. Again, this gadget dominated modular kitchen space demands immense financial investment. Hence, the kitchen space, its design as well as the culinary practices reveal a lot about an individual/a family, it’s class position, geographical location, occupation, educational background, cultural taste and refinement and innumerable other factors that shape one’s identity(s). Thus, culinary experiences, eating practices, documenting food memories are also informed by the politics of self-fashioning and should not be dismissed as matters of no consequence. Roland Barthes in his work “Towards a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption” has attempted a comparative analysis of sugar consumption in America and France and inferred, “Sugar is not just a foodstuff, even when it is used in conjunction with other foods; it is, if you will, an “attitude”, bound to certain usages, certain “protocols,” that have to do with more than food”. Food consumption can, therefore, be longer regarded as apolitical and solely a matter of personal choice. Rather, it is riveted to the politics of framing one’s identity which also inform inheritance and preservation of family recipes, aestheticizing some edibles over another, abhorring certain dishes, and endorsing certain eating practices to underline sense of belonging to a particular family/community/nation. Recent food narratives have extended their scope beyond collecting and documenting recipes. Even if they choose to do so, recipes are always accompanied by stories about the family, the place, and the time. Thus, food has become complex archive of several narratives.

The present volume seeks to collate writings about the food cultures of moffusil towns in India. While the food history and cultures of the major cities in India such as Kolkata, Delhi, and Bombay have received ample critical attention, the mofussil towns and their food cultures have remained in the fringes. Quiet often, we come across the dominance of a myopic perception which identifies the capital city as the sole representative of a state and its food culture. For instance, West Bengal is known by rosogolla or sweet curd whereas Monda from towns like Kirnahar in the district of Birbhum or Chhanabora from the towns of Murshidabad become obscure day by day. This volume would attempt to underline the significance of preserving food cultures, involving culinary traditions, food memories and eating practices, of the moffusil towns in India and how they are informed by several crucial factors like topography, demography, climate, religious rituals and socio-economic cultural life.

Abstracts related to the following sub themes are invited:

• Culinary cultures and Eating Practices in Indian mofussil towns
• Documenting rituals and food cultures in Indian mofussil towns
• Food cultures among the tribal communities in the Indian mofussil towns
• Street-Food cultures in Indian mofussil towns
• Traditional recipes and oral narratives about food in Indian mofussil towns
• Food memoirs and voices from Indian mofussil towns

Requesting you to send your abstracts of 300-400 words through email to diya6r@gmail.com by 20th April, 2026. AI and plagiarized contents will be rejected. Preliminary conversation with Speaking Tiger, a leading Indian publisher of books on Food History, has been initiated regarding the publication of this volume.

Important Dates:

Submission of Abstracts: 20th April, 2026

Acceptance of Abstracts: 10th May, 2026

Submission of full chapter: 31st October, 2026