| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Tagore family had as much influence on the fine arts, music, dance, clothing and architecture as they did on Bengali cuisine. Rabindranath Tagore, born after the experiments in the bawarcheekhana (kitchen) during Dwarkanath's time and Debendranath's culture of frugal but balanced nutritious meals, was exposed to European cuisine during his visits abroad and by Jnadanandini, his sister-in-law. In this paper, I try to show, against a background of the assimilative tendencies of the Thakurbari (the Tagore household) kitchen, how Tagore's use of gastronomic tropes was at odds with his theory of internationalism, and how they are used, with their positive biases and prejudices, as cultural and category markers to differentiate Tagore's great binary of the East and West.
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