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People are interesting animals. We look to many things to help us understand our place and identity in this world. We have maps, passports, languages, families, clothes, books and (among so much more) we also have food.
At first thought, we might not consider food as part of our identity. We might have toast for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, soup for dinner and go to bed not thinking much about how that relationship to food constructs, not only your psychical bodies, but also our national identities.
We might not think much of it, but anthropologist Arjun Appadurai does.
“It is the most artificial thing that humans have ever built,” says Appadurai of nationalism. “That seems the most natural.”
In this edition of The Secret Ingredient, Raj Patel, Tom Philpott and Rebecca McInroy talk with Dr. Arjun Appadurai about food and nationalism – food trucks, Maggi noodles, cook books and much more.
