The commercialisation of Bengali food: insights into caste, class and commensality in colonial Bengal

Abstract

This article argues that the failure of early twentieth-century novelistic, autobiographical and periodical literature to acknowledge or celebrate the novelty and social significance of the commercialisation of Bengali food reflected the deeply rooted caste and class prejudices underlying the dietary choices and literary styles of the Bengali bhadralok (educated middle class). As late as the 1970s, eminent Bengali littérateurs lamented the non-availability of ready-to-eat Bengali food, notwithstanding the fact that a chain of new public eateries called Pice hotels had been serving home-style Bengali food since the 1920s. The gastronomic revolution ushered in by these eateries was more or less ignored in contemporary print literature, with the notable exception of Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhyay’s celebrated novel, Adarsha Hindu Hotel, written in 1940. The failure of Bengali writers to acknowledge the pioneering role of Pice hotels in offering a socially inclusive dining experience in Bengal contrasted with their effusive celebration of the new culinary experiments that created a cosmopolitan eating culture of public dining in the colonial city of Calcutta at the turn of the twentieth century.