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ISBN: 9781552453513

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Curry

Eating, Reading, and Race

Curry is a dish that doesn’t quite exist, but, as this wildly funny and sharp essay points out, a dish that doesn’t properly exist can have infinite, equally authentic variations. By grappling with novels, recipes, travelogues, pop culture, and his own upbringing, Naben Ruthnum depicts how the distinctive taste of curry has often become maladroit shorthand for brown identity. With the sardonic wit of Gita Mehta’s Karma Cola and the refined, obsessive palette of Bill Buford’s Heat, Ruthnum sinks his teeth into the story of how the beloved flavor calcified into an aesthetic genre that limits the imaginations of writers, readers, and eaters. Following in the footsteps of Salman Rushdie’s Imaginary Homelands, Curry cracks open anew the staid narrative of an authentically Indian diasporic experience.

Contributors

Naben Ruthnum

Naben Ruthnum won the Journey Prize for his short fiction, has been a National Post books columnist, and has written books and cultural criticism for the Globe and Mail, Hazlitt, and the Walrus. His crime fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Joyland, and his pseudonym Nathan Ripley's first novel will appear in 2018. Ruthnum lives in Toronto.

Chapter Title Contents Contributors Pages Year Price

Preview

This chapter begins by discussing Ruthnum’s homeland of Mauritius while diving into the concept of curry as a cultural signifier for South Asian identities. This introduction is framed … 7 $0.70

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This chapter focuses on South Asian culture through eating, cookbooks, and nostalgia. There is an exploration of South Asian food writing and its intersection with colonialism, international … 36 $3.60

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This chapter discusses writing about food and the complex history between ourselves and our culture. Ruthnum explores the differences between travel and tourism, what it means to be an authentic … 26 $2.60

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This chapter explores Ruthnum’s connection to Mauritius, Mauritius food, and the country’s history. There is a discussion of South Asian personalities in popular culture and the … 27 $2.70

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This chapter discusses Ruthnum’s own ideas of identity beyond those he writes about. There is a discussion of the tropes associated with South Asian writers, the categorizations they beg to … 8 $0.80