Dalit Cuisine Explored Through Personal History and Artistic Projects

Suraj Yengde reflects on his childhood experiences with Dalit food, describing a budget-conscious household where meals were carefully rationed and ingredients like Amul-brand butter were rare luxuries. His mother's minimalist cooking techniques included dry chutneys without oil and simple jowar roti made with just flour, water, and salt. The family's diet was primarily carb-intensive with protein from beef, mutton, chicken, and eggs, eaten functionally for nutrition. Yengde, now an academic based in Cambridge, MA, has transitioned to a more sedentary lifestyle in the US but returns to his mother's recipes for health reasons. He identifies Dalit cuisine as a twenty-first-century diet that uses locally sourced ingredients and consumes all parts of animals, including connective tissues. Writer Shahu Patole addresses the absence of Dalit food from mainstream Indian culinary representation with his 2024 book 'Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada', which combines cookbook and cultural history. Artist Rajyashri Goody's 2018 project 'Eat With Great Delight' intersects Dalit social history with taste, featuring family photographs and recipes as a corrective to dominant-caste food narratives. Yengde notes that Dalit food remains largely absent from Indian restaurants abroad, which typically reflect elite caste cuisine rather than the eating habits of most Indians.