Here, I will share my family's food history, how food practices changed over time, and the effects on my family member's food practices according to various aspects like gender, religion, age, migration, etc. First of all, I will share some details about my family. I belong to a Rajasthani Rajput family, and most of our food practices are influenced by our state's (Rajasthan) and caste's (Rajput) culture. I am from Ajmer, Rajasthan, and my father's family is from Ajmer itself while my mother is from Kishangarh, a city that comes under Ajmer district. Both of my paternal and maternal families belong to the Rajput community in Rajasthan. So, the first aspect I can discuss is our family's caste/community aspect. Since we belong to the Rajput community, most of my family members are non- vegetarian. If I look at my family's data, I have my father as the only vegetarian man in both my maternal and paternal families, and he was also a non- vegetarian person initially and left non- vegetarian food for around 10 years. The most common meat consumed in our family is mutton (goat). The other meat types our family consumes are chicken and fish. But these were not the only meats consumed by my family in the past.
In the past, my family used to consume more non-vegetarian food than the present, and also various types of meats, which include Rabbit, Bater (Quail), Titar (Francolin), and Sevli (porcupine). My mom would often tell me stories about how her father, my nanosa (grandfather), would go hunting in the nearby forest in order to hunt these animals or birds.
Every member of the family used to truly enjoy it when my grandfather brought the animals or birds he had hunted home for dinner after the hunt.At present, we observe a decline in the consumption of all these different kinds of meat, and there are several reasons behind it, which include a decrease in the population of these animals, which is a result of the decline in forests as cities are growing. Other reasons include increased restrictions on hunting, shame associated with these foods, like people don't like eating the meat of porcupines now as it is not common nowadays, and the increase in consumption of mutton, which is consumed mostly in Rajput society in today's time. But both my parents used to tell me how the meat of rabbits was also a major part of their non- vegetarian diet. I have also eaten rabbit meat, but only twice in my life at my Nani's (maternal grandmother) house, and I also liked that and just like one of my mother's childhood memories, I enjoyed eating its ears most due to its texture. So, this is one of the major shifts in my family's diet over time. Now, I want to discuss another major shift in my family's diet, the change in the type of grains consumed. When I talked with my parents or grandparents, I always heard them say how they used to eat rotis made of Bajra, Makki, Jowar, etc., and today's generation doesn't even like eating them.
The cereals or grains which my family used to eat before include Bajra (Pearl Millet), Makki (Maize), Jowar (Sorghum), Jau (Barley), Red Wheat, Ragi (Finger Millet), Kuttu (Buckwheat), etc.
Among these, Bajra, Makki, and Jowar were consumed the most. For winters, all families were used to eating rotis made of these 3 grains, as these are believed to help our bodies survive in the winter. Even today, our family eats the roti of Bajra and Makki in the winter, and there is a highly nutritional Rajasthani dish called Khichda, which is made up of Bajra and consumed in the winter with ghee and gur (jaggery).But with time, the frequency of all of these foods in our households has decreased significantly, and wheat and rice have replaced all of these grains in our kitchen. When I asked about rice with my family members, they told me how rice was not eaten as frequently as we eat rice nowadays.
They told me that rice was never a main part of Rajasthani cuisine. But nowadays, wheat and rice have become the staple diets of regular households because of the decrease in the availability of other grains and the increase in their prices.
This clearly shows us how the Green Revolution in India has also played an important role in changing regular people's diets. Apart from these, people in our families consumed Ghee, Milk, Buttermilk and other dairy products more in old times than in today's time.
If I discuss the gender aspect in our family, we can see that even having a non- vegetarian dominant family, the females in our family are more likely to be vegetarian than men. When I discussed this with my family members, I got to know how the girls in our family have been told not to eat non-vegetarian food for various reasons, like being told not to do this because what if she goes to a family after marriage which is vegetarian- dominant. Due to various religious reasons, sometimes girls leave non- vegetarian food by themselves because of shame, etc. For example, my Dadi (grandmother) has 3 brothers and 8 sisters, but all of the sisters, including my dadi, are vegetarian, and all of her brothers are non-vegetarian. This clearly shows how gender affects the food practices in our families.
Some other food practices done only by female members of our family include fasting due to religious beliefs, eating food at the end, and waiting for other family members to finish so that there is no shortage of food. When I asked about this from my mom, she told me, ”Haa aurate sacrifice kar leti hai parivar ke liye” and my nani said, ”Aurata ne to sabka aage piche dekhar chalna pade hai” which means ”women have to look for everyone in the family”. This shows how the females in our family ignore their health for the rest of us and how it is an emotion of sacrifice for their family. We can also observe an increase in food quality for the women in our families during their pregnancy. My mom and grandmother told me that women consume more dairy products like milk, curd, Ghee, etc. and fruits, dry fruits, etc. One popular funny misconception in our culture is giving coconut and coconut water to mothers during their pregnancy so that the newborn child has fair skin like my mom also used to eat coconut regularly during her pregnancy.
The final two aspects that I want to share are religion and migration. First of all, migration plays an important role in food practices, mainly for the men in our family, as they have to move out for studies and jobs for their families as it is a man's responsibility to earn money as per our cultural beliefs. So, in my family I have observed that migration also plays an important role in men being more non- vegetarian than women in our family. If I take my cousins, uncles, or even myself as an example, after moving away to a different city for any purpose, man used to start to eat non-vegetarian food more frequently than the house. One of my Mamosa (uncle) was vegetarian for his whole childhood and a strict follower of Lord Hanuman therefore, he never ate non-vegetarian food, even if it was cooked at home. But, as soon as he started doing the job, he started to eat non-vegetarian food. I also asked one of my cousins, who is studying at a college different from his home city, about the change in the frequency of his eating non- vegetarian food. He responded with an increase in frequency as the answer, and the reason he gave was that there are more restrictions at the house than here.
This brings us to our final aspect, which is religion. It is a common practice in Hindu families to not consume any type of non-vegetarian food on certain days like Tuesdays, Thursdays, religious festivals, etc. In my family, my father also left non-vegetarianism because of his religious beliefs, according to which people who eat non-vegetarian food are not as good as vegetarians, and eating non-vegetarian food is considered some kind of sin. Ever since, he has left non- vegetarian food, we are also not allowed to eat non-vegetarian food inside the house even though, we can eat outside the house. He also suggests we should leave the non-vegetarian food as it is not good for us because of religious beliefs and he says, “Samaj mai shakahari logo ki hi jyada izzat hoti hai”. This is a clear example, of how Sanskritization (which refers to the process by which people seek 'upward' mobility in the social hierarchy) has also shaped the food practices of people in our family, as vegetarian people are seen with more respect in society than non-vegetarian people.
Another food practice or ritual that can be related to religion or caste is the Bali (sacrifice of an animal to god). In our Rajput culture, it is a common tradition to take Bali of a goat as an offering to Chamunda Devi, a form or avatar of Goddess Mahakali. In this ritual, a person performs it for his good well- being or as a gift to god if something good or lucky happens to them. And then every guest in the ritual is served with the goat meat curry as “Prasad” of the ritual performed. So, we can see the diversity in beliefs in our culture and religion for food. One is where eating non- vegetarian is considered animal cruelty and a sin and on the other side same killing of an animal is considered as a gift or sacrifice to god and then eaten as Prasad. So, this brings an end to my blog on my family food history, where I discussed various aspects like caste/culture, gender, age, agroecology of my region, emotions, migration, religion, etc. that affect the food practices of the people in my family and around me.