Alimentary Tracts

"While Swami Vivekananda suggested that Indians needed 'beef, biceps, and Bhagavadgita' to overthrow the British, Mahatma Gandhi demonstrated that vegetarianism, abstinence, and non-violent protest were the more appropriate practices for a spiritualized Indian national movement. By revealing the agency of gastropoetics and gastropolitics throughout modern South Asian history, Parama Roy brilliantly interrogates disgust, abstinence, dearth, and appetite as 'biomoral' categories that transformed traditional vectors of cultural analysis and social action. Roy's book is, unsurprisingly, great food for thought. It yields exquisite morsels alongside an intellectual savoring of all those gastronomic staples that resonate throughout history and literature. Did chapattis leaven the Mutiny? How did salt marinate the satyagraha? And why does the diaspora crave chutney and spices?"--Srinivas Aravamudan, author of "Guru English: South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan Language"