A Man of Taste

CHHAUNK, BY ECONOMIST Abhijit Banerjee, is an unusual cookbook. Or it is an unusual anthology of essays. You choose. It spans both categories and the combination does not lead to the dissonance it ought to. The essays are divided into three sections—Economics and Psychology; Economics and Culture; Economics and Culture. Under these umbrellas, Banerjee touches upon a wide variety of subjects ranging from how eating manners are shaped, to the role of trust in trade relations. The analytical heft is self-evident because the Nobel Prize, of which he is a recipient, isn’t exactly common even for very smart people. For an academician, he is, however, a surprisingly accessible writer. The newspaper columns from which the essays of this book are drawn have been doling out insights on the social sciences for a popular audience without dumbing them down. Complex issues become homely with a topping of food. Each essay is followed by recipes that span countries and cultures, and they are ones he has cooked himself.

Take the essay ‘One Chineej, Many Chinas’. After we first read about how Chinese food got Indianised from a corner of Kolkata, it tangents to the onerous responsibilities of Xi Jinping, China’s president, in maintaining a fine balance in keeping all the numerous regions of the country under control. We then run into recipes for Steamed Bhetki with Ginger and Scallions, Cauliflower with Fermented Tofu, Dry Fried Beans and Cold Tofu Salad. There is in this case the common thread of the dishes and the essay’s subject. After an essay on gifting and the economics that underpin it, the recipe following it is of sheera. Why sheera? It is just “a gift for the readers”. The sense you eventually get of what connects the food and the articles is intimacy. Banerjee makes it all personal and that is something of a feat when talking about policies and theories.

Take the gifting essay itself. He begins with an anecdote about his great-great-grandfather, just coming out of a bath in a dhoti, when a messenger gives him the news of a birth in the family and asks for a reward. Nothing is at hand. “He apparently hesitated for a few seconds before taking the dhoti off and gave it to the messenger, and went off to congratulate the lucky family. In the buff,” writes Banerjee. There is then a famous study on the wasted value of Christmas gifts because recipients didn’t like them, the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss’ idea that gifting is a daily experience, and how the prasad ofa religious function becomes a gift.

An article on how the prison system discriminates against inmates on the basis of everything from caste to class begins with Banerjee’s memory of being arrested as a student during an agitation and being held in Tihar jail. The students realised that postgraduates were entitled to their vegetables on top of the dal as per the prison rules but weren’t getting it, and so they complained. This was a model set up by the British where the privileged got more perks, a practice that continued into independent India. It was only as recently as 2023 that the Act governing prisons was reformed. The arrested students managed to get vegetables in prison and often it would be bhindi. He writes, “I didn’t complain. I must have been four, and in the US, when I discovered the pleasure of bhindi—dry fried with onion—and roti. It remains one of my favourite things to eat.” It also now became a reason for him to add his Mother’s Bhindi Fry recipe into Chhaunk.

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