When you’re serving food, you’re telling a story, says Abhijit Banerjee

Abhijit Banerjee at the 13th edition of the Bangalore Literature Festival. | Photo Credit: Sudhakar Jain

Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee says, “Cooking with joy is imagining food…” If one cannot imagine the thrill of eating it, cooking is difficult, says the author in conversation with author Ruth D’Souza Prabhu about her first cookbook. Cooking to save your life And his new book the camp At the 13th edition of the Bangalore Literature Festival held on December 15.

They were joined by Cheyenne Olivier, the illustrator of both books.

No shiny images

While most cookbooks come with glossy photos of carefully curated dishes, Ms. Cheyenne talked about why she decided to break away from this by using illustrations. “With pictures, they don’t leave much room for interpretation… You know what it looks like, but a lot of times, we don’t have the same materials or the same skills, so you get frustrated when it comes out. Something looks different.”

“The illustrations in these books are less about food and more about people cooking together and eating together. It’s also about where they eat, which could be outside the kitchen or outside the dining table.”

Storytelling

As for Mr. Banerjee, most of his recipes come with a bit of storytelling. “When you’re presenting food, you’re telling a story. One of the things we tried to do was weave the recipes into stories taken from my life. All the essays came with a little reminiscence and discussion of social issues.

Asked about the challenges of writing a cookbook as opposed to more academic writing, Mr. Banerjee explained how food can also be linked to social issues. “What’s great about food is that it’s also linked to a plethora of social issues, whether it’s ethnic, different kinds of conflict or migration.”

While Mr. Banerjee is known for his work in economics, which includes extensive numbers and work with data, Ms. Cheyenne spoke of how the process of writing these books was a general departure from this. “I think the point is that it should speak to someone like me who has no training in economics but is still interested in economics.”

Measure by ear

Cooking to save your life It’s all about practicality even if some of the methods seem quite disgusting, for example, cutting an onion by measuring it with the size of your earlobe. “I don’t think it’s silly; I think it’s practical. Nobody knows what a quarter teaspoon is. We don’t need to pretend it’s some deep science every step of the way.”

Asked about globalization and its impact on food, where foods are subject to abuse, Mr. Banerjee says that he thinks it is difficult to claim ownership of any recipe due to various historical and social contexts.

Part of social discourse

Mr. Banerjee concludes by talking about his new book, camp, which discusses important questions of economics through cooking. “With this book, I want economics to be a social discourse that we should all be a part of.”