a pongal thread on tamil food/casteism
a transcript of @ varathas’ (ig) story. check out his photography at @ varathas on ig and twitter. here are some things to consider as we celebrate pongal.
caste is a socioeconomic, cultural, and political system of division. as caste dictates social segregation, it is mapped into our everyday geography. geography dictates what is easily accessible to us and caste organizes food items & habits into categories of “pollution” and “hygienic”.
what does that mean?
“tamil cuisine” has a rich palette of seafood dishes to offer. fishing is however deemed as relatively polluted by vellalars & brahmins. caste dictates that karaiyars are to conduct fishing (in the east, also mukkuvars). thus it also dictates the places they are allowed to live/where it practically makes sense considering their caste occupation. depending on your caste origin, your seafood consumption at home may vary. karaiyars and mukkuvars have higher consumption rates and greater varieties of seafood dishes to offer than other caste groups because of their relationship to the sea, dictated by casteism. caste imposes relationships to nature based on labor practices, thus it creates knowledge and habits that are specific to certain castes. vellalars for instance have lower seafood consumption rates, many of whom have selected days to eat fish dishes. in this case, knowledge about the sea and its livelihoods stands in relationship to caste origin.
so what about a kool? kool is typically associated with fisher castes & thriving regions, sch as the thivus. it’s a practical dish that is rich in ingredients. it uses a variety of seafood that reflects what can be found in a day to day catch at sea. it’s a social event to cook it together that brings together a large pool of people. although the dish reflects karaiyar cuisinr, it has today become largely associated with jaffna as a whole. so much that vellalars will happily call it a tamil dish. despite that it may be “polluted” by by their usual caste standards.
been waiting for the big b? you shall not be disappointed.
we all know tamils (primarily vellalars) including many younger ones, who will proudly exhibit their aversion to beef. they’ll say things like “at home, we don’t eat beef, it’s tamil culture” and often they’ll say it with a hint of pride on upholding this custom. but not eating beef is not a tamil custom (whatever that means). more specifically it’s a caste hindu custom. and awkwardly enough for vellalar nationalists who are proud “followers” of dravidian nationalism, it’s a very brahmin custom.
beef prohibition and the worship of cows (as milk producers) are brahmin customs that have been popularized through brahmin hegemony over centuries. so much so that beef prohibition has become synonymous with saiva/hindu. shaiva hinduism was formed by vellalars like arumuka navalar, who is widely venerated by them as he reinforced vellalars’ hegemony amongst all tamils.
because of caste regulations, beef has de facto become the cheapest meat across the land. its low price renders it more accessible to socioeconomically marginalized groups that lack the capital to afford mutton or chicken and meat. simultaneously, most vellalars aren’t aspiring to brahmin sociocultural codes, thus don’t have to follow their “purity regulations”. because at its core, vellalars despise brahminism not because they despise castesim (as they often claim), but because they want to replace the brahmin with the vellalar. mimicking brahmin customs is their way of attaining that ritual “purity” that hindu scriptures afford to brahmins only.
so when your ammama, amma, or appa, or someone else with that age reduces or fully stops meat consumption, it’s very often linked to attempts to ritually “purifying” their diet. to brahminise their being and culture (= sanskritization).
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it’s kottu time. kottu roti’s history can be traced back to the 1970sin mattakalappu, where tamil-muslim streetfood popularised the dish. some argue kottu roti was brough to eelam by tamil muslim traders from tamil nadu or kerala. the most popular kottu roti versions are today mutton, chicken, seafood, and vegetarian. the orginal kottu roti sold by tamil muslims however was not made with either but with beef (remember, the cheapest available meat). so, if beef kottu roti never made it from the streets into tamil restaurants, where did it go? you guessed it right. this is where caste returns. beef kottu was available to everyone but saiva vellalars. but the largest & most powerful caste group largely stayed away from the beef dish and that makes for a bad sales strategy. at some point in recent history, upper caste-friendly versions such as chicken, egg, mutton, seafood, and of course vegetarian kottu roti were popularised. thus kottu roti was also available to vellalars.
food of course evolves with time. the development of new kottu varieties is of course more inclusive. the question we should ask ourselves is: why did beef kottu, the original version largely disappear from menus. the erasure of beef kottu from tamil’s conciousness speaks to the power of vellalars to define, engineer, and limit the popular understanding of being tamil. if something is inacceptible for vellalars….it’s not considered tamil. it will remain a caste community affair, but not a generically tamil story others will associate with or gain knowledge about.
so is there a single tamil cuisine? no, there is not. tamil cultures comprise of a variety of different caste cultures that are often vastly different. you don’t need to live in amparai to be different to a tamil from mannar. you can live on two different sides of velanai and still be culturally different based on caste differences. the question should less so be what are tamil cultures (note the plural) but who is able to decide what can be deemed as tamil cultures.
since tomorrow marks thai pongal, tamils are, like most people, traditionally an agricultural people. there’s however a difference in owning land and employing laborers to work in the fields and being a farmer/worker. the land may be yours but the labour that renders the land fertile and produces harvest isn’t. this thai pongal, I’d like to remember our “untouchable” ancestors who were enslaved by vellalars (because vellalars up until the 19th century still practiced slavery) and all workers who are forced to harvest fields, the sea, and all sorts of plantations for the profits of others.
