Accidental Commensality: Eating, Belonging and Mazaa on the streets of Jaipur

Thesis: Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies’22
Rhode Island School Of Design

A Digital version of the unabridged thesis is available at Digital Commons.
The hard copy of the thesis will be out soon and on the shelves of RISD’s Fleet Library

Abstract

Commensality is more than just eating together at a shared table. "Who can eat with whom and what" is a divisive issue in India, where food and eating serve as functions of inclusion and exclusion. In this paper, I examine street food stalls in Jaipur as sites of eating together with strangers and ask, What forms of commensality do street food stalls enable? Can eating together on the street expand ideas about eating together in public? As part of my fieldwork in Jaipur, I observe the surroundings of street food stalls, participate in heritage food walks with guides, and document oral histories of street food vendors to demonstrate how accidental commensality emerges around these stalls. Using this research, I argue that the features of accessibility, belonging, and cultural memory, coupled with the affective dimensions of street food stalls, create intimacy and a feeling of mazaa that compels us to imagine an unexpected form of commensality through food.

Street eating culture of Jaipur
The Accessibility of Eating on the Street:Belonging & Cultural Memory
The Affect of eating on the streets: Intimacy and Mazaa

Kachoris sold on the streets find its place in the royal court and become a feature of welcoming guests signifies its close integration with the culture, history and life of the city that feeds into accessibility and belonging to a collective.

The unique versions of kachori sold throughout the city instil a sense of place, and uniqueness of the food of the city that builds a sense of belonging and cultural memory shared by inhabitants of the city (Singhi 34).

I examine street food stalls in Jaipur as sites of eating together with strangers and ask, What forms of commensality do street food stalls enable? Can eating together on the street expand ideas of eating together in public? (Singhi 7)

Accessibility that street food creates, enables collective eating of specific foods that create a sense of belonging which is tied to the memory of people.It shows you how access can create a sense of belonging that has the potential to be embedded in the memories of people that operate beyond the physicality of a street food stall…in the shared memory of people ( who understand that sharing a cup of chai is an invitation to belong) (Singhi 56).

It is as if there is a certain magnetic force that attracts people to consume the food on the street that compels them to let off some of the preconceived notions of street food or whom to eat with. The mazaa of eating on the streets then encourages accidental commensality to flourish.

I argue that street food stalls as wall-less spaces enable a form of accidental commensality. This accidental commensality, often between strangers, is created through the features of accessibility, belonging, and cultural memory and the strong affective dimensions mainly those of intimacy and mazaa (Singhi 7).

As places for eating together street food stalls offer a unique sense of collective, belonging and access that is unparalleled from any other culinary experience in the city. In Jaipur right now, new food courts, cafes are being built, overshadowing stalls on the streets.

Street food stalls are wall-less , provisional spaces filled with people that enable a form of accidental commensality (the unexpected and unconstructed ways of eating together) through food. Nevertheless, studying commensality, including accidental commensality, is just the beginning in understanding how food influences social relations. By considering commensality from a new perspective, we can imagine new ways to create togetherness through food.