The book discussed below is not raw, and the quote below mentions,
briefly, non-vegetarian foods (veg-raw folks take note). However,
I encourage you to read the quote anyway as you might find it of
interest.

Title:    The Anger of Aubergines
Subtitle: Stories of Women and Food
Note: Aubergine (British English) = eggplant (U.S. English)

Author: Bulbul Sharma
Type/format:  Fiction; a collection of short stories about women and
food.

Publisher:  Kali for Women; New Delhi, India
First published 1997
ISBN 81-85107-96-3

U.S. Distributor: South Asia Books; e-mail: [log in to unmask]

This is a collection of fictitious, but interesting stories about
women in which food plays a central role. Some of the stories provide
a view into a culture that is different from Western culture (i.e.,
the culture of India), and a few stories provide unique psychological
perspectives.

One thing that distinguishes this collection of stories, is the very high
quality of writing throughout the book. The chapter, "Feasting with a
Vengeance", describes the incredible feasting that leads up to the
wedding of a young couple. A few excerpts are as follows, with my
explanations in brackets [*].

>From pgs. 47-50:
"Now that there were only five days left for the wedding, a fierce
competition began between both 'parties', and since most of the guests
were common to both, each side tried its best to outdo the other.
Manu's father [Manu = groom] became more and more agitated because
Preeti's father [Preeti = bride] seemed to be getting the upper hand
in this battle of feasts...

>From breakfast to dinner each family fed their guests the best meals that
money could buy. The guests reeled from one house to another, burping
and chewing antacid tablets, carrying tales to add fuel to the fire
by praising or criticising each meal. Preeti's father urged his prized
halwai [maker of sweets] to add more pure ghee to his sweets while Manu's
father ordered a magnificent five-tiered cake made with fresh cream
and filled with out-of-season Alphonso mangos [Alphonso is a variety
of mango, of very high quality]. If one party served rabri loaded with
pistachios, the other retaliated with kulfi flavored with saffron.
The palak biryani at the sangeet ceremony at the girl's house was
matched by a huge five kilogram tandoori fish baked with freshly ground
coriander seeds at Manu's bachelor party. Since the boy and girl were
not supposed to meet before the wedding, they only heard about the food
served in each other's house from the guests, who were now beginning
to look exhausted and pale and had to drag themselves with effort from
one meal to the next...

Then came the grand finale - the wedding feast at the girl's house...
They [wedding guests] ate like warriors who had returned from battle.
They ate quietly, with stolid determination, till their stomachs
were stretched as tight as the skin on a drum. Yet they took that
one last helping. They leaned back, bloated and helpless against
the wooden chairs, gasping for breath like fish out of water. They
shook their heads in weak refusal as they were pressed to eat just
a tiny morsel more. Some brave ones took another helping - "a very
small one, just for formality's sake" - because they did not want to
hurt their host's feelings...

And the guests did remember the magnificent feast as they staggered
out into the cool night air, flushed red and weary, avoiding the line
of urchins who waited patiently for leftovers. But only until the
next wedding arrived to erase it from their stomachs' short memory."

Another story describes a polyandry situation, where a woman has two
husbands, who compete to find delicacies in the forest, for her to
eat. She rewards the man who brings her the best treats with sex.
A different story describes a polygamy situation, where a dying man
recalls his many wives.

I acquired this book, thinking it would be true stories providing
psychological insights into our relationship with food. Instead, the
book is fiction and has a strong social perspective (though a few
stories may inspire some psychological views). My initial disappointment
went away quickly, once I saw how well-written, and interesting the short
stories were.

Tom Billings
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