Proceedings of the International Conference on Emerging Food Studies: Intersections of Culture, Science and Sustainability (ICEFS 2026)

International Conference on Emerging Food Studies: Intersections of Culture, Science and Sustainability (ICEFS 2026)

📍Jaipur, India🗓️ 9-10 January 2026
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Spoons, Smells, and Silences: Culinary Memory and the Gendered Kitchen in Contemporary Indian Women’s Memoirs

Authors
P. Dhanya1, *
1Research Scholar, Department of English, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, 683574, Kerala, India
*Corresponding author. Email: dhanyaparuthipully02@gmail.com
Corresponding Author
P. Dhanya
Available Online 30 June 2026.
DOI
10.2991/978-2-38476-583-6_32How to use a DOI?
Keywords
Culinary memoir; feminist food studies; domestic space; sensory memory; Indian women writers; gastrocriticism
Abstract

This paper examines how contemporary Indian women’s culinary memoirs—particularly those published after 2020—deploy food as a narrative and mnemonic device to reframe domestic spaces and gendered experiences. Focusing on Masala Memsahib (2022) by Karen Anand and Fabulous Feasts, Fables and Family (2024) by Tabinda Jalil Burney, the study argues that recipes function not only as gastronomic instructions but also as affective archives that preserve personal histories, familial inheritances, and intergenerational silences. Drawing on Hélène Cixous’s concept of écriture féminine, Carolyn Korsmeyer’s aesthetics of taste, and Arjun Appadurai’s anthropology of food, the paper positions these works as examples of gastrofeminist storytelling that reimagine the kitchen as both archive and atelier.

Copyright
© 2026 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the International Conference on Emerging Food Studies: Intersections of Culture, Science and Sustainability (ICEFS 2026)
Series
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date
30 June 2026
ISBN
978-2-38476-583-6
ISSN
2352-5398
DOI
10.2991/978-2-38476-583-6_32How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2026 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Cite this article

risenwbib
TY  - CONF
AU  - P. Dhanya
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/30
TI  - Spoons, Smells, and Silences: Culinary Memory and the Gendered Kitchen in Contemporary Indian Women’s Memoirs
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Emerging Food Studies: Intersections of Culture, Science and Sustainability (ICEFS 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 352
EP  - 372
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-583-6_32
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-583-6_32
ID  - Dhanya2026
ER  -