Like most of us, I spend my free time looking at Instagram reels. During one such Instagram spree, I came across a video with a caption that read ‘cooking authentic traditional food’. My curiosity led me to move from one reel to another and I realized soon that this is a very much used phrase on Instagram. I started thinking about the meaning behind these images and videos. Perhaps the fact that I was teaching Roland Barthes to my students prompted this. I started seeing ‘signs’ and ‘meanings’ everywhere.
There is something very striking about these videos. The setting is natural, with a lot of greenery. These reels begin with the cook – most often a woman, who plucks fresh ingredients like vegetables and fruits from the plants around her. The focus is on the natural procurement of the ingredients. She then sets to prepare for cooking the dish. In the preparation process, electronic instruments like mixer grinders are not used to grind spices. Instead, more ‘traditional’ items like the grinding stone are used. The food is then served either on banana leaf plates or ‘traditional’ cutlery.
These reels and photos are then shared with captions and hashtags like #eatorganic, #growyourownfood, #eatingtraditionalfood, etc. Instagram videos have become a way to practice ‘gastro nostalgia’ (Srinivas 2006) and reminisce about the way food was consumed in the past. There is an attempt at recreating the past.
It is also not surprising that the women who prepare and cook food in these videos are mostly dressed in traditional attires like sarees, mekhela sadors and rigu rikhaosas. The portrayal of women in traditional attires creates an association between gender and tradition. In most cases, women are seen as the bearers or gatekeepers of tradition and both dressing appropriately and cooking are seen as traditionally feminine activities (Dube 1998). Women are expected to perform these activities without complaining, as they are considered to be ‘natural’ for them. The Instagram videos portray exactly that – smiling, happy women who love cooking.
The sartorial choices and overall look of these women are striking. They are aesthetically pleasing, which is very much in contrast to how cooking happens in real life. It is a laborious task that involves getting tired and dirty. In fact, it is often said that people who cook regularly have rough hands with marks and burns. But the women in the Instagram visuals are dressed up, wear make-up, ‘look happy’ and smile throughout the processes of preparation and cooking.
One can only think of the contrasting images of women cooking food in chulhas (traditional stoves without gas that need fire to be operated). In fact, the smoke that emanates from these chulhas is seen as one of the biggest factors that lead to respiratory diseases, particularly among women in rural India (Goklany 2015). There is a disconnect with reality.
Thus, the Instagram visuals and reels that I have referred to, convey both a denoted and a connoted meaning (Barthes 1977). The denoted meaning is the literal one. In this case, it is the consumption of food. The connoted meaning, on the other hand, is created through a combination of procedures that aesthetically uses the tricks of the camera and the setting. The food Instagram genre is built on the ideals of aestheticism (Contois and Kish 2022). The cooking and the presentation of the meal both convey the message that this is a plate of homemade traditional food cooked and eaten in a very natural setting.
Food is not just what we eat, but also ‘a system of communication, a body of images, a protocol of usages, situations, and behaviour’ (Barthes in Counihan and Van Esterik 2013: 24). There is a difference between mere consumption and eating. Eating highlights the relationship between food, the individual and society – it is not just the consumption of food for satiating one’s biological need of hunger (ibid). In these Instagram videos, it is this interconnection between food and society that is highlighted. So yes, after all, there are meanings that are created and communicated about food through Instagram.
References:
Barthes, Roland. (1961). [2013]. Toward a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption in Carole Counnihan and Penny Van Esterik edited Food and Culture: A Reader. Pp. 20-27. 3rd edition. New York: Routledge.
Barthes, Roland. (1977). ‘The Photographic Message’ in Image, Music, Text. Pp. 15-31. London: Fontana Press.
Contois, Emily J. H. and Zenia Kish. (2022). (eds.). Food Instagram: Identity, Influence, and Negotiation. University of Illinois Press.
Dube, Leela. (1988). On the Construction of Gender: Hindu Girls in Patrilineal India. Economic and Political Weekly. 23 (18): WS11-WS19.
Goklany, Tania. (2015). Smoke From Chulhas: Biggest Killer in Rural India. NDTV. 19th August 2015. https://sites.ndtv.com/breathe-clean/smoke-from-chulahs-biggest-killer-in-rural-india
Srinivas, Tulasi. (2006). ‘As Mother Made It’: The Cosmopolitan Indian Family, ‘Authentic’ Food and the Construction of Cultural Utopia. International Journal of Sociology of the Family. 32 (2): 191-221. International Journals.