Food is indispensable to our lives, but the labour it takes to bring it to our plates is often undervalued and largely invisible. Owing to how food systems are organised, the understanding of where this work really occurs, and the precarious conditions under which it takes place, is obscured in public imagination. To broaden our understanding of these issues, the Local Food Club’s new quarterly theme is turning its focus towards ‘The Labour Behind Food’.
As part of the theme, this Beyond the Plate session will examine the labour closest to our everyday lives, particularly in our own domestic kitchens. The burden of food preparation, planning meals, and cleaning rests largely on the shoulders of women navigating the daily chaos of the kitchen to prepare three meals a day to the satisfaction of every family member, usually the menfolk of the household. While there is a clear, tangible output to women’s labour in the kitchen, it still does not qualify as work from a traditional economic standpoint, remaining unmeasured and unpaid.
The session is centred on The Great Indian Kitchen (2021), a film heralded for how it lays bare the patriarchal structures prevalent in an oppressor caste home in Kerala. Directed by Jeo Baby, it has brought to the screen the grinding labour that women are expected to perform in order to feed their families.
From its representation of the subservience assumed of women towards the tastes and preferences of their husbands to deftly handing the disgust around women’s menstruation—especially menstruating women forbidden to cook—The Great Indian Kitchen calls on us to realise that these nuances are not as hidden or invisible as they seem to be.
This session is open to both LFC members and non-members.
Jeo Baby, Director, The Great Indian Kitchen
Jeo Baby is a director, writer, and musician working in the Malayalam film industry. His film The Great Indian Kitchen (2021) won the 51st Kerala State Film Award for Best Film as well as Best Screenplay.
Vijeta Kumar, Professor and Writer
Vijeta Kumar is a professor and writer from Bengaluru. She teaches Communicative English and Creative Writing at St. Joseph’s University, and writes at rumlolarum.com.
Moderator: Shubhra Chatterji, Filmmaker, Researcher, and Co-founder of SAYB and Tons Valley Shop
Shubhra Chatterji is a researcher and storyteller working across film and immersive theatre. Her work sits at the intersection of food and food systems, gender, identity, and place.
She has created the television series Lost Recipes, directed the drama series Rainbow Rishta, and written New India Lodge, a theatrical dining experience.
Beyond the Plate is an initiative by The Locavore where we engage in meaningful conversations, live events, and dining experiences that look at food beyond the sum of its parts. It is our attempt to narrow the divide between what’s on our plate, where it comes from, how it’s produced, and the deeper stories around it.