SINGAPORE - A line can be drawn from the 17th century quest for the monopoly of the nutmeg trade, during which the Dutch East Indies' waged genocidal violence on the Banda Islands, to the millions of autumnal pumpkin spice lattes sold every year today, said Mumbai-based food and culture writer Meher Mirza on Nov 15 at the Singapore Writers Festival.
Mirza was in conversation with British journalist and author Sathnam Sanghera, who quipped cheekily: "The British Empire began for lots of different reasons - because we wanted to beat the Dutch, because we wanted to trade in textiles. But one of the major reasons is that British food was really, really bad. It was and continues to be, I guess. It was very, very bland - and then they discovered spices."
Moderated by Singaporean poet Daryl Lim Wei Jie, Empire On A Plate ventured into the dark and bloodthirsty food histories in a festival that has so far tended to couch gastronomy in more palatable terms, in terms of cultural exchange and artistry. From the Dubai chocolate craze to the legacies of sugar, the bantering panel kept things seasonal.
Lim chimed in to say that celebratory Christmas dishes in Britain like puddings and mince pies - of which spices like nutmeg are key ingredients - in fact carry a darker connotation: "If you think of them as celebration, you also think of the inverse - the legacies of violence and colonisation."
Sanghera - author of Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped The Globe (2024) - said that many headlines today are the result of British imperialism, from Palestine to Sudan. Speaking in the Chamber at The Arts House, Singapore's old parliament, Sanghera remarks: "This is probably the one place in the world where I don't need to tell you anything, because all the legacies are incredibly apparent. Look at this room, it's based on the House of Commons, isn't it?
Mirza - who has a forthcoming book on the history of Mumbai through food - remarked that what is seen as classic Indian fare today were legacies of colonialism.
For example, the Portuguese colonisers introduced bread, chillies and potatoes to India, setting the stage for the invention of the iconic Mumbai street food vada pav (potato fritter sandwich). But it was the British who - wanting to feed Indian workers cheaply and quickly - pushed it to the masses, she said. What is the result of multiple colonial legacies, Mirza noted with some irony, is now feted as "the food of the people".
But food history is not just about colonial history, said Mirza: "What I wanted to do with my book is to de-centre the colonial narrative in the sense that I didn't want white voices to dominate my book." In response to an audience question about dishes lost to colonialism, Mirza suggested looking at what is made in temples today and what they have retained despite colonialism.
Sanghera said that there are also signs of resistance to colonial attitudes towards food. When plantation owners introduced the so-called high-energy but low-cost breadfruit to the enslaved people, they refused to eat the fruit and tossed it to the pigs. Today, however, the versatile breadfruit is a key part of Jamaican cuisine.
Ending the hour-long session wryly, Sanghera said it was the Brits' inability to adapt to local cuisine gave rise to the invention of processed food - now consumed by billions worldwide, for better - and for worse. "(Processed food) is a great legacy of British racism."