Morality and servants of Empire: a look at the colonial kitchen and the role of servants in India, Malaysia, and Singapore, 1858-1963
RIS ID
78892
Link to publisher version (URL)
Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2007
Additional Publication Information
Conference Proceedings freely available on-line
Abstract
Foodways is one way of looking at the discourses of race and domesticity in the context of colonialism. It examines themost personal and intimate of colonial relationships, that of the physical nurturing of colonizers by the colonized. Specifically, cookbooks of the Victorian and Anglo-Indian era portrayed colonial attitudes towards servants. Thse publications perpetuated the myth that native servants were unworthy and sought to teach colonists how to behave toward servants in order to uphold the ideals of Empire. Armies of domestic servants procured, cooked, and served colonizers in the colonial household and in the recreational faciliities of the hill stations, clubs, and hotels. And yet for all their efforts, domestic servants i ncolonial India, Malaysia, and Singapore were seen as dirty and untrustworthy.
Publication Details
Leong-Salobir, C. Y. (2007). Morality and servants of Empire: a look at the colonial kitchen and the role of servants in India, Malaysia, and Singapore, 1858-1963. In S. R. Friedland (Eds.), Food and Morality: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2007 (pp. 162-164). Totnes: Prospect.