Maggi, a brand of instant noodles introduced in India in the late 1980s by Nestlé, is now not only a popular snack, but the favorite comfort food of an entire generation of young urban Indians. What is the secret of Maggi's success? And what does it tell us about taste and desire in a consumer economy in a deeply unequal society? At first glance, the fast-rising consumption of such “industrial foods” seems to be a familiar story about the commodification of diets by multinational corporations. However, this article shows that the success of global capitalism is not a foregone conclusion when it comes up against nationalist politics. At the same time, the popularity of processed foods is a form of “consumer citizenship” as poor and low-caste people who are discriminated against, in part due to their food practices, aspire to eat fetishized commodities that allow them to belong in the modern, affluent world. And, for young people, instant noodles speak to their desire for agency and fun, challenging power relations in the patriarchal family. This article shows how Maggi noodles are a useful device for understanding how industrial foods transform the simmering broth of social relations that is India's cultural landscape.

While discussions of Israeli cuisine as a distinct cultural field are relatively new, the cuisine already proliferates in media, food service, and industrial production. In content, it reflects influences from a variety of global sources. This article argues that Israeli cuisine arose through the application of Zionist historical intelligibility to diasporic and indigenous Arab cuisines. The result is a cuisine that embodies the characteristic, teleological “ingathering of exiles” to appropriate diasporic culinary traditions. This process characterizes Israel's hegemonic control of the means of narration and the production of a superfluous diasporic Jewish and indigenous Arab population.

This research brief explores the controversial history of the cherry tomato and analyzes its role in the construction of Israel's national identity. Since 2003, mentions of Israel having “invented” the cherry tomato have appeared in both Israeli and international media. However, such claims have sparked outrage on various blogs and websites, and questions have been raised about the veracity of Israel's claims—as well as about the true origin of the cherry tomato. I explore the history of the cherry tomato, tracing mentions of it from the Renaissance period to modern times. In addition, I clarify the assertions of Israeli scientists credited with the development of the cherry tomato—that their research transformed the cherry tomato into a commodity in the 1980s. Finally, I discuss the cherry tomato claim in light of the Israeli government's hasbara (Hebrew for “explanation”) efforts, which attempt to counter negative images of Israel in the international press. While much previous scholarship on food and nationalism has focused on the relationship between the cultivation, preparation, or consumption of a food and the construction of a national identity, the present work focuses on the relationship between the food's invention narrative and national identity. By transforming the cherry tomato into an embodiment of technological innovation, I argue that hasbara separates the cherry tomato from its essence as a food and co-opts it into a symbol of modernity and progress.

The displaced of Sudan, due to both decades of civil war and natural disasters, are disproportionately female and many are responsible for dependents. For those settling in the capital, Khartoum, their livelihood depends on carving out ways to earn money in an urban area that is experiencing tremendous growth from the millions of recent arrivals. When confronted with the immediate need to provide for their families, women turn to a skill universally expected of them: cooking. Therefore, Khartoum is home to a thriving micro-economy of food vendors. By selling these dishes in the capital, they broaden the culinary horizons of the city while preserving their own food traditions. Their growing numbers provide an opportunity for regional foodways to gain wider introduction, adaptation, and, finally, adoption. These same vendors also facilitate a nascent sense of a shared Sudanese identity and nationalism. For established Khartoum urbanites, the definition of Sudanese food (and, by extension, what it means to be Sudanese) expands as street-vendor fare moves to restaurants and becomes more widely available throughout the city. As urban Sudanese overcome their preconceptions and discover a taste for regional cuisines, meals function as unofficial diplomacy during this turbulent time in Sudan's history.