Using English-language and Tamil cookery shows on Indian television as examples, this article examines the complex cultural terrain traversed by contemporary Indian lifestyle TV, and argues that the gastro-politics inherent in such programming is indicative of the ways in which such shows appeal to and develop diverse social imaginaries in a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multicultural society such as India. The article argues that these shows both enact the creative tensions intrinsic to contemporary neo-liberal forms of cultural nationalism and demonstrate the constitutive co-presence of the global, the national and the vernacular in contemporary Indian culture.
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