A review by shankar
Be My Guest: Reflections on Food, Community and the Meaning of Generosity by Priya Basil

hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

3.5

Priya Basil, born to a British Sikh family, grew up in Kenya before returning to England as a teenager and then settling in Berlin, Germany. She playfully delves ,in this extended essay/ memoir, in a series of observations regarding hospitality which further stretches into various overarching themes and topics. She explores food as power and writes about women who cook to gain affection of the family simultaneously reflecting on colonial India (her home country) where in 1876 British administrators hosted a weeklong dinner in proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India while an estimated 100,000 Indians starved to death in the same duration.

She also mentions her struggle while growing-up as a Sikh in a Kenyan-Indian community in Nairobi  where she encountered and understood the religious practice of Langar in Gurdwaras, a post-worship communal meal, which foster a sense of equality and community among the human beings. Later, those experiences guided her to work with refugee advocacy groups in Germany. In these quick and short musings in which she goes through the philosophical wisdom of Plato, Kant, Arendt ,Derrida and other thinkers, Basil explores what means to be a woman, immigrant, host or guest through the backdrop of food. 

While it’s an exceptional piece of writing, these conversational snippets touch on a lot of serious subjects such as racism, xenophobia, EU politics, Brexit, Refugee Crisis and Charity.

It becomes quite overwhelming to tackle with these range of subjects in such short book. I think some of the subject matter she tried to raise need further elaboration. I didn’t find that much about food in it yet hospitality was a prevalent theme throughout. 

However, it did realise us the roles food and hospitality play in our personal life and in the broader world at large. It’s a welcoming tale that delves into true meaning of hospitality and emphasises that sharing food is not only for nourishment but a place for unification regardless of our religion, race or socioeconomic status.