Journal of Gender Studies

ISSN: 0958-9236 (Print) 1465-3869 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjgs20

‘Food is culture, but it's also power’: the role of

food in ethnic and gender identity construction
among Goan Canadian women

Andrea D'Sylva & Brenda L. Beagan

To cite this article: Andrea D'Sylva & Brenda L. Beagan (2011) ‘Food is culture, but it's also
power’: the role of food in ethnic and gender identity construction among Goan Canadian
women, Journal of Gender Studies, 20:3, 279-289, DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2011.593326

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2011.593326

Published online: 27 Sep 2011.

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 Journal of Gender Studies
Vol. 20, No. 3, September 2011, 279–289

RESEARCH ARTICLE
‘Food is culture, but it’s also power’: the role of food in ethnic and
gender identity construction among Goan Canadian women
Andrea D’Sylva and Brenda L. Beagan*

School of Occupational Therapy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3J5

(Received 21 September 2010; final version received 15 March 2011)

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Foodwork and women’s primary responsibility for foodwork have long been
interpreted by feminist scholars as a site of gender oppression for women; yet the
gendered meanings of foodwork are complicated when race, diaspora and ethnic
identity are also taken into account. This article examines the meaning of food and
foodwork for Goan women in Toronto, Canada, and the role of food in creating and
maintaining distinctly gendered ethnic identities. Catholic Goan identity, born from
Portuguese colonization of an area in what is now Western India, has few unique
markers of ethnic distinction from other Indians. In this context Goan cuisine takes on a
particular symbolic significance. In this qualitative study with first-generation
Canadian Goan women (N ¼ 13) the gendered role of women in foodwork was seen as
having particular power or ‘currency’ within the family and community, valued for
fostering and supporting Goan identity. We argue that the same foodwork practices that
constitute gendered oppression for women may simultaneously confer a form of
‘culinary capital’ within the social arena of their own diasporic community.
Keywords: gender; ethnicity; ethnic identity; foodwork; food preparation; Goans

Introduction
The first author (D’Sylva)’s family immigrated to Canada from Pakistan in 1970, shortly
after changes in immigration policies allowed the migration of people of colour. She grew
up in Karachi, Pakistan and later in Toronto, Ontario, identifying strongly as a Goan
Canadian. Her maternal grandparents influenced this identity, as neither of her parents was
born in Goa, and it was reinforced by the reality of her mother and grandmother routinely
cooking Goan food, which is distinct from Pakistani food. As a teenager in Canada,
D’Sylva felt torn between two cultures, a hybridity that she did not fully appreciate and
often resented. She wanted to be Canadian.
With age came an increasing acknowledgement and celebration of that hybridity, the
ability to straddle cultures, and an increasing sense of ethnic identity; yet the external
manifestations of that identity were scant: not birthplace (Karachi), nor native tongue
(English), nor religion at birth (Roman Catholic) constituted or signified Goan ethnic
identity. Rather the everyday material practices of cooking and eating were the most
significant, perhaps the only, concrete and symbolic manifestations of an ethnic identity,

*Corresponding author. Email: bbeagan@dal.ca

ISSN 0958-9236 print/ISSN 1465-3869 online

q 2011 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2011.593326
http://www.tandfonline.com
 280 A. D’Sylva and B.L. Beagan

one that was distinctly gendered. Goan food, influenced by Portuguese colonization and
distinct from Hindu and Muslim cuisines, was a cultural culinary legacy.
This paper explores the role of food and food practices in (re)creating and maintaining
gender and ethnic identities for Catholic Goan women in a diasporic context. We argue
that cooking and eating Goan foods are central to the construction of Goan Canadian
women’s ethnic and gender identities, affording food a particular role in community and
familial transmission of ethnic identity even as it provides grounds for a particular form of
gendered power rooted in ‘culinary capital’ (LeBesco and Naccarato 2008).

Goans in Canada
Goa is a small state on the West coast of India that was colonized by the Portuguese from
1510 until liberation by the Indian army in 1961. Because of the Portuguese influence, this
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particular Goan population is distinct by religion from other Indians, a distinction

accomplished through religious conversion rather than intermarriage (Wagle 2010). In
Goa, converted Hindus were given Portuguese surnames, Christian first names and access
to a Western lifestyle, including language (Mascarenhas-Keyes 1977). When the British
later colonized India, the Westernized Catholic Goans became valuable employees for the
British Empire in India and parts of East Africa, migrating outward from Goa in large
numbers.
Reflecting their colonial heritage, Goans today are primarily Catholic and English-
speaking, wear Western dress and eat a diet that includes beef and pork. The contemporary
Catholic Goan diaspora comprises communities in many Western countries, including
Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom (Mascarenhas-Keyes 1977). Goans, like many
other South Asians, came to Canada from India and Pakistan in the late 1960s and early
1970s (Ralston 1994), and from East Africa later in the 1970s. Of the approximately
23,000 Goans in Canada, about 13,000 live in Ontario, concentrated in Toronto (Wagle
2010).

Food practices, gender and ethnic identities

Though identity, including ethnic identity, is more a process than a ‘thing’ to be attained or
possessed, identity nonetheless takes on considerable significance in diasporic groups
where a sense of belonging may be fragile (Jenkins 2004, Bhambra 2006, Yuval-Davis
et al. 2006). A diaspora usually refers to historical displacement of a people who share a
national or ethnic identity away from a homeland (Clifford 2000). In the absence of shared
territory, the emphasis on shared ethnic identity is often intensified. In diasporic contexts,
as in other transnational migrant communities, the purveyors of culture are often the
women of the community (Beoku-Betts 1995, Das Gupta 1997, Kurien 1999, Mankekar
2002), who are perceived to be keepers of tradition and sowers of culture in their families
and in the larger community. One of the central ways culture is transmitted – or
transformed – is through food practices.
The significance of food as a marker of ethnic identity is often trivialized by
researchers as well as by members of communities (Avakian 2005, p. 265). Narayan
(1997) surmises that it is because of the very mundane nature of food and its connection to
women’s work in the home that this arena of cultural maintenance is often overlooked.
Food becomes taken for granted; its association with women’s work reinforces the low
status of foodwork (Beoku-Betts 1995, Fürst 1997, Mohanty 2004). Feminist scholars
have convincingly demonstrated that women’s role in the preparation of food within their
 Journal of Gender Studies 281

families, in particular the expectation that women will fulfil this role, has been and
continues to be a site of oppression for women (e.g. Charles and Kerr 1988, deVault 1991,
Coltrane 2000, Beagan et al. 2008, Legerski and Cornwall 2010, Thébaud 2010). Recent
research in Nordic countries, where social structures support movement towards greater
gender equality, suggest that men are fashioning new identities in relation to foodwork,
potentially heralding a ‘transformation of the traditional relations between food,
femininity and care’ (Aarseth and Olsen 2008, p. 287). In diasporic contexts, too, the
meaning of foodwork may be subverted as it becomes implicated in ethnic identity
projects and cultural maintenance (Avakian 2005, p. 261).
When a group is marginalized by race, ethnicity, language or religion, food often takes
on distinct meaning as a vehicle for transmitting cultural traditions and identities
(Harbottle 1996, Das Gupta 1997, Jonsson et al. 2002, Kallivayalil 2004, Devasahayam
2005, Srinivas 2006). Thus the work of food preparation, in particular producing
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traditional ethnic cuisines, may become simultaneously an aspect of patriarchal oppression

and a source of power or authority (Mankekar 2002). Beoku-Betts (1995, p. 551) hints at
the identity work of women when she speaks of the ‘sense of collective memory’ fostered
through eating traditional foods. When ‘home’ is far away, when daily life is rife with
accommodating others who do not understand your language, appreciate your culture or
support your values, then food in the privacy of your home may have the ability to confirm
the familiar, reinforce belonging and strengthen ties to a distant place or past (Jonsson et al.
2002, Zevallos 2003).
In her study with 11 Armenian American feminists, Avakian (2005, p. 258) discovered
that in a diasporic context women had contradictory relationships to foodwork, using it to
‘transgress patriarchy’ and disrupt ethnic invisibility even as they understood its role in
maintaining gender oppression. She notes:
While most women do agree that cooking within the Armenian community has been
compulsory for women and has signified and constructed their oppression, many also assert
that their mothers and grandmothers created authority and control in their kitchens, which
often became a space where they bonded with other women. (Avakian 2005, p. 261)
For her participants, foodwork was both a source of subordination and a source of power
through constructing gendered ethnic identities. They recognized the subservience
embedded in traditional food practices, yet also saw food preparation as ‘an act of love,
one deeply laden with Armenian cultural meanings’ (2005, p. 264). Similarly, in the
current study we argue that the Goan Canadian women interviewed saw food not only as a
gendered responsibility, but also as a form of power or ‘culinary capital’ (LeBesco and
Naccarato 2008).
Pierre Bourdieu’s (1986) notion of cultural capital suggests that non-monetary assets,
such as cultural knowledge that allows one to move smoothly through a given social arena,
can be resources for social mobility. Such social and cultural assets become sought after,
valued, in particular social contexts. Acquiring such cultural knowledge and resources
may then confer power and status. The value of cultural capital, however, is always
dependent upon the ‘field’ or social arena within which it is located.
Extending this concept, LeBesco and Naccarato (2008) have coined the term ‘culinary
capital’. Though specifically referring to social class mobility – or the illusion of class
mobility – through adopting food practices derived from the upper classes, the term has
potential value for understanding the contradictory relationship women may have to food
and foodwork in transnational and diasporic communities. The same practices that
constitute gendered oppression for women may simultaneously confer a form of ‘culinary
 282 A. D’Sylva and B.L. Beagan

capital’ within the social arena of their own ethnic community. This paper explores such
potentially contradictory meanings of food and foodwork among Goan Canadian women.

Methodology
For this study, qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with 13 Goan women, using
a semi-structured, open-ended interview guide. Women were anticipated to be the main
family food preparers, thus the family ‘experts’ concerning food preparation, with unique
perspectives on the meanings of food practices and their relationships to ethnic and gender
identities. Theoretical saturation of the data was perceived to have been reached on the
most relevant themes during interviews 11 and 12.
Interviews were conducted in the Goan community of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA)
over a two-week period in the winter of 2009. Participants were recruited through posters
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distributed within the community, as well as through snowball recruitment. All

participants had to be first-generation Goan Canadians, 18 years of age or older, having
lived in Canada for at least five years. The final sample of 13 women ranged in age from 26
to 70 years old, with nine of them between the ages of 42 and 53. They had been living in
Canada for between eight and 42 years; most were under the age of 25 when they came to
Canada, though four were in their 30s. Nine of the women were married or living with a
male partner, one was widowed, and three were divorced or single. Eight had children still
living at home, two had grown children, and three did not have children.
Most interviews were about 60 minutes in length with some running over 90 minutes.
Detailed field notes were written after each interview and interviews were transcribed
verbatim. Inductive thematic analysis of the interviews was conducted by reading and re-
reading each transcript, pulling together data related to broad themes such as Identity,
Food, Gender and so forth. Repeated reading of the data in each theme, comparing and
contrasting across participants, led to the creation and ordering of sub-themes and sub-sub-
themes, with careful attention to novel and conflicting themes and ideas (Boyatzis 1998).
Data collection and analysis were enhanced by the fact that the first author D’Sylva is a
member of the Goan community, and thus has privileged insider insight into the meanings
of cultural symbols and practices. At the same time, she remained an outsider to these
women’s homes and families, which positioned her as an informed questioner. The second
author Beagan is not of Goan ancestry, which provided a counter-bias, facilitating
examination of the data from the stance of naı̈ve observer (Pillow 2003, Shope 2006).

Findings
Goan food and Goan identity
Goan food was described by participants as tasting different from the foods of other
regions of India, particularly due to the use of distinctive Goan spices and a unique Goan
vinegar. The most commonly mentioned dishes were sorpotel (a pork and beef dish) eaten
with sannas (rice and coconut pancakes), as well as vindaloo, a pork curry. Other Goan
foods mentioned were a fish or shrimp curry, a particular fish dish called caldene, as well
as xacuti, a type of chicken curry made with distinctive spicing. Participants spoke fondly
of the distinctive taste of Goan food, for which they yearned when they were not able to
obtain it.
Many of the participants ate Goan food frequently, if not every day: ‘There’s no hard
and fast rules as to when we have Goan food. There is Goan food every day’ (#3). Others
also described eating Goan food as a daily event: ‘Almost all my food is Goan’ (#10). One
 Journal of Gender Studies 283

participant described a need for Goan food; when she was not able to eat it – due to travel,
for example – she felt deprived: ‘It feels like I haven’t eaten food . . . But what I meant
was I hadn’t had the Goan food’ (#2).
Though important every day, Goan food was described as particularly important for
special occasions, especially Christmas. All participants engaged in extensive preparation
of Goan food for this holiday. Discussions about Christmas drew out many memories of
making holiday sweets (‘kuswar’), a tradition that appeared to link family, food and
identity. One participant argued that for her making Goan food at Christmas was being
Goan: ‘We get together at Christmas time and we make . . . all the Goan sweets . . . the
nankatis and . . . the neuries and the whole kulkuls . . . And that is what I thought was
[being] Goan’ (#9). Another participant found Christmas food strengthened her Goan
identity: ‘Christmas [makes me feel Goan] . . . I love that whole thing about the sweet
making and the sorpotel making’ (#5). Participants expressed nostalgia, drawing on
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memories of ‘home’ and a sense of belonging. Food conjures up just such memories, and
for a culture so steeped in religion, Christmas becomes a focal point for demonstrating
links between food and identity (Lockie 2001, Highmore 2008).
While some participants spoke of eating Goan food more often as they aged, with more
time to cook and fewer demands from children, for others daily consumption was waning
somewhat due to time pressures and health concerns. As one woman said, ‘Goan food
usually is very labour intensive. I’ll sooner do a stir fry which is much faster and healthier’
(#8). The regular eating of rice and curries, or even meat, was seen as not in keeping with
Canadian healthy eating guidelines disseminated by nutritional authorities. As is true for
many Canadian women, health intertwined with body weight concerns: ‘There was a time
where I could not do without rice and curry . . . then weight became an issue’ (#6).
The adaptation of food for health (or other) reasons often initiates changes in the
preparation of traditional foods (Ristovski-Slijepcevic et al. 2008). One participant
described the changes in her cooking: ‘Now we are a little bit more health conscious . . .
because of things like cholesterol . . . there is not as much butter or not as much oil in it
. . . and then it becomes the norm how to make that dish’ (#12). Such culinary adaptation
in turn raises questions concerning what is authentic and what is traditional (Abarca 2004).
Goans in Canada bring with them customs flavoured by living in countries other than Goa
(especially Africa and Pakistan) before immigrating to Canada. One participant argued
that her mother’s cooking was not always authentic in its flavour, with the exception of one
dish: ‘My mom knows how to make caldene . . . and it’s authentic’ (#13). Another woman
noted that as Goa had a history of Hindu and Muslim rulers before Portuguese
colonization, and now has a diminishing Catholic Goan population under Indian rule, there
can scarcely be an ‘authentic’ Goan cuisine: ‘There are bastardizations of Portuguese and
Indian cooking . . . a sorpotel was originally a Brazilian stew, and then we use the Indian
spices to make it into the sorpotel, the Goan sorpotel. There’s nothing uniquely Goan’
(#8). Thus, colonial heritage results in even the distinctively Goan foods having multi-
ethnic roots.
Nonetheless, despite any concerns about authenticity, most of the women emphasized
strong connections between Goan food and their ethnic identity. As one participant said,
‘You can’t be a Goan and not eat Goan food. No, everything revolves around food for
Goans’ (#7). This sentiment was echoed by other participants: ‘I could never give it [Goan
food] up totally and be happy’ (#5).
The connection between food and identity extended to the broader Goan community.
Several women stressed the centrality of food to community gatherings: ‘It is very
important to the community. They always make sure there is some Goan food there
 284 A. D’Sylva and B.L. Beagan

[at social events]’ (#11). Participants suggested that food is always at the centre of Goan
religious holidays and social functions, fostering pride in Goan identity: ‘At Goan get-
togethers, there’s always food, whether it’s snacks or whatever. But it’s still Goan food’
(#6). One participant described the food prepared for community events as ‘the magnet
that draws everybody together’ (#1), while another, talking about the role of food socially
said, ‘the people are proud of their heritage, of the Goan food’ (#2).
For most of the women, connections between food and identity hinged upon memories
evoked through sensory engagement with Goan food. One participant said: ‘I think it’s
more memories for me. Because my grandmother used to cook certain dishes’ (#9). Others
linked Goan food with memories of home, or memories of childhood. Nostalgia evoked
through food is common for first-generation immigrants (Choo 2004, Thomas 2004), as
the smells, tastes and textures tap into bodily sensate memories. Interestingly, for these
Goan women, what was evoked was not always connection to their birth country, but to an
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ancestral homeland they identified with. It was, as Anderson (1991) termed it, an
‘imagined community’, but one that was still very real for these women, often generations
removed from Goa. Some of the participants had migrated from Pakistan, Africa or
Britain, and grown up in Canada, yet food was, for them, a ‘taste of home’ (Harbottle
1996). For one woman, Goan food connected her culture and her ‘soul’: ‘I want to keep
this aspect of my Goan culture because I think something like food transcends all cultures
. . . every culture has something they deem to be soul food’ (#12).
For Goans in particular, food appears to take on particular meaning, perhaps due to the
fact that other aspects of culture such as dress, language and religion are not as distinctive
to the group. One woman argued that food was the one unifying aspect of being Goan:
‘There’s no Goan music . . . no Goan dances . . . no Goan dress. So it’s the food and the
fact that they are all Goan’ (#1). Food may be an especially salient cultural marker, given
that Goans in Canada come from a variety of birth countries. The absence of other strong
cultural markers, then, may grant Goan food a particular power.

Goan women and the meanings of foodwork

The use of food and food preparation as a mode of cultural transmission was underscored
when participants were asked how they had learned to cook. Most learned from their
mothers, because ‘nobody cooks like your mother’ (#7). Mothers did not typically pass on
recipes, rather women had learned by watching. As one participant said: ‘She cooks, I
watch her, and I write [down the recipe]’ (#7). Another woman had learned in her
grandmother’s kitchen: ‘Food is considered almost a sacred experience in my
grandmother’s kitchen . . . She is a very good cook. But she wouldn’t teach you by a
recipe. You had to sit and watch her’ (#10). The process of learning by watching means
other social and cultural lessons – perhaps less tangible than a recipe – could be passed on
at the same time. Watching how food is prepared, an embodied learning, also creates a
sense of importance about the task, establishing the persona of a ‘good cook’, who is
elevated to special status within the family. Women learned this as girls in their mothers’
and grandmothers’ kitchens and in turn replicated it in their own homes.
The women in the study did most of the foodwork in their households. Men’s role in
most households was limited to special occasions or specific modes of cooking such as
barbequing. Women offered reasons such as ‘I’m home’, ‘I’m faster’, and ‘I don’t find it a
chore’ (cf. Beagan et al. 2008). When pressed as to why women did the majority of the
foodwork, one participant said: ‘My husband does cook . . . I think those roles were kind
of defined by culture. That the woman did the cooking, and the men did whatever’ (#3).
 Journal of Gender Studies 285

Yet several of the women’s male partners did in fact cook, at least sometimes. For many
families, migrating to Canada meant leaving behind servants, thus men faced pressure
to take on more cooking. One participant whose father helped with cooking suggested
gender roles were more entrenched in her country of origin: ‘I am absolutely certain had
we been in [country], my father would have never learned how to cook because of the
gender roles’ (#12).
Nonetheless, the women in the study remained primarily responsible for the cooking of
daily meals as well as decisions around what to cook. They also carried most responsibility
for deciding on and preparing food for special occasions, as well as for entertaining guests:
‘When we are having company over, I usually tend to do the cooking. I will do up the
menu for the meal’ (#4). Another did so as well, but in consultation with her husband:
‘I decide the menu on most parties. But I generally do it in consultation with my husband’
(#10). For these two women, regardless of who did the cooking, they controlled what was
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presented to guests in both menu and preparation. They described this as an opportunity to
display their food preparation skills. One woman stressed that she liked to cook because of
the appreciation given to her for the food. Another emphasized: ‘I know a lot of my friends
. . . look forward to my cooking’ (#3). As Avakian (2005) found among the Armenian
American feminists she interviewed, food can be both a performance and an offering, an
act of love.
The study participants generally described foodwork as part of caring for their
families, but also an opportunity to showcase their culinary talents. Having a recipe for a
particular dish was seen as a source of pride and influence. Some of the women were quite
specific in labelling foodwork as a source of power for women:
I have discovered that food is culture but it’s also power. If you for instance have the only
recipe for sorpotel, you know that when you are offering sorpotel, everybody is showing
up. Because, if I can produce the beautiful food, you will come to my house to eat it. So food is
power. (#10)
This participant’s use of the word ‘power’ suggests that women’s role in foodwork is not
simply one they assume because of cultural gender roles, but also one they remake into a
platform for wielding a certain power within the family and larger community. Food
preparation highlighted women’s indispensable role as keepers of family recipes and
cultural ways, making cooking ‘both powerful and sensuous’ (Avakian 2005, p. 274).
Using the lens of power to view women’s role in foodwork adds a different dimension
to understanding it, suggesting that women have more agency and autonomy than might
otherwise be assumed. Not everyone agreed with this perception. One woman argued that
the term ‘power’ had a very negative implication, preferring to describe food as a tool to
connect: ‘I think Goan women in particular show their kids love by food . . . food is used
to comfort. Food is used to . . . communicate. Food is used as a draw’ (#1). This
participant went on to say that Goan women were ‘preoccupied’ with food and used it as a
form of ‘currency’ within their nuclear and extended families: ‘A lot of the women . . .
think it [their cooking] is what they have to offer. And so food was the currency. That is
what they brought to the family’ (#1). She argued that women’s accomplishments
concerned home, family and food, and that women competed with one another around
cooking: ‘It’s kind of like a corporate ladder but at home’ (#1).
This notion of food skills as ‘currency’ is intriguing; LeBesco and Naccarato’s (2008)
idea of ‘culinary capital’ seems fitting here. At first glance, this concept seems most akin to
a form of ‘human capital’, the value that resides in a person because he or she has acquired
(usually through education or experience) particular knowledges, skills and competences
 286 A. D’Sylva and B.L. Beagan

that have market worth. Some of the participants in Avakian’s (2005) study of foodwork
among Armenian American women echoed this interpretation, describing considerable
competition among women in their community concerning cooking skills. In fact one
woman in her study described the power perceived to reside in foodwork very much in the
language of human capital:
I learned that there is a lot of power in technical skills. That food is like a technical skill, like
other kinds of technical skills. And that there is a lot of power and respect that goes along with
having mastered those skills, and not everyone does. . . . People regarded her [my mother] as
being sort of a very good cook and came to her and asked her stuff about how to prepare things
and asked her to prepare things for parties that they were having. (Avakian 2005, p. 276)
In this way, culinary capital would be simply a form of human capital – anyone could
choose to invest time and/or money to learn the requisite knowledges and skills.
As LeBesco and Naccarato (2008) use the term, however, it appears to be more akin to
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cultural capital (Bourdieu 1986), an interpretation even more fitting if the term is stretched
to encapsulate the type of ‘currency’ ethnic minority women describe as inherent in food
skills. LeBesco and Naccarato (2008) coin the term culinary capital to explore the use of
food preparation and service to emulate upper classes, in other words using ‘food and food
practices as vehicles for performing an illusionary identity’ (2008, p. 236). Yet if we think
of the power or currency Goan Canadian women and Armenian American women
experience through food and foodwork as culinary capital, the term comes even closer to
Bourdieu’s (1986) concept of cultural capital. Cultural capital, for Bourdieu, concerns
knowledge and competence that are accumulated almost invisibly, ‘through a process of
embodiment, incorporation’, inculcated and assimilated ‘quite unconsciously’ (p. 245). He
stresses that accumulation of this form of capital occurs through ‘implicit transmission’,
throughout the whole period of socialization, especially within the family. It is telling that
Avakian’s participant, above, who uses the language of human capital in speaking of skill
acquisition, nonetheless described having acquired this form of power from her mother.
Similarly, all of the Goan Canadian women in the current study had learned food skills
from their mothers and grandmothers.

Discussion and conclusions

This research illustrates the complex connection Goan women have with food and its
preparation. The women in the current study used food to reinforce gendered ethnic
identities; eating became part of remembering their past and acknowledging their heritage
as Goans. For participants, food appeared to take on particular meaning, perhaps due to the
fact that other aspects of culture such as dress, language and religion are not as distinctive
to their ethnic group. For Goans, distinction from European Canadians is automatic –
accomplished through skin colour alone. As reported elsewhere, the far more salient
distinction that participants emphasized was between Goan ethnicity and other South
Asian ethnicities (D’Sylva and Rajiva under review). Goan women in this study argued
that Goan food distinguished them from Indians, those other non-Catholic, non-
Portuguese-connected, similar-looking Hindus and Muslims who do not eat beef or pork.
For these Goan women, their food was seen as a key boundary marker. Being Catholic,
although important to Goans, does not differentiate them from other Canadians. Their food
alone differentiates them not only from other Canadians, but also from other South Asians,
the latter of which is a crucial difference for ethnic identity.
Why food holds such value for the Goan community may be associated with what
Choo (2004, p. 211) refers to as the capacity of food to take us to places we ‘have come
 Journal of Gender Studies 287

from but never been’. The majority of the participants had never been to Goa, but still had
a very strong connection to a place that existed only in their imaginations. Food serves to
fill what Srinivas (2006, p. 210) refers to as ‘gastro nostalgia’ – a ‘utopian ideal of a lost
time’. Food can be a marker of group belonging. For the women in this study, Goan food
was a link to a place and time that no longer exists, as well as a real connection with others
like them – it contributed to belonging. Food became part of the nostalgia these Goan
women had for ‘home’ and its sensory nature allowed them to taste Goa with each
mouthful (Bardenstein 2002, Jonsson et al. 2002, Zevallos 2003).
Yet the relationship participants had to the work of producing Goan food was
complicated. The women were primarily responsible for foodwork in their families and
communities, yet their understanding of foodwork subverted its meaning as solely
oppressive. For these women, foodwork was similar to what Counihan observed in her
study with Chicana women, who ‘minimized food’s oppressive dimensions and enhanced
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its empowering ones’ (2006, p. 72). Because of the diasporic context, and the importance
of food in transmitting ethnic identity, foodwork no longer had a lower status for these
women; the performance of foodwork provided the opportunity to draw family and
community together and, in so doing, gave them agency and autonomy not otherwise
afforded in domestic work. The diasporic context itself gave foodwork its currency,
turning it into a form of cultural or culinary capital (LeBesco and Naccarato 2008).
When food is valued highly for its role in cultural maintenance, then the skills involved
in its preparation may be more highly valued resources. It is not sufficient to simplistically
regard gendered divisions of labour in foodwork as solely oppressive to women. The
Armenian American women in Avakian’s (2005) study were feminist – they were not
unaware of or in denial about the role of foodwork in sustaining women’s familial
subservience. In fact they discussed this at length. Yet they also spoke of foodwork as a
source of power and respect, subverting the usual meanings in the service of distinct
gendered ethnic identities. In our study, the social context of cultural maintenance in a
diaspora afforded foodwork its currency: power.
In closing, this research demonstrates that gendered roles in foodwork may have
multiple, complex and even contradictory meanings in non-privileged groups. For racially
marginalized, transnational and diasporic groups such as these Goan Canadian women,
foodwork may carry other equally important meanings. Foodwork, otherwise thought of as
an oppressive and limiting practice for women, may develop into a source of power and
transactional arrangement; food skills may become currency, culinary capital, a resource
in the construction and maintenance of gendered ethnic identities. The context of women’s
lives is critical for determining how gendered roles in foodwork are understood.

Notes on contributors
Andrea D’Sylva is a Goan Canadian woman from Toronto, now living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This
article comes out of the thesis research she conducted for her Masters degree in Women’s Studies
(‘The intersection of gender, food and identity: a case study of Goan women in the Greater Toronto
Area’).
Brenda L. Beagan is a sociologist focusing on social inequality and health and illness. She is
Associate Professor at Dalhousie University School of Occupational Therapy, Halifax, Nova Scotia,
and Tier II Canada Research Chair in Women’s Health.

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