Paper short abstract:

In traditional India, what and how people ate was inseparable from their religion, life-cycle stages, town and region, caste and / or social status, family traditions, health concerns, and spiritual beliefs.

Paper long abstract:

Food is a product and mirror of the organized society on both the broadest and most intimate levels. It connects too many kinds of behaviour and is endlessly meaningful. Food is a prism that absorbs and reflects a host of cultural phenomena. Though the cardinal principle of food habits and food consumption is to provide survival to human beings, their uses vary from group to group. Moreover, food is intimately bounds with health in local culture. Food in folk medicine has special properties.The subcontinents many religions have their own rules and preferences about what is and what is not acceptable to eat, and within each religion there area myriad of sects and subgroups with their own culinary attitudes. The avoidance of certain foods is prevalent in all communities and is especially marked in Hinduism, Jainism, and Islam. Fasting is also a part of most religions.

Keeping all these points in mind, this paper tries to focus on the attitudes and cultural practices of food among rural dalit Tamil communities of Puducherry.