• identity
• cultural displacement
• diaspora
• eating
• food
• Jhumpa Lahiri

The entity of food has always been central to life as well as literature.
Food can tell us a lot about the history and traditions of innumerable regions and nations. The emerging interdisciplinary field of food studies examines the connection between people and the act of eating and reveals the complex relationship among food, society and culture from multifaceted perspectives.
The last century has been a proving ground for writers with the aim of developing different means concerning food.
Food, history and literature are destined to mingle in the exemplary model of the writer Jhumpa Lahiri, who offers a completely view of food. As a woman of Indian descent, she presents her motherland's gastronomic tradition; as a daughter of migrants, she witnesses the diasporic world of otherness through culinary practices, discovering their restorative power in a new reality; as a postcolonial writer, she makes her own contribution by providing a fresh perspective of food, highlighting the relevance of Bengali cuisine in her characters' diasporic experiences.
This thesis analyses food imagery in Lahiri's masterworks Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake, in order to demonstrate how food constitutes a constant feature of the author's writing style, serves as a mediator between the characters and their heritage, and represents a positive evolution in the development of hybrid identities. Negotiating between different cultures, food expands the mind to a different way of seeing things.
The first chapter of the dissertation inspects the general background of food in literature and investigates the life of Jhumpa Lahiri and her significant connection with food.
The second chapter examines in detail four short stories taken from the collection, by focusing on the relevance of eating in a personal and symbolic level; food negotiates among the variety of issues treated and demonstrates its huge potential within the scenery of Indian diaspora. The stories of Interpreter of Maladies show how the entity of food discloses deep symbolic meanings and represents a primary medium for exploring diasporic identities which are still unbalanced and in flux.
The third chapter analyses Lahiri's second masterwork, The Namesake, and demonstrates a further development of the topic under discussion. Food overcomes cultural stereotypes and unites characters, supporting them in the gradual development of their diasporic identities; it offers a new space in which memories of India and its culture become evident and considerable for the gradual development of the characters' identity; lastly, the symbol of food plays a key role in the establishment of emotional bonds, revealing how the characters feel about their identity as Indian, American, or Indian-American. Thanks to food, a dialogue between India, the United States, and the first and second generation immigrants is finally achieved.
The investigation of these works and the exploration of their main themes underline how, in Jhumpa Lahiri's writing, the question of identity, a central quest in all diaporic literature, abound in images of food.
The analysis suggests that food is a crucial component in the characters' diasporic experiences; through gastronomic factors, Lahiri has enriched interest in discussing the various cultural aspects, proving that food can be considered as a vehicle for the definition of individual and cultural identity.