Feeding the city [electronic resource] : work and food culture of the Mumbai Dabbawalas / Sara Roncaglia ; translated from the Italian by Angela Arnone.

Available through Open Book Publishers.

Print version: Originally published in Italian as: Nutrire la città : i dabbawala di Mumbai nella diversità delle culture alimentari urbane. Milan, Italy : B. Mondadori, 2010.

Includes bibliography (pages 205-208) and index.

Acknowledgements -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1. Bombay-Mumbai and the Dabbawalas: Origin and Development of a Parallel Economy -- 2. Dabbawala Ethics in Transition 3. Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust: The Shaping of Dabbawala Relations -- Conclusions: Tastes and Cultures -- Appendix: Theory and Practice for an Ethnography of Diversities -- Glossary -- Select Bibliography -- Index.

Open access resource providing free access.

"Every day in Mumbai 5,000 dabbawalas (literally translated as "those who carry boxes") distribute a staggering 200,000 home-cooked lunchboxes to the city's workers and students. Giving employment and status to thousands of largely illiterate villagers from Mumbai's hinterland, this co-operative has been in operation since the late nineteenth century. It provides one of the most efficient delivery networks in the world: only one lunch in six million goes astray. Feeding the City is an ethnographic study of the fascinating inner workings of Mumbai's dabbawalas. Cultural anthropologist Sara Roncaglia explains how they cater to the various dietary requirements of a diverse and increasingly global city, where the preparation and consumption of food is pervaded with religious and cultural significance. Developing the idea of "gastrosemantics" - a language with which to discuss the broader implications of cooking and eating - Roncaglia's study helps us to rethink our relationship to food at a local and global level. The publication of this book is financed by the generous support of interested readers and organisations, who made donations using the crowd-funding website Unglue.it."--Publisher's website.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Licence. For more detailed information consult the publisher's website.