Introduction

Food has a huge importance in the Indian culture. As Appadurai Arjun said in « gastro-politics », food has a meaning for this culture. Furthermore, the way you cook can say a lot about yourself and about the people you are cooking for, and the place is also important, they all have their meaning. That is why this is logical that whe find the importance of food in the Namesake which is about an Indian family who settles down in the Massachusetts and raises his family away from India. But in this novel two cultures are opposed : the American and the Indian culture. Actually, Ashima is according an important meaning to Indian food while Gogol is clearly not interested in it. Gogol 's Americanization made him a foreigner to the Indian culture. Identity is the main subject in this novel. Indeed, throughout the Namesake Gogol suffers of identity crisis, because of his name, that is coming from a Russian writer, and his Indian ethnicity which is different from where he lives. Moreover, Gogol 's mother, Ashima, defines herself as an Indian woman and doesn 't want to change this fact, that is why she detaches herself from the American culture. Here I will study food as a national identity by asking what are the differences between « the first generation immigrants and the second generation immigrants? »1 ( as the children of the first generation and being away from India )
First I will deal with the first generation, and especially with Ashima who deeply loves her