Cooking the self: Lévi-Strauss's culinary triangle in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Mistress of Spices

Food is a basic requirement for all living beings in the world. It is considered a significant factor in leading a life. Some people have food to satisfy their stomachs, while others have food to achieve their goals. Lévi-Strauss writes about food from different angles. This study employs Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Culinary Triangle Theory, which differentiates between the raw, cooked, and rotten as symbolic categories within a cultural system, to analyse Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel, The Mistress of Spices (1997). In addition to providing sustenance, the novel’s spices serve as a bridge for identity, memory and cultural transformation. The novel demonstrates how food significantly impacts people’s lives, profoundly changing them and providing a sense of emotional fulfilment. This research paper provides insights into the influence of food on Tilottama’s cultural evolution, from its natural state through the stages of raw, cooked, and rotten.