Feeding the City: Work and Food Culture of the Mumbai Dabbawalas

Every day in Mumbai 6,000 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. Urban 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.