Food for thought: Ama Ata Aidoo's gastro-politics

Abstract

Some of Ama Ata Aidoo’s short stories in her collections The Girl Who Can And Other Stories, and Diplomatic Pounds, deal with arguments over food and cooking. These trivial quarrels become food for thought. The aim of this research is to unveil the post and neocolonial tensions that are created during the re-encounter of peoples of African origin coming from different places and, consequently, different cultures. This paper adopts the idea of “gastro-politics” developed by Arjun Appadurai, who believes that the elaboration of the cuisine and its socio-economic context builds up the capacity of food to convey social messages. The bone of contention among Aidoo’s characters is the food they are about to prepare, eat or sometimes never taste.