26-05-2025
When patriotism becomes a food fight: The tragicomedy of Mysore shree
India finally has its 'freedom fries' moment. And it is sweet indeed.
After 9/11, an American congressman renamed French fries as freedom fries because France had opposed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Patriotism, it seems, could run deep and be deep-fried although French fries actually originated in Belgium. Even more ironic — it was the Americans who had named them French fries in the first place.
Now Tyohaar Sweets in Jaipur has decided that it will show its patriotism by renaming Moti pak and Mysore pak as Moti shree and Mysore shree. Anjali Jain, its proprietor, told news media they had decided to remove 'Pak' from the names of their sweets and replace it with something more 'culturally resonant and patriotic'.
Jain's motives might be shuddh-ghee patriotic except words actually have meanings. That meaning does not change just because it sounds like a word we do not like. A descendant of Madappa, the royal cook from Mysuru, who came up with Mysore pak using besan, ghee and sugar, wondered how the sweet could be renamed just to suit another language.
This isn't even like Karachi Bakery which had to clarify that it's 100 per cent Indian and started by a Partition refugee in Hyderabad. Unlike that Karachi, this pak has nothing to do with Pakistan at all. It's a Kannada word for a process of cooking by heating, baking or frying as well as the sticky syrup made by simmering sugar and water. The roots lie in Sanskrit. Thus, in Hindi, paag is sugar syrup. In Bengali, pak means to stir and thicken. So, the Bengali sandesh might be 'naram pak' or soft or 'kora pak' which is harder. If we change them to naram shree and kora shree they would sound, quips a friend, not like sweets but new additions to Mamata Banerjee's many benefit programmes like Kanyashree, Yuvashree and Rupashree.
It's not just freedom fries and Mysore pak. During World War I, sauerkraut was named 'liberty cabbage' and frankfurters were named 'liberty dogs' to score some anti-German points. After many Muslims complained about how a Danish newspaper depicted the Prophet Muhammad in 2005, some bakeries and cafes in Tehran started serving 'Roses of the Prophet Muhammad' instead of Danishes.
This year, after Donald Trump launched a trade war against Canada, some cafes there decided to rechristen their Americanos as Canadianos. Of course, the coffee beans came from neither the US nor Canada.
Anyway, Americano was never particularly complimentary. The story goes that American soldiers stationed in Italy during World War II found the espresso a bit too strong. They diluted it with hot water. Thus Americano is basically an espresso with less machismo. Coffee fights often get bitter. When Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974, Greece angrily renamed Turkish coffee as Greek coffee, a linguistic counter-strike.
It's interesting that patriotism so often turns into a food fight as if the best way to a patriot's heart is through their stomach (though in some Indian languages that is inconveniently called a pak-sthali). Food can bring us together. But it's also the most effective way to mark the other. Food bans are a well-established strategy to show one group or another its place in the scheme of things. By renaming a food we think we are in a sense wrestling it away from someone.
Except as it turns out, French fries never belonged to the French. And Mysore pak certainly did not belong to Pakistan. Renaming Mysore pak to Mysore shree in no way ensures that Pakistan gets its just deserts. Or, just desserts.
It's a bit like the Montreal restaurant who decided to rename poutine, the artery-clogging Canadian junk food where French fries are smothered in gravy and cheese curds. To show solidarity with Ukraine, it was unimaginatively renamed 'fry cheese gravy' although poor poutine had nothing to do with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Freedom fries had a tragicomic end. The congressman who renamed it was himself disgraced. The Iraq War lost favour with Americans and freedom fries quietly returned to being French fries. In all the brouhaha, the food never changed or improved in taste. Jingoism just became added food colouring.
Calling Mysore pak Mysore shree might be intended as a tyohaar of patriotism. But sadly it just shows some of us do not know our own heritage — linguistic or culinary.
That is always a recipe for disaster.
What's next, wondered a friend. Should the pakora become a shree-ora?
Roy is a novelist and the author of Don't Let Him Know
