The modern food industry, from mass-produced biscuits to global seafood supply chains, embodies the paradox of industrial efficiency and cultural alienation. While food was once deeply tied to local traditions and personal labor, industrialization has rendered it a commodity, detached from its origins. Alain de Botton (2009), in The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, explores this alienation through the lens of biscuit manufacturing, logistics, and corporate dining culture. His observations align with gastromythology, Arup K. Chatterjee’s concept, which examines how myths, history, and commerce intertwine in shaping food cultures. The branding of biscuits, the mythologizing of tea culture, and the transformation of curry houses all illustrate how food narratives are constructed and repackaged, reinforcing both nostalgia and capitalist reinvention.

De Botton (2009) details how United Biscuits meticulously crafted its “Moments” brand, not merely as a snack but as a psychological product. Laurence, the company’s Design Director, gathered consumer insights in hotel focus groups, uncovering a desire for “me-time” and “kindly indulgence”—concepts that shaped the biscuit’s round shape, packaging, and name (p. 142). This strategic creation of meaning around a simple biscuit mirrors what Chatterjee (2024) describes in his study of Victorian tea advertising. Just as late nineteenth-century marketers transformed tea into a nationalistic emblem of “Englishness,” the modern food industry constructs gastromythology to imbue mass-produced goods with cultural and emotional resonance. The biscuit becomes more than sustenance; it is a ritual, a moment of escape, much like how Victorian tea-drinking was marketed as a civilizing force (Chatterjee, 2024).

Chatterjee (2022) extends this analysis by highlighting how English tea culture was shaped through advertising, turning a colonial import into a staple of British identity. The transformation of tea into a “fact” of English life” (p. 55) parallels how biscuits—especially Digestives and Rich Tea—became symbolic of British domesticity and social breaks. This aligns with Žižek’s (2022) concept of “surplus enjoyment,” where the real pleasure is not in the consumption itself but in the narratives and rituals built around it (p. 6). The biscuit is not just eaten; it is dipped in tea, paired with emotions, and packaged as a fleeting respite from daily struggles.

Beyond branding, de Botton (2009) explores the logistics of the food industry, revealing the alienation inherent in modern supply chains. He describes the transportation of tuna from the Indian Ocean to a Bristol supermarket, observing that “the plane lands at Heathrow at nightfall. The tuna makes it to the warehouse by two in the morning, revealing nothing to a succession of men in high-visibility jackets about its tumultuous history of aquatic and airborne wandering” (p. 264). This disconnect between production and consumption preempts Chatterjee’s (2023) analysis of London’s curry houses. The decline of traditional Indian restaurants, he argues, is not merely a loss of authenticity but a reinvention of gastromythology—where authenticity itself becomes a constructed narrative, sold to Western consumers seeking nostalgia for an imagined past (p. 450).

In both cases, food undergoes a transformation where its origins are obscured, and its meaning is reconstructed. Whether it is tuna losing its connection to the sea or curry houses repackaging themselves to cater to evolving consumer desires, the result is a shift from organic culinary traditions to commodified experiences. Žižek’s (2022) notion of capitalism’s penchant to thrive in self-revolutionizing (p. 241) is evident in these processes—where food culture is perpetually reinvented to sustain consumer engagement.

De Botton (2009) also captures the irony of corporate dining spaces, where food is both abundant and emotionally void. In executive dining rooms, meals are staged performances, where deals are made over carefully curated “battered catch of the day” and “roast with all the trimmings” (p. 176). This echoes the way Victorian tea culture was manufactured for social prestige rather than sustenance (Chatterjee, 2024). Similarly, Chatterjee (2023) describes how London’s curry houses reinvent themselves not as places of communal eating but as spectacles of authenticity, where the performance of ‘Indian-ness’ is as important as the food itself (p. 457).

This shift highlights gastromythology’s role in sustaining food culture. The meals in a corporate dining hall, like the rebranded curry house experience, are not about nourishment but about reinforcing identity and power structures. The real “enjoyment,” as Žižek (2022) would argue, lies not in the food itself but in the spectacle surrounding it—the illusion of tradition, prestige, and exclusivity (p. 181).

From biscuits to tuna, from tea to curry, food is not merely consumed; it is mythologized, packaged, and continuously reinvented. De Botton’s (2009) observations on industrial food production highlight a world where meaning is constructed as much as the food itself. Chatterjee’s (2022, 2023, 2024) work on gastromythology reinforces this idea, showing how food cultures are not static but are shaped by colonial histories, advertising narratives, and capitalist reinvention. In the end, what we eat is not just about sustenance—it is about the myths we choose to believe, the stories we tell ourselves, and the surplus enjoyment that keeps us coming back for more.

References

Chatterjee, A. K. (2022). The gastromythology of English tea culture: On the UKTC’s advertisements and making tea a “fact” of English life. Canadian Journal of History, 57(1), 47-80.

Chatterjee, A. K. (2023). The “decline” of London’s curry houses: Invented tradition, authenticity, gastromythology. Consumption Markets & Culture, 26(6), 443-465.

Chatterjee, A. K. (2024). Mythologizing late Victorian tea advertising: The case of the Illustrated London News (1890–1900). History of Retailing and Consumption, 10(1), 43-82.

De Botton, A. (2009). The pleasures and sorrows of work. Pantheon.

Žižek, S. (2022). Surplus-Enjoyment: A guide for the non-perplexed. Bloomsbury Academic.