Using women’s memories of food in intercultural households to locate female agency and evolving cultural identities in Leicester, England, 1960–1995

ABSTRACT Using the oral life-histories of women who were in long-term heterosexual intercultural romantic relationships, the article examines the food preparation and consumption practices of their intercultural households in 1960s–1990s Leicester, England. The women’s narratives expand our historical understanding of how migration to Britain since 1945 has affected domestic foodways. The women’s memories illustrate their proactive interaction with, or resistance to, the cultural traditions and practices of their male partners. They show the extent to which cultural exchange permeated life together, including through the couples’ social gatherings with families and friends. The article argues the women’s execution of their food management responsibilities variably reshaped and adapted their sense of self and the cultural identities of those they were responsible for feeding—a nuanced perspective on the origins, and success or otherwise, of Britain’s multicultural society.


Introduction
When asked what food was provided for the guests at her 1990s wedding, Beverley, a woman of dual white British and Irish heritage, explained how she and her husband, a black British man of Jamaican descent, chose a menu of both Caribbean and traditional English dishes which they believed would work for all their guests, 'My family wouldn't eat curried goat and rice, or most of them wouldn't … And [his] family would want the curried goat and rice.So, we had to compromise'. 1 Beverley and her husband's compromise is just one example of how couples in longterm heterosexual intercultural romantic relationships negotiated the cultural differences that existed between them. 2 These relationships have brought about a fundamental transformation in the ethnic makeup of contemporary Britain and yet little is known about the social and cultural histories of the relationships and their consequences.Arlene Voski Avakian and Barbara Haber suggested that 'studying the most banal of human activities can yield crucial information and insights about both daily life and world view' in their introduction to an edited volume on feminist food studies. 3This article builds on the limited history of intercultural romantic relationships in Britain by applying Avakian and Haber's argument to daily domestic routines of food preparation and consumption.Extracts from the oral life-histories of a small number of women who were in such partnerships in Leicester, England, between 1960 and 1995, illustrate the everyday eating habits of intercultural households and expand our historical understanding of both female domestic agency and the changing nature of British cultural identities.The women's memories of their relationships provide a nuanced perspective on their impact on individual and broader British identities and add to the ongoing debate about the successes and failures of twentieth-century British multiculturalism.
The extracts used in the article come from a collection of the twenty-one women's lifehistories which I recorded as part of my PhD research between July 2018 and December 2019. 4They demonstrate the effects of cultural difference and exchange brought about by the food management and eating habits of their intercultural households.The women's memories highlight the new foodstuffs and ways of cooking they encountered because of their romantic choices.They describe their subsequent, and varied, approaches to domestic eating practices, the factors that both enabled and restricted what food was prepared and how these eating patterns changed over time.The women in these relationships actively utilised the variety of food resources available to them and chose how to discharge their responsibilities for feeding others.Their food experiences demonstrate the women's proactive interaction with, or resistance to, the cultural traditions and practices of their male partners.They show the extent to which cultural exchange permeated life together including through the couples' social gatherings with families and friends.Food also played an important part in bridging cultural divides, challenging suspicion and animosity amongst the immediate relatives of the interviewees and their partners, their friends and neighbours.The women's execution of their food management responsibilities consequently affected the development of varied and sometimes complex cultural identities-their own, those of the people they were responsible for feeding and subsequently, those of later generations too.Their activism has made an important contribution to the evolution of today's multicultural city of Leicester.
Leicester, a city located in the East Midlands region of England, is referred to as one of Britain's first 'super-diverse' cities.The 2021 U.K. census states that, of the city's population of 368,600, 59.1% of people identified as either black, Asian or another ethnically minoritised group. 5Leicester is nationally renowned for its everyday multiculturalism, but this has not always been in a complimentary way.Some considered the city to be 'the most racist city in Britain' during the 1970s. 6Despite a long history of immigration, Leicester's demographic transformation predominantly occurred after the end of the Second World War and was mainly consistent with national patterns of European and Commonwealth arrivals to Britain. 7The British government's European Voluntary Workers and Displaced Persons programmes brought white European settlers to Leicester after 1945.These were followed by immediate 'post-partition' arrivals from India and Pakistan and people from the Caribbean in the 1950s, migrants from India, Pakistan and East Africa between 1965 and 1974, Bangladeshis in the early 1980s and a variety of other immigrants from countries thereafter including, but not limited to, Bosnia, Turkey, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. 8People were attracted to Leicester by the availability of work in its footwear, knitted textiles and engineering manufacturing industries and its developing service sector up until the early 1970s. 9The sub-division of large inner-city Victorian terraced properties, which were often owned by members of already established migrant communities, also provided low-cost accommodation and kinship and commercial networks to later arrivals. 10eicester City Council carried out its first survey on ethnicity in 1983.This identified that 25.1% of the city's population, then estimated to be 286,020, chose to identify themselves as part of an ethnic group other than 'white'. 11This ethno-demographic mix provided numerous opportunities for intercultural romantic relationships to blossom.The women and their male partners discussed in this article come from a diverse range of backgrounds.Some were first-generation immigrants who arrived in Britain after 1945 from the Caribbean, East Africa, Europe and the Indian subcontinent.Others were born and grew up in Britain, their parents either resident from birth or once they completed their migration journeys.The women's recorded interviews are currently confidential and interviewees have been given pseudonyms to protect their identity.The ethnic identities used in the text are defined by the interviewees and their quotes are reproduced verbatim.Elsewhere, use of the terms 'white' and 'black' reflects the categorisation used in the contemporary concept of 'political blackness'; an approach used by historians to emphasise the ethnic and cultural diversity of British history. 12This approach enables me to better highlight the cultural disruption caused by the arrival, establishment and social and romantic integration of black, Asian and ethnically minoritised migrants in Leicester, a previously majority-white city.The methodological use of oral histories questions and adds to existing British histories.The subjective nature of oral historical sources reinforces the messiness of social and cultural histories.It is fundamental to broadening access to the history of private and domestic lives particularly those of women and otherwise socially marginalised groups. 13Oral histories expand and complicate our knowledge and understanding of the lives of 'ordinary people'.They illustrate the argument made by Claire Langhamer that ordinary people have 'real political purchase'. 14Examining the daily food preparation and consumption activities of some of the pioneering women in these relationships between the 1960s and 1990s creates a unique and nuanced perspective of Leicester's ethno-demographic change, a change which has redefined this British city and enabled it to shed that notorious 1970s reputation.
The next section provides a limited examination of literature that outlines how food production and consumption feeds and develops the cultural identities of individuals and nations, especially as a result of migration.The focus of the article then moves on to consider the interviewees' food experiences in their intercultural households, how the food habits of intercultural couples changed over time, and the women's experiences of commensal eating.

How migration affects domestic and public foodways, cultural heritage and identity
Although very little has been written about the culinary habits of intercultural households in Britain, there is a body of international literature that examines how daily food practices and habits are affected by migration.The preservation and adaptation of cultural foodways within diasporic communities as a means of preserving individual, family and group cultural identity is a significant focus of some of these studies. 15Parvathi Raman's memoir, 'Me in Place, and the Place in Me: A Migrant's Tale of Food, Home and Belonging', for example, describes how her family's Indian diet persisted alongside the introduction of certain English foods such as school dinners after their migration to Britain in the 1950s.Raman reflects that increasingly Indian food became a marker of her 'Indianness', something she identified as important after she became 'political' in 1968. 16In other literature, the significance of food to cultural identity and belonging is more indirect, perhaps derived from the qualitative findings of health research or a theme threaded throughout the pages of a cookery book. 17ood management studies often identify that the primary responsibility for the preparation and production of food sits with female members of a household and historical feminist works highlight the subjugating nature of food preparation and other housework. 18Work that challenges this feminist view can be found as early as 1987 when Caroline Walker Bynum's Holy Feast and Holy Fast was published. 19Bynum's study drew out the 'political' control that mediaeval religious women were able to exert over their own bodies and members of their local communities through the ways they chose to eat, fast, and distribute spiritual nourishment and physical food, even though they lived and worked within patriarchal environments.More recently, similar arguments have been made by Andrea D'Sylva and Brenda L. Beagan in their study of first-generation Goan women in Canada. 20They suggested the women acquired forms of power, respect and what they term 'culinary capital' by maintaining the cultural foodways they brought with them from their Indian homeland in their Canadian households, albeit perhaps slightly adapted to suit their resettled circumstances. 21Karen Agutter and Rachel A. Ankeny's article about the management of food by post-Second World War refugee women in Australian migrant accommodation reiterates this argument. 22Expected to eat mass produced meals in large public dining areas, refugee women engaged in prohibited cooking practices in their dormitories to restore the culinary autonomy and feelings of cultural self they had lost through their imposed displacement. 23These works shed light on the domestic agency exerted by women to preserve, reshape and refine their ongoing cultural heritage and that of those around them, as well as highlighting the intricate links between culinary and eating practices and identity.Everyday life in Leicester's intercultural households of the later twentieth century suggests an alternative type of cultural displacement.As yet however, the extent to which both a couple's cultural foodways were preserved in these domestic settings is not apparent.
Concepts of national identity have also been explored elsewhere in studies of the social effects of foodstuffs and eating habits. 24With particular reference to multicultural nations, Amy E. Guptill, Denise A. Copelton and Betsy Lucal's research suggested that food and food rituals evoke a contrasting multitude of meanings for different cultural groups which both divide as well as unite societies. 25Elizabeth Buettner made this argument through the lens of the highly successful emergence of high street restaurants and takeaways serving 'Indian' food in later twentieth-century Britain. 26Although the public's appetite for Chicken Tikka Masala was considered by Robin Cook, former British Foreign Secretary, to 'epitomize' the truly multicultural nature of British society in 2001, Buettner argued something different in relation to Britons' consumption of 'curry', 'Once marginalized within British culture, curry became a primary vehicle for denying, masking, and articulating racism, demonstrating the mutually constitutive nature of intolerance and multicultural celebration.' 27Buettner's argument built on Paul Gilroy's 2004 work, After empire: melancholia or convivial culture?He coined the term 'conviviality' in the book to describe 'the empty, interpersonal rituals' that were taking place in Britain's multicultural urban areas and social venues such as Asian restaurants. 28With a focus on domestic rather than public foodways, women's experiences of food in Leicester's intercultural households between the 1960s and 1990s add an alternative perspective on the successful development, or otherwise, of British multicultural integration.They shed light on the personal journeys made by intercultural couples, their dual heritage children and extended families as they lived with, and were affected by, daily cultural difference.

Becoming responsible for unfamiliar domestic foodways
Although familial expectations often meant that children, especially girls, would help with domestic chores, a few interviewees did not learn to cook before they left the parental home. 29This was not necessarily problematic for Joyce, a white British woman and Joan, a white English woman, as their husbands of Caribbean descent cooked a lot of the couples' meals. 30Joyce recalled the domestic routine she began to follow after she married Terence in the early 1960s: … Cos we had to shop at this erm, shop on Melbourne Road that sold all the West Indian food.It was run by some Asian guys … they stocked a lot of West Indian … and fruit like mangoes and all that and things that weren't sold anywhere else.And erm, I had to learn all about cooking rice and the different sorts of peas in it and beans in it.And erm, course like, chicken, which was always quite you know, seasoned with curry powder and things that I wasn't used to.So, it took me a bit of time getting used to all this and cooking it.But often, when [Terence] came home, when he finished his shift at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, he would be cooking food already when I got home from work. 31yce's recollection of her new culinary experiences describes a process of profound change.Purchasing the ingredients that she needed meant venturing into unfamiliar shops, coming across strange foodstuffs and meeting a number of Leicester's migrant arrivals who owned and shopped in them. 32With Terence's help, she gradually learned how to prepare and cook Caribbean food.She was eating very different meals to those produced by her mother.At the same time as discovering some exciting new tastes and textures, there were others Joyce was not so sure about: He, sort of, had all these different … something called fungee, which was like a cornmeal and they make it in to like a round shape and it's got erm, okras in it, you know, and that sort of thing, (lowers her voice) which I didn't like.I didn't like the cornmeal thing (laughs).I'll just have a potato meself, I used to say (laughs) … . 33though Joyce and Terence both cooked, sharing the responsibility for providing food was not common amongst interviewees.Terence's practice was a continuation of the daily domestic routines many single men of colour followed when they arrived to work in 1950s Britain. 34Suki Ali's work on the children of intercultural couples in London noted that ethnically minoritised men who lived with white British women sometimes became responsible for 'cooking food that [had] strong cultural and national connections.'She added, 'There was a special role for the fathers of minority ethnic status in families of inter-ethnic backgrounds, as "authentic" cooks of "authentic" cultural foods.' 35 Both Joyce and Joan's husbands, like the fathers in Ali's study, were able to preserve their connections with their cultural heritage through their cooking.Joyce's words demonstrate her introduction to Terence's culinary world.Playing an active part in the creation of the marital home and immersing herself into Caribbean culture were practical ways that Joyce chose to show Terence how much he meant to her.They also reflected Joyce's determination to challenge and resist her parents' vocalised view that Terence was not a suitable romantic match for her because of his ethnicity. 36oyce's memories of sourcing, preparing and consuming food in the 1960s clearly demonstrate the argument made by Avakian and Haber above.They represent just one example of the many unique and complex cultural exchanges that were taking place behind closed doors in Leicester's intercultural households.Joyce's memories illustrate some of the many new, daily interactions that she experienced as part of an intercultural couple, interactions which also started to impact upon her sense of self.The next section considers whether other interviewees had similar experiences to Joyce.Was the opportunity for the continuation or disruption of personal identity a significant outcome of all intercultural relationships?Did other white British women embrace the cultural differences that emerged once they were living with their partners?Did women of colour in relationships with white British men adopt the foodstuffs their husbands were used to because they were living in Britain?Or did a variety of factors affect the extent to which a woman might embrace, engage with or ignore cultural difference in these newly formed intercultural households?

Embracing and rejecting culinary cultural difference
A number of interviewees embraced their partner's food culture.Serena, a white British woman, talked vividly about the food experiences of her three-year stay in Iran during the 1980s.Her testimony exemplified Marina de Camargo Heck's observation that the subject of food, which appears in most 'memory work', is 'rich in aromas, colours and tastes' that seem to evade 'the impact of time', 'technology', 'cultural and geographical change.' 37Serena willingly adopted the culinary practices of her husband's culture and became a proficient Iranian cook.She remembered 'a very strong sense of coming together' as family members shared the work to prepare and cook for social gatherings, a fundamental feature of Iranian life. 38She reflected, ' … Very quickly, I was absorbed and immersed in the family, in "Iranianness" … I felt like I was Iranian almost … because they gave me that … confidence and that warmth, that feeling of belonging … '. 39 It could be argued that, in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution of 1979 and being at war with Iraq, Serena had little choice but to accept the lifestyle followed by her in-laws. 40er narrative demonstrates however that she was not a passive recipient of this way of life.Serena's cultural identity was changing in response to where and when she found herself-in a newly established Islamic State-and the security and kindness bestowed upon her by her husband's family.The consequences of her time in Iran have been both long-standing and far-reaching.Serena's children have grown up with a strong sense of their dual heritage.British family life has continued to reflect a complementary mix of both English and Iranian customs and practices and the family's social gatherings in Leicester have facilitated a wider sharing and understanding of Iranian culture amongst the family's white British relatives and friends.
Sally, a British woman of Caribbean descent, had a similar experience to Serena while living in Cyprus during the 1980s. 41She explained: … I thought, you know what, I'm in their house … I'll abide by their rules.So, I said to her [Sally's partner's Greek-Cypriot mother] right, every time you cook something, let me do it, because I want to learn how to … cook Greek.And she said, oh ok then.So, every day I cooked the dinner, tidied up … . 42lly's independent choice to learn how to cook Greek-Cypriot food armed her with the resources she needed to pass on the cultural tastes and culinary practices of her partner's family down to future generations in Leicester.She took on the responsibility for the successful 'cultivation of ethnic identities and the transfer of ethnic tastes' in her intercultural household, a role, argued by Frances Winddance Twine in her study of joint black Caribbean and white British households in Leicester during the early 2000s, that was commonly taken on by women. 43The time and effort taken by Serena and Sally to learn about their partners' culture and customs were demonstrable evidence of their commitment to their romantic relationships, not only to their partner but also to his family.Finding out that their daughter was planning to marry a man of different ethnicity to themselves caused a wide range of responses from the parents and family members of my interviewees between the 1960s and 1990s.They mirrored those voiced elsewhere throughout the twentieth century in Britain, from immediate acceptance to consternation to outright prohibition. 44In-laws reacted similarly.Mastering how to replicate dishes that represented their son's culinary heritage was one domestic strategy that may have helped to allay such fears in those cases where in-laws opposed the relationship.
Several women were keen to impress or were ' … at pains to be quite respectful' in matters pertaining to their partner's culture. 45White British Lorraine and her British Asian husband developed a hybrid interculturality in the 1980s that reflected what they saw to be the best components of their respective cultures.This included cooking.Lorraine explained how her mother-in-law taught her to cook dishes from the Punjabi region of India, 'We asked and then … she kept asking … come back and I'll show you how to do this.' 46 Asking for help to master Indian cookery was a powerful way for Lorraine to signal the respect she had for her in-laws' culture.Bridget, a white Irish woman, wanted to impress her Muslim mother-in-law when they first met in the 1980s.She remembered: … And then, he said his Mum wanted to meet me … And that was kind-of like a big thing.And I was saying to him … will I make some sandwiches … But he said, she doesn't eat sandwiches … And I remember getting out … I'd got a lovely china, that I'd bought my Mum … Royal Albert (laughs) … beautiful little cups.And so, I got out my Royal Albert (laughs) and made a pot of tea and had, I don't know, biscuits and cake, or something … And of course … she drank it.But they don't drink, well she wouldn't have drank English tea.They would have drank the tea that she makes … . 47idget's memory reveals how little she knew about Muslim foodways when she first met her prospective mother-in-law, but using her mother's highly prized chinaware to serve refreshments indicates the importance of the initial meeting to her.Her mother-in-law's polite decision to drink the tea she was offered suggests a recognition of Bridget's efforts and may also have reflected a desire for their first meeting to go well.Esther, a black British woman, married Harry, a white British man in the 1970s.The couple's household reflected both cultures, something that inadvertently impressed an older female member of her husband's family.'Well,' the woman said to Esther's mother-in-law, 'I was very impressed with [Harry's] coloured wife (Esther laughs).She actually can cook English food (laughs).' 48This elderly woman's words, which exude undertones of superiority and the requirement for cultural assimilation, mirror the realities of official British government policy during the 1960s and 1970s. 49However, they also demonstrate the powerful impact that Esther's decision to cook an English meal on this occasion had on her guests.
White British Ellen's relationship with the mother of her West Indian partner, Harvey, also benefited from the cooking experiences they shared together in the 1980s.The respect and trust that built up between them reassured Harvey's mother that her grandchildren would be able to enjoy their black culinary heritage.Ellen proudly opined, ' … I am a pretty good West Indian cook.I can cook a mean, brown stew chicken, jerk chicken … '. 50The cookery lessons Ellen had from Harvey's mother helped to cement the two women's relationship.This support was significant to Ellen who faced sustained animosity from Harvey's father; in one instance he expressed his disapproval of Ellen metaphorically through the food she prepared for his son: … I remember he [Harvey's father] came 'round once.And [Harvey] was eating pie and chips, not from the chip shop, but pie and chips which is what he wanted.He was born in this country.Yes, his Mum used to cook very traditional West Indian food, but his favourite meal was pie and chips.Then I remember him [Harvey's father] complaining to [Harvey's] Mum that I was feeding him 'white food', whatever that meant … . 51metimes, white residents who resented the arrival of migrants of colour in Britain during the period used the denigration of their daily cultural practices to voice their prejudices. 52In this case, Harvey's father used the subject of food as a lever of criticism.His behaviour, which symbolises what he felt about white people more widely, reflected what Brenda L. Beagan and Gwen E. Chapman interpreted as 'a means of resisting racism and/or assimilation' in their study of the food practices of African Americans in Nova Scotia.Some of the participants in their study considered their 'traditional eating patterns as one of the few things that [could not] be taken away from them.' 53 Interviewees' understanding of culturally unique foodstuffs and learning how to turn them into traditionally celebrated meals, not only provided them with an autonomy in their intercultural kitchen.It also helped them to gain the respect of their partner's family and had the potential to counter the personal critique expressed by those who were unwilling to build intercultural connections.
Interviewees of Asian heritage routinely opted to eat English food to varied degrees once they started to live with their white partners.Mai, a woman of part English, French, Dutch and Malay heritage, carried on eating the English food she had been given as a child during the 1960s and early 1970s after she married.This was merely a practical choice for Mai rather than a reflection of cultural preference. 54Ami, a Sikh Indian, was clear about the types of food she wanted to eat and why: I think also, he [her husband] thought he was going to get more Asian meals, but he didn't (laughs).They take so long.Have you tried cooking Asian food?Takes hours.A bit of pasta, half an hour and you're done, aren't you … . 55i's recollection highlights two concerns.Firstly, an expectation that preparing the Indian food she was used to would be time consuming.Secondly, what she saw as her white British husband's stereotypical assumption about Asian wives in the 1980s, that they lived domestically constrained lives and were subordinate to their male family members. 56Clare, a woman of mixed Asian and white British heritage, cooked a combination of Indian and English food too when she and her white British husband started living together in the 1980s.She also stressed the extra time required to cook an authentic Indian meal compared to, for example, putting corned beef hash or Chinese meals together. 57Preparation time was a significant factor in the culinary choices of interviewees who continued to work full time after they were married, something also mentioned in the studies carried out by D'Sylva and Beagan and Rowe. 58Interviewees of Asian heritage assertively provided their intercultural households with culturally hybrid diets consisting of Asian, English and, increasingly, global dishes.These reflected the women's individual and cultural priorities as full-time working wives and mothers.
Intercultural romantic relationships did not always lead to the sharing of cultural culinary tastes and practices in the household.When asked whether there were cultural differences between her and her black Caribbean husband during the 1970s, Deirdre, a white Irish woman, responded: Well, there obviously were, but … they weren't in my face particularly.Because I dominated the house really … Culturally, it wasn't Caribbean.We never had any Caribbean food because I couldn't cook it.And I'm sure he missed it.But, you know, he should have been proactive and probably introduced me to some of it.But you know he didn't really, and erm, he didn't do any cooking … . 59irdre's words stress her responsibility for and control over the food consumed in the marital home.She did not develop a taste for Caribbean food after she married, a situation brought about by several factors.Deirdre did not know how to cook Caribbean food and because her husband did not cook, she did not have an immediate opportunity to learn.Neither did Deirdre receive offers of help from her in-laws like Ellen, noted above, or those identified elsewhere. 60As Deirdre's mother-in-law opposed the couple's marriage and this opposition persisted thereafter, and Deirdre's friendship circle remained mainly white, she had minimal access to people who might encourage and help her develop her Caribbean cookery skills and tastes. 61The couple's diet was based on the food Deirdre was used to eating.
Interviewees' experiences of culinary cultural exchange were different, ranging from very limited engagement to the complete absorption of their partners' foodways.The women's narratives of varied domestic eating practices demonstrate that they were actively choosing what types of food to offer in response to their own preferences, but also to the domestic and social circumstances in which they found themselves.Their narratives also show how the couples' cultural selves would have been variously affected by the differential adoption, adaption and disregard of both their own and their partner's food heritage.

How food habits changed
The diets of these intercultural families continued to develop and change over the years they were together.Sometimes, domestic finances or personal taste triggered changes to eating habits.Freda, a white British woman, married her Indian partner in the early 1960s.She considered the decision to eat an Indian vegetarian diet when she moved in with him to be pragmatic.It was much cheaper and quicker than eating English meals containing meat. 62The couple incorporated meat into their diet over time, although because Freda's husband was Hindu this excluded beef products. 63Anna, a white European, quickly chose to bake her own bread in the 1970s when her marriage to her white British husband caused them to come to Britain.The change was driven by what Anna thought of the bread she could buy in local shops at that time: … I remember how awful I thought the bread was here.There was really, hardly any choice.You had brown bread, or you had this really awful white … soft, patty bread.So, I decided to bake my own bread.So, that's how I started making my own bread because you couldn't really buy decent bread here (laughs). 64na's memory illustrates the point made by Heck that food memories reveal both 'repulsion' as well as 'attraction' to different foodstuffs. 65The changing food preferences of these intercultural couples were influenced by several factors which were not always linked to cultural engagement.
Sometimes, analysing the women's food experiences over an extended period reveals the emotional as well as cultural complexities of the women's relationships with their partners' families.Bridget, a white Irish woman, recalled the secret eating habits of her Tanzanian partner while they were living together before they were married: … [W]e would drive down to his parents' [house] and he would pull in the side street … nip in … He would always come out the back-alley way with a banana (laughs) … And I'd say … you didn't stay long with your Mum.He said, no, I just need to pop in … and say hello to her … Little did I know … he'd gobbled down a curry and a couple of chapatis.And I was sitting in the car.That never occurred to me … . 66e visits to her in-laws' house continued after the couple married in the 1980s, but then Bridget's husband started to return on Saturdays with a home-made Indian meal for two: … And I've still got the saucepan that she sent the curry in.So, she would send a saucepan … there'd be rice in the saucepan and then there'd be a bowl sitting inside it with, whether it would be a lamb curry, or keema, or chicken whatever … and then, there'd be a couple of lovely big chapatis in tin foil and then the whole thing would be all tied up in a tea-towel. 67idget's use of words such as 'nip' and 'gobble' graphically illustrates how she felt about her husband's secret rendezvous with his mother's food.Even after nearly 40 years, Bridget seemed incredulous.Her description of her mother-in-law's gifted meals was also heartfelt; keeping the saucepan in which they were delivered symbolises how much her mother-in-law's generosity was appreciated.
Several factors can be seen at work in this example of Bridget's intercultural food narratives.Bridget did not learn to cook South Asian food for her husband and he was content to eat whatever he was given.Such a situation contrasts significantly with the findings of a sociological study published around the same time by Nickie Charles and Marion Kerr which concluded their white interviewees prioritised their husbands' food choices in preference to their own. 68Alternatively, Bridget's husband may simply have preferred English food like Ellen's partner above.Food prepared by Bridget's mother-in-law was a gesture of help and was readily accepted.Bridget worked fulltime after the couple married and so may have welcomed not having to cook at least once a week.Bridget's acceptance of the meals was a proactive decision that worked to both women's advantage.Bridget's intercultural household enjoyed the culinary delights of both cultures and her husband's mother was able to demonstrate her love for her son and acceptance of his Irish wife through her regular culinary contributions.Charles and Kerr also noted that preparing food for the family during the 1980s was considered to be a demonstration of affection. 69In this regard, both Bridget's and her mother-in-law's behaviours were consistent with the findings of their study.Some women like Sally, a British woman of Caribbean descent, and white British Ellen, acquired new cooking skills and fed their children an intercultural diet, something Sally described as 'the best of both.' 70 Both women considered the exploration of different food aromas, tastes and textures was fundamental to the children's understanding of their dual heritage and development of their cultural identities, something also noted more generally by participants in Beagan and Chapman's work. 71Conversely, the diet of her child did not regularly include Caribbean food once Joan, a white English woman, and her West Indian husband went their separate ways.The child mainly lived with her mother and Joan reverted to predominantly British food. 72Deirdre, a white Irish woman, remembered doing the same: … I thought … he's got his dad … he used to spend time with him so … I never thought that I needed to do anything … I didn't buy any books or, you know, do anything … The only thing I did, was made sure … that he understood, that he wasn't white.My social work course helped me to do that … . 73irdre's reflexive narrative shows her child initially grew up in a 'completely white' environment after her marriage ended; 'with no black culture at all.' Her later social work studies highlighted to her how important it was for her child to be aware of their cultural heritage and caused her to change her approach. 74Joan's and Deirdre's domestic choices reveal an alternative agency that resulted in the imposition of the women's own white food culture on to the familial home.Their children may have chosen to change or adapt these eating practices as they got older, but in the meantime, their cultural upbringing would have been very different to those children of dual heritage who were regularly eating a more culturally varied diet.
Interviewees' capacity and confidence to adapt the diet of their loved ones demonstrates the extensive boundaries of the women's culinary autonomy.The women's decisions were both conscious and subliminal and reveal an empowering domestic activism that had transformational effects.Freda's husband's Indianness, for example, became fluid.Other first-and second-generation British Asian migrants who lived through the period, including interviewee Priti, have commented on the complex and sometimes disconcerting effects of living simultaneously amongst their own and popular British cultures. 75The women's narratives show how the lifestyles, and it is suggested, the cultural identities of these couples and their children were being moulded and reshaped by the daily domestic and popular cultures they were immersed in and surrounded by.Examining what and how interviewees and their families ate over time has illustrated how one component of their identities as British citizens has flexed and changed during the lifecycle of these romantic relationships.

Eating together-conviviality or something more?
Interviewees of colour talked about commensality in their recollections of childhood, something their white British counterparts did not. 76This may be linked to the relevance of the topic to their own and their families' migratory histories, in a similar way to the diasporic communities studied by D'Sylva and Beagan and Agutter and Ankeny previously noted.Other food-related memories of those women who came to Britain as young adults, or who grew up in Britain after their parents' migrations illustrate the evolving nature of their domestic food practices.Priti, a British Asian, described how the act of eating together changed in her Punjabi familial household between the 1960s and 1980s.Priti noted, 'we'd have a curry every single day.'She recalled the picture of her family sitting together on the floor to eat when she was growing up.The commensality changed as time passed.Family members started to eat separately and at different times as their increasingly varied working patterns and social lives took hold.Priti's diet changed when she married her husband, a Hindu man of colour.This was not only the result of trying to 'balance work with cooking' it was also that, 'we got to the point where we just didn't want to eat curry every day.' 77 Priti reflected 'the Englishness' she was surrounded by influenced everything she did, including what she ate.The flexibility to change and adapt their cultural practices was something that she wanted for herself and her children, a choice consistent with the idea of engaging in intercultural romance. 78Priti and other British Asian peers were reluctant to lead what they considered to be typically Asian lifestyles. 79Her changing domestic eating patterns reflect the beginnings of what has become the cultural smörgåsbord that many people eat today. 80Priti's selective adaptation of inherited eating practices, also shown in Raman's memoir, illustrates how first-and particularly second-generation migrants revised and redefined their cultural identities in their new homelands. 81hite British interviewees often had little experience of the foods of other cultures while they were growing up.Like elsewhere across Britain, their meals were usually produced and consumed at home.Only a few places sold culturally specific foodstuffs and cooking ingredients. 82Facilities such as the supermarket 'world food aisle' were still not routinely present in 1970s and 1980s Britain.People who wanted to use authentic products from countries outside Britain needed to know what they were looking for and where it was to be found.Eating out was not as affordable or such a popular social pastime as it is today.The idea of having a pub meal did not materialise until the 1970s and restaurants that provided a wide variety of 'foreign' dishes and drinks were in limited supply on the country's high streets before then. 83Restricted availability, along with the starker issue of racism, likely combined to create a broad suspicion of food which looked and tasted unfamiliar amongst white Britons.
Domestic culinary exchanges were one way that unfamiliarity with cultural foodstuffs might be addressed.Joanna Herbert has argued that 'acts of reciprocity' between women of South Asian heritage and their white neighbours helped to 'cultivate' relationships that were 'most valued'. 84Mai, a woman of part English, French, Dutch and Malay heritage, described such an exchange that occurred between her and an elderly white neighbour in the 1980s.The neighbour offered Mai a traditional homemade English rice pudding when she was ill.Mai later reciprocated, introducing the elderly woman to rice as a carbohydrate accompaniment to meat and fish dishes.She described her neighbour as a 'No.
No strangers, no foreigners, no this, no that' type of person, but considered that ' … her world, kind of opened up a bit I think, getting to know me.' 85 The time the women spent together, often involving the exchange of food, created opportunities for a mutual appreciation of each other's cultures to grow.Beverley described how her white Irish mother and mother-in-law of Jamaican descent grew closer once they both started to share their grandchild's day-care in the 1990s. 86Beverley's in-laws were soon sharing fresh produce they had grown on their allotment with Beverley's mother. 87This was a milestone in the development of Beverley's intercultural family.A long-held reticence by Beverley's mother to engage with her son-in-law and his cultural heritage was eventually dispersed, helped by the recognition of how much both sets of parents had in common, including the foodstuffs they liked and ate.
The food served at intercultural weddings are other examples of cultural ignorance, difference and exchange.Bridget, a white Irish woman, underwent two marriage ceremonies in the 1980s, one in a Catholic church, the other a private event that took place in her Muslim in-laws' house. 88The food for the Muslim ceremony was to be provided by Bridget's prospective in-laws and their neighbours.Eager to reciprocate, Bridget's uncle suggested he should buy 'the drink … a couple of bottles of champagne or something'.Bridget explained to her uncle that her in-laws would not drink alcohol because they considered it incompatible with their faith. 89White British Serena, whose husband is Iranian, also noted a lack of cultural understanding about Islam amongst her family and friends in Leicester.Cultural ignorance was often compounded by the homogenisation of Asian ethnic groups by local white residents during this period. 90ometimes the couple were offered alcohol or pork products at social events; their hosts unaware that the couple would not accept them. 91oyce, a white British woman, remembered the food arrangements put in place for her wedding reception at the beginning of the 1960s: … We had the English caterers for our English guests and then we had West Indian caterers for the West Indian guests.So, it was quite a big buffet (laughs).I think there was hot and cold food if I remember … Cos his sister … she lives in London, and she said, you'll have to have some catering for the West Indians, you know.They won't want just sandwiches … so, we did all that. 92verley, a woman of dual white British and Irish heritage and her husband, a black British man of Jamaican descent, similarly provided a mix of cultural foodstuffs at their early 1990s wedding, 'My family wouldn't eat curried goat and rice, or most of them wouldn't … And [my husband's] family would want the curried goat and rice.So, we had to compromise.' 93 Usha's wedding food choices in the 1970s also incorporated both of the couple's cultural foodstuffs, ' … I think there was a mixture because [my husband's] family would not probably have eaten Indian food'. 94The culinary compromises made by Joyce, Beverley, Usha and their partners enabled both sets of guests to eat what they were familiar with.At the same time, they created informal possibilities for guests to sample something different.Guests were able to try new foods in either a very public way or they could choose to select something more discretely, perhaps when passing by the buffet table on their way back from the bar or toilets.The celebratory and inclusive atmosphere of other private, but at the same time very public, intercultural christenings, birthday and anniversary parties would have created similar possibilities.Intercultural relationships created cultural learning and food-sharing opportunities for invitees that engendered a growing awareness of the cultural particularities of the diverse communities who were increasingly present in Leicester.The impact of each family event would have been unique and varied depending on the guests and their attitudes towards intercultural mixing and bigger contemporary issues such as immigration and race.
Invitations to family members and friends to join the couples for food at home also encouraged culinary cultural engagement.Esther, a black British woman, described a 1970s mid-week dinner with her white British husband and mother-in-law: … Every Wednesday Mum-in-law used to come down … She'd do all the ironing … and her reward was always like a curry or something.'Cos she said, well, we had curry in the war, but she [Esther's mother-in-law] said, but they always put things like raisins in it … As long as it wasn't too hot with chilli, you know, she preferred the way I cooked it-without the raisins (smiles) … And she said, we used to have it with chips, you know.And I introduced her to rice … If they were coming for Sunday lunch, she'd say, oh, can we have some [Caribbean] food?… . 95ther's recollection of adding raisins to curry is one example of the hegemonic adaptation of cultural foods by the British in the twentieth century, but the quote also shows the eagerness of her mother-in-law to explore an authentic version of the dish.Esther was happy to adapt the 'heat' of the dish to assist that engagement.As Pat Caplan suggested when reflecting on Martens and Warde's article about eating out, Esther and her mother-in-law had the opportunity to 'actively participat[e] in and shap[e] the event … ' they were 'agents' rather than passive players in a cultural eating experience. 96Esther and her new family's shared experience generated physical connections and emotional attachments between those who provided and those who consumed and as such, were more likely to persuade family members, friends and neighbours to expand and change their eating practices.The sharing of each other's food in these social situations took place in ordinary and unassuming ways.It played an important part in bridging cultural divides and challenging cultural suspicion and animosity, something noted by Agutter and Ankeny in their discussion about commensality. 97Although the authors also note that commensal experiences are not always positive, the interviewees' memories of these occasions provide an insight into the intercultural understanding that was emerging in their domestic spaces over 40 years ago. 98The women's narratives suggest something more substantial than the public multicultural conviviality discussed by Gilroy.Being invited to eat in the couples' personal space, or at significant family events indicates a spatial intimacy; an intimacy that offered lingering sensory opportunities for people to be impressed by the appearance, tastes and textures of foodstuffs eaten by different cultural groups.In 1995, Uma Narayan argued that despite 'prejudiced attitudes' and 'de facto occupational and residential segregation' which 'conspire [d] to restrict' multicultural interaction, eating the food of other ethnic groups, 'may help contribute to an appreciation of their presence in the national community'. 99Interviewees' memories of the cultural domestic food exchanges they enjoyed demonstrate that the very cultural differences people were suspicious of and did not understand were not so extraordinary.The extent to which Narayan's argument might apply to Britain has been challenged by historians such as Gilroy and Buettner, but as seen in the narratives of women in this article her argument has real relevance to the everyday lives of those ordinary people who were affected by intercultural romantic relationships in Leicester in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Conclusion
Using the oral life histories of several heterosexual women who were in long-term intercultural romantic relationships in Leicester sometime between 1960 and 1995, ordinary and daily routines-the household sourcing, preparation and consumption of foodhave been examined to expand our historical knowledge of female domestic agency and the development of cultural identities and new forms of Britishness in the British city.The women's narratives shed light on how the contrasting cultural practices habitually enjoyed by them in their parental homes were maintained, adapted and disregarded once they started to live with their romantic partners.The preservation of and changes to these established practices were controlled by those responsible for food management in the women's new family units.Primarily, even when the women were taught how to cook by their male partners, this responsibility sat with the women themselves.Their memories suggest that personal preference, financial constraints, availability of foodstuffs and access to cultural education affected the degree to which intercultural couples and their families engaged with cultural culinary difference and exchange.Ultimately it was the women's choices and actions that determined what was eaten and how.The women enjoyed a culinary autonomy that variably embraced, modified or ignored the cultural food practices of their partners and their families.The women's food management choices may appear to have been inconsequential because of the routine domestic nature of food processes.The women's narratives suggest however, that they would have had a transformational effect on the cultural identities of the people they were responsible for feeding.As a significant component of a person's cultural makeup, food worked to shape new ways of being British and remould existing ones.Exploring the many different foodways developed in intercultural households during this period helps us to better see and understand the origins of the everyday multiculturalism of Leicester, one of Britain's first super-diverse cities.