Between Cow and Crown: Food, Faith, and Resistance in Vivekananda

Abstract

Swami Vivekananda’s encounters with the West offer a unique lens through which to view food not merely as nourishment but as a site of ideological contestation. This paper examines food as a cultural barrier between the East and the West in Vivekananda’s speeches, letters, and essays, highlighting the spiritual, social, and symbolic roles of food in his thought. A postcolonial analysis examines how Vivekananda challenged colonial notions of civilisation and purity by reasserting indigenous food ethics, caste-linked dietary rituals, and the sanctity of restraint. His rejection of beef, critique of Western consumption habits, and advocacy of spiritualised vegetarianism challenged the imperialist notion of universal progress through diet. In this way, food becomes a terrain for cultural negotiation, resistance, and the construction of identity. The paper situates Vivekananda’s discourse within the broader framework of postcolonial theory and cultural studies, thereby unpacking how culinary practices are intertwined with colonial hegemony and epistemic dissent.