“Colorful Palate” is a flavorful (and recipe-filled!) memoir of growing up mixed race on Long Island

We here at the Lakshmi and Asha Show love food almost as much as we love books. Which is why we love when books include recipes (see our newsletters about Gigi Pandian’s books).

Especially when those recipes are created from the melding of cultures (again, we’re going to point you to Gigi Pandian’s wonderful books). Given all of this, we were thrilled when journalist Raj Tawney’s new memoir came across our desks.

In “Colorful Palate: A Flavorful Journey Through a Mixed Race Experience,” Tawney explores his place in the world as the product of an Indian, Puerto Rican, and Italian family. Written in a short essay style, he recounts pivotal memories from his childhood and young adulthood, and the food that accompanied them.

Tawney grew up in a wealthy, homogenous, town on Long Island where even at five years old he felt like an outsider. The book starts with an incident in kindergarten, where his new classmates immediately mock him for wearing a bedazzled Barney jacket. His isolation is compounded by his teacher who butchers his name, and then assumes he can’t speak English. Returning home he tries to parse out his identity while his mother cooks Tandoori chicken. The chapter ends with her Tandoori chicken recipe.

In subsequent chapters we get stories about visiting his maternal grandmother in her Bronx home (and a recipe for meatballs); feeling out of place at the “Indian parties” his family went to every weekend (and a recipe for Louis); middle school fashion (and a recipe for buffet tacos)…you see where we’re going with this.

It’s a quick read, and we will be trying some of these recipes!

We received copies of this book from Fordham University Press. You can purchase your own copy at our Bookshop storefront here.

Asha: You mentioned before our chat that there were a lot of missing pieces in Tawney’s essays, and I agree.

Lakshmi: Yes, definitely!

Asha: The stories were interesting, but they didn’t go very deep.

Lakshmi: I was also struck by how this book is truly a slender volume

Asha: Yes, that too!

Lakshmi: It might be the shortest book we’ve read in here that is intended for adults! It started as essays he wrote for other publications.

Asha:  Ahhhh, that makes sense

Lakshmi: I was actually reading some interviews and essays by the author last night and this book had an interesting journey to publication.

From an essay on NBCNews Think: 

On my journey to becoming a book author and finding a publisher who’d see the potential in my work, which largely explores elements of my Indian, Puerto Rican and Italian heritage, I’ve been repeatedly turned away. It’s relatable material to the growing population of American citizens who identify as multiracial. Most of the editors who passed on my proposal said they enjoyed it but thought a marginalized tale like mine needed to display more conflict if it was to be marketable. One editor even referred to me as a voice whose platform was still emerging.

Asha: Well that says something…. “Needed to display more conflict”...it feels like the tragic mulatto trope all over again.

Lakshmi: But also it seems like there is a lot of conflict in this family-- they just don't say anything out loud hahaa

Asha: Oh there definitely is! Maybe that’s why the essays don’t go too deep - he didn’t actually want to write about conflict.

Lakshmi: Raj's mother Loretta is Puerto Rican and Italian from the Bronx. Raj and his brother spend a lot of time with their maternal grandmother (who is Puerto Rican, but they call her Nani -- grandmother in Hindi). But we don't hear much about how his grandmother and grandfather met? or what it was like for his grandmother to integrate into an Italian family or if there were any parallels to his own mother's experiences with the Indian community. Both women came from patriarchal cultures and tried to integrate into ANOTHER patriarchal system and that wasn't really explored. 

I imagine his grandparents had a West Side Story life experience in that the communities were VERY segregated back then.

But also this book reminded me of how weird the 80s were. We are obviously also children of the 80s and just a tiny bit older than the author, but I kept thinking "oh yeah, New York was very different then".

Asha:  Obviously I didn’t in NY in the 80s, but even California was different, I agree. And, like the author, I was the only mixed kid in a sea of homogeneity in elementary school. And with a “foreign” name.

Lakshmi: Did you relate to any of those sections at all?

Asha: There were definitely parts that were familiar, the name butchering for one! And being an easy target for exclusion because I wasn’t white…But it wasn’t as dramatic as what he experienced. Or it was a different kind of drama. My mom was a SAHM at that point, and very involved in my school, so they wouldn’t have dared assume that I didn’t speak English! 

Lakshmi: Yes, this was SO DRAMATIC and HARSH. For a five year old to experience AND for a five year old to inflict…

Asha: Those five year olds must have been getting some interesting lessons at home…

But his description of getting malaria in India, and doctors in the US not knowing what it was or how to treat it reminded me of conversations that happened when we were growing up in Nigeria.

Lakshmi: Yes, that was so awful.

Asha: Everyone knew that if you got malaria you didn’t want to be in the States! It was better to be treated in Nigeria than be in the US where they didn’t know what to do.

Lakshmi: So during a trip to India, Raj was too young to get vaccinated and contracts the disease. He suffers terribly and no one knows what he had.

Asha: They also didn’t have malaria vaccines at the time.

Lakshmi: Oh I thought they said he was too young, that's why he was the only one who got it

Asha: That’s what he said, but the vaccine also didn’t exist. And no one thought of malaria when you went to India, we didn’t at least!

Lakshmi: Interesting…I feel like we did? We definitely slept under nets!

Asha: At the time they would have taken pills. And the pills that would have been available caused crazy dreams. (The malaria vaccine is REALLY new, as in last decade new)

Lakshmi: This quote from a BOMB magazine interview with the author was really interesting:

My wife Michelle recently finished the book and commented on how there’s a lot of space in between the words, a lot of subtext, a lot unsaid. For me, that’s the greatest compliment. There’s plenty of people force-feeding race and identity. I’d rather allow the reader to taste bits and pieces and let them form their own opinion about a person’s complicated life.

But when I saw that quote I thought of Raj’s father.

Asha: Both his father and his maternal grandmother!

Lakshmi: Well, his father is like a mysterious spector in these pages.

Asha: Oh that’s how you mean, never mind! I meant in terms of not talking about things - for example, the chapter about visiting their grandmother hints at trauma that she suffered, but she never explains it.

Lakshmi: At least we see direct quotes and anecdotes from the grandmother. But the dad is alluded to but rarely quoted directly. For example, we know he’s Indian and speaks Hindi

But where is he from, why did he want to come to the United States.

Asha: He’s from Mumbai. But yes, we don’t really get much about him.

Lakshmi: The book notes that they know relatively little about the dad. For example,why did he marry outside of the community when community approval is so important to him?! That last one is a huge one.

Lakshmi: As Raj says, the family spends a lot of time on weekends going to “Indian parties” — parties thrown by other Indian families, most of whom are much wealthier than the Tawneys.

The dad is in his element at these parties. He loves chatting in Hindi, he loves working the room, etc. The rest of the family hates it!

Asha: Because the rest of the family isn’t embraced like he is! 

We get the sense that Raj’s father is a bit of a social climber. The Long Island Indians throwing the parties are newer immigrants who came to the US with more money. It kind of reminds me of the houses we’d go to in SoCal!

Lakshmi: But did you notice that the narrative changed a little as the book goes on. Raj does note that he (Raj) didn't make a huge effort because the dad was so weird, and the vibe at home was weird, so the distance is also an emotional distance that he brings to the interactions.

Asha:  It also seems like the vibe changes as Raj grows up. His father becomes more emotionally distant. And I thought the third chapter where he talks about going to these parties, hints at his father possibly becoming an alcoholic:

I adored his company but didn’t care much for him when he drank. He wasn’t cruel, but he was

noticeably quiet after hours of alcohol swimming through his bloodstream, like a philosopher deep in thought, unable to hear the outside world. He was a vastly different person from the man who’d joyfully taught me tennis or taken me to wrestling matches whenever the WWF was in town, hoisting me on his shoulders among the screaming fans as he too cheered along in his high-pitched hoot. His lust for life was contagious, but when he was angry or tired at the end of a night that had involved boozing, his brain couldn’t be reached. He was simply checked out. Years later, I’d notice myself acting the same way after a few drinks, trying to snap myself out of an introspective state.

Lakshmi: Right, but all the hints get overwhelming - I mean the hints in general throughout the book. (I do agree that the book seems to be describing alcohol dependency!)

Asha: Agreed.

Lakshmi: So there are a lot of empty spaces, like the author's wife notes. For example, Loretta, Raj's mother, says the Indian wives at these parties never accept her and they are catty and awful.

Asha: I also wondered if part of the reason Raj’s mom was excluded was because she was trying so hard to assimilate instead of being herself…but who really knows

Lakshmi: And I know people do say the community is catty, but I found myself wondering about it because it was -- once again-- so extreme.

Asha: And Raj relates similar things later about introducing his now-wife to the Indian community.

Lakshmi: This community seems really toxic OR there is extra sensitivity or something else going on…

Asha: It does feel extreme….

Lakshmi: Or they are toxic and the Tawneys are sensitive hahaha

Asha: Probably a little of both!

Lakshmi: Both!

Asha: Indians (broadly stereotyping here) can be really opinionated and curious and loud about it in a way that I imagine could feel off-putting if you’re not used to it. But I also feel like that’s most tight-knit communities? Like I would imagine the Italian and Puerto-Rican communities being the same way!

Lakshmi: Yes, loud people with good food should be really familiar? Loud people OBSESSED with their heritage is all of New York's "ethnic communities" to be honest.

Asha: Right?! It’s basically all of New York!

Lakshmi: I read the book in two days so I didn't try any recipes– 

Asha: Same 

Lakshmi: –but did you want to try any?

Asha: The meatballs!

Lakshmi: I did like the structure of the book, and how it felt different. And I liked how food is a bridge in the family

Asha: Revisiting the recipes, it does seem like they’re not really fusion-y—

Lakshmi: They aren't haha

Asha: –It’s more that this family makes dishes from a lot of different cultures. But they still sound good!

Lakshmi: It's interesting that his mother adapted these recipes. Like she really tried to create Indian food at home and it sounds like she was really good at it!

Asha: For sure.

Lakshmi: Did you have a final thought?

Asha: My final thought is about the comments he made about getting this book published. I feel like, despite what the editors said, we’ve been having the same conversation about the multiracial American experience for TWENTY YEARS! Which, frankly, is exhausting.

Lakshmi: It's true.