Be My Guest cover art

Be My Guest

Reflections on Food, Community and the Meaning of Generosity

 Preview

Listen with Audible free trial

Free with 30-day trial
Prime logo New to Audible Prime Member exclusive:
2 credits with free trial
1 credit a month to use on any title to download and keep
Listen to anything from the Plus Catalogue—thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts and audiobooks
Download titles to your library and listen offline
₹199.00 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Be My Guest

Written by: Priya Basil
Narrated by: Priya Basil
Free with 30-day trial

₹199.00 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for ₹472.58

Buy Now for ₹472.58

‘A brave and beautiful exploration into food, race, memory and the very meaning of life. I read it greedily - and so will you’ Meera Sodha, author of Fresh India

The dinner table, among friends, is where the best conversations take place – talk about the world, religion, politics, culture, love and cooking. In the same way, Be My Guest is a conversation about all these things, mediated through the sharing of food. We live in a world where some have too much and others not enough, where migrants and refugees are both welcomed and vilified, and where most of us spend less and less time cooking and eating together. Priya Basil explores the meaning and limits of hospitality today, and in doing so she invites us to consider that how much we have in common may depend on what we are willing to share.

 Anthropology Political Science Politics & Government
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1

Critic Reviews

"An intimate, delicious and thought-provoking story, told with warmth, humour and generosity" (NIGEL SLATER)
"A powerful meditation on hospitality . . . Packed with such brilliance"
"[Basil's] notion of “unconditional hospitality” could save the world . . . Her views are radical and persuasive, rooted in the knotty, sensual, frequently funny complexity of her peripatetic life . . . compellingly beautiful"
"The subject of food and its many-threaded associations – of generosity and privation, sharing and hoarding, diversity and denial, pleasure and fear – is the starting point for this absorbing meditation on the interface of self with other in contemporary Europe. Priya Basil writes with honesty, clarity and wit about what it means to be hospitable in a culture of selfishness, and the problems and possibilities of commonality" (RACHEL CUSK)
"A brave and beautiful exploration into food, race, memory and the very meaning of life. I read it greedily - and so will you" (MEERA SODHA)
"Be My Guest is a great essay on food and hospitality, on the act of sharing meals together, of family and of migration. It uses food and feeding guests and ideas of hospitality to ask bigger, wider questions about the precariousness of immigration and the inhospitable times we find ourselves in. Beautifully, deliciously written" (NIKESH SHUKLA)
"A nourishing celebration of global culture and creeds [and] a thoughtful reflection . . . Written with poetry and heart, Basil manages to unite huge themes that affect us all while capturing the beauty of sharing"
"Reading this rich exploration of what it means to cook for others is like pulling up a chair at the ideal dinner party. The food is mouth-watering . . . but just as nourishing is the conversation, which embraces hospitality in its many guises . . . irresistible"
"Really rather wonderful . . . [A] warm gem of a book" (JACKIE MORRIS)
"A candid, often very funny, insightful look at food and the complexity of hospitality – a brilliant book" (JENNY LINFORD)
No reviews yet