Author: Shoba Narayan
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 224
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0143031872
Description
A fascinating food narrative that weaves delectable Indian recipes with tales from the author's life.
In this creative and intimate work, Narayan matches her considerable vegetarian cooking talents with delicious accounts of her childhood in South India, her college days in America; her arranged marriage, and visits from her parents and in-laws to her home in New York City. In doing so, she illumines Indian customs while commenting on American culture form the vantage point of the sympathetic outsider.
In stories as varied as Indian spices-at times pungent, mellow, piquant and sweet-we get to meet characters like Raju, the milkman who named his cows after his wives; the iron-man who daily set up shop in Narayan's front yard, picking up red-hot colas with his bare hands; her mercurial grandparents and inventive parents, who, like Narayan, have a thing or two to say about cooking and about life. And, tantalizing recipes for potato masala, dosa and coconut chutney, among others, emerge from her absorbing tales about food and the solemn and quirky customs that surround it.
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK
This engaging book-part personal memoir, part culinary celebration, provokes a pronounced surge of the appetite. Narayan's love for all this is both self-evident and infectious, it is notable, for its irresistible charm.
-Washington Post
Narayan's sparkling, insightful narrative makes for a delightful cultural and culinary read.
-Publisher's weekly
An Audacious, heart-warming story. You are charmed-not only by Narayan's fluid and unselfconscious writing but by her sweet stubbornness and inventiveness in using food as a motif of her life. This is a memoir not to miss.
-Miami Herald
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
ONE
First Foods
TWO
Baby Brother Arrives
THREE
Sun-Dried Vegetables on the Roof
FOUR
Of Monkeys and Maids
FIVE
Idlis and Coffee
SIX
Night Train to Mumbai
SEVEN
Of Baking and Brides
EIGHT
Vaikom House
NINE
A Feast to Decide a Future
TEN
Coming to America
ELEVEN
Holiday Trips
TWELVE
Creation of an Artist
THIRTEEN
Summer of Bread and Music
FOURTEEN
Love's Labor Lost
FIFTEEN
Arranged Marriage
SIXTEEN
Monsson Wedding
SEVENTEEN
Honeymoon in America
EIGHTEEN
Descent of the Relatives
List of Recipes