Practical gourmet guide

Karen Anand may not know this but she owes a debt of gratitude to a learned Telugu Brahmin and a Sikh economist. Had P V Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh not courageously demolished the licence-permit raj and liberalised the economy 20 years ago, her career and this book would not have found a market, for a variety of reasons. First, a book on lifestyle and one so blatantly titled would have been considered mildly politically incorrect in those pseudo-socialist times when to be poor was glorious (at least from the politician’s point of view). Second, there would have been few takers for this book since the Indian middle class (a) couldn’t have afforded many of the good things she writes about and (b) wouldn’t have had access to them even if they could. Third, the rich would access these things overseas and wouldn’t have needed Anand’s advice to do so.

So it is no surprise that the earliest of these essays, a compilation of her newspaper articles, date from 1993. It would be easy to dismiss this book as warmed-up leftovers but the publishers clearly hope to catch the rising tide of sophisticated consumerism “at the flood,” so to speak.

Today, it is almost ironical that two men with conspicuously simple lifestyles have enabled the urban, westernised upper middle class to chatter insouciantly about sauerkraut, sushi, the travails of accessing good avocado or asparagus or Camembert or Brie and the comparative virtues of Kendal Jackson versus Cloudy Bay, all of which they can consume in India.

In other words, the opportunities and rising incomes shaped by liberalisation have also provided Anand with a ready and eagerly aspirational constituency to address. And she does so with due enthusiasm.

To call Anand the “Martha Stewart of India” — in the nicest sense of course, since no one would care to emulate Stewart’s prison stint — is not inaccurate. Like Stewart, she does not patronise her audience. She combines a worldly sophistication, the product of growing up in London and Paris, with an earthy, chatty wisdom that speaks directly to the upwardly mobile lifestyle neophyte.

To start with she considerately leverages her experience for the benefit of the uninitiated. She’s well-travelled and the chapters are peppered with such phrases as “During my frequent trips to Moscow…”, “When I was expecting my second child we happened to be in the South of Spain” or “When Harold Shaw, one of the scions of the most prominent business families in Singapore… invited me to a Japanese sushi bar…”

Such place- and name-dropping might have been irritating were it not for the fact that there is a certain utility to what follows. Here, for example, is an excerpt from the chapter “A wine-tasting jamboree”. “If you are ever invited into the inner circle of wine tasters [note: as she has been] here are some tips.

“1) Enter the room with confidence. Take a snooty look at the bottles, read the labels and stand back. Wait a while before tasting….

“3) Ask the server for the wine you want assertively. Simply say, ‘I would like to taste this wine.’ This method allows you to escape from pronouncing unpronounceable names….”

There’s much more in this vein including chapters on how to store cheese and wine, what really goes into sushi and a truly informative one on what vegetarians can eat in France. Reading this book is a bit like reading a gastronomic edition of Sananda, a Bengali lifestyle magazine that was targeted at the wives of upwardly mobile corporate executive and earnestly provided such advice as “Put fresh soap and towels in your bathroom when you have guests.”

Anand’s gourmet world view is also practical. She talks, for instance, about combining grapes, bananas, oranges and chicken with a light mayonnaise into a decent salad and urges you to enjoy wine, beer, cognac or whisky with Asian food.

For me, the piece de resistance are the recipes. Anand never suggests complex or obscure ingredients and her instructions are easy to follow. Despite being a disinterested cook, I for one cannot wait to try out her Honey-Mustard Chicken, Spicy Grilled Pumpkin and Napolitaine.

GOOD FOOD GOOD LIVING
Author: Karen Anand
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: x + 188
Price: Rs 250