Of all the cookbooks I received as a young bride completely unfamiliar with the mysteries and sacraments of the kitchen, the ones that survived the next 15 years would make an odd assortment.
There were Bengali cookbooks — classics by Renuka Devi Choudhurani and by Meenakshi Dasgupta — that made few allowances for a neophyte’s unfamiliarity with spices or the browning of onions, but the recipes had a precision that I eventually mastered. There were now long out-of-date French, Italian and English cookbooks where the recipes would be considered recherché —oyster veloutes, game pies — but which I bless for their patient explanations of basic techniques and measures. But on general Indian cooking, only two cookbooks from the mass of ambitious works, or local women’s associations, have survived: Madhur Jaffrey’s set of basic Indian recipes, and Raghavan Iyer’s 660 Curries.
Many other cookbooks have better or more elaborate recipes, and like many amateur cooks, I’m a fan of the regional cookbooks, which often collect rare or unusual recipes that are still, like the brides in the matrimonials, touchingly homely and easily replicable. But the reason why Jaffrey and Iyer are still my basic reference books lies in little things: the clear way in which they organise recipes, every ingredient listed precisely and in the order in which it will come to your hand, the careful instructions that assume anyone using their books may have come to this recipe for the very first time. And there is also this: their recipes, authentic or not, taste good and in Jaffrey’s case, don’t rely on an excess of oil.
So I had high expectations of Pushpesh Pant’s mammoth India: The Cookbook, from the time I saw it displayed in chic little replicas of atta sacks in London’s best bookstores. Pant is a formidable food scholar, passionate about his research and his forays into, say, the cuisine of the Grand Trunk Road have always been engaging.
India: The Cookbook is an attempt to answer an old, thorny question: is it possible to gather the best of Indian cooking into one authoritative tome? The answer is a very qualified yes. As a reference book, Pant has done a stellar job; I recognised recipes from old Parsi kitchens and long-forgotten medieval Mughal cookbooks. The new generation of Indian chefs, from Devi’s Suvir Saran to Tamarind’s Alfred Prasad, has contributed a chapter of eloquently contemporary recipes. Little-covered cuisines — the delicate fare of Orissa or Maharashtra, the festive and everyday cooking of the North-East — find space in it. If Pant’s essays are disappointing — too basic, too explanatory for a writer of his depth of knowledge — the passion he’s poured into the book is evident.
I would give this book to any food writer, scholar or historian — or indeed, to any reader with an interest in Indian food. But cooking from India: The Cookbook is another matter all together, and if the expectation is that this will be to Indian food what Julia Child’s Mastering The Art of French Cooking was to French food, that is belied.
The best cookbooks I’ve used may offer complex recipes, but they also explain the basics with clarity — something of a hit-and-miss affair with the India: The Cookbook, and I can imagine many neophytes coming to grief over the making of layered parathas or appams. Pant’s fascination with Awadhi cuisine is evident in every chapter, and perhaps there is a book to be done there; but the recipes show some disconnection, as though they were compiled from wildly different sources. A few minor changes would have helped — an indication of the level of difficulty of each recipe, a personal introduction to each chapter, some sense of continuity. As it stands, India: The Cookbook is an ambitious, landmark effort — but it’s not going to replace any of my much-loved, much-thumbed cookbooks, and that is a pity.
Nilanjana S Roy is a Delhi-based writer
