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Book ReviewsThe Indian Spice Kitchen |
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Book: The Indian Spice Kitchen
Written by: Monisha Bharadwaj |
Publisher: Hippocrene Books
Average Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5
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Excellent Survey of Indian Ingredients not covered elsewhere
Rating:
5 / 5
`The Indian Spice Kitchen' by Monisha Bharadwaj is an earnest, ethnic, informative coverage of Indian spice ingredients, mixes, herbs, fruits and vegetables, nuts, dals and pulses, cereals and flours, and miscellaneous ingredients. While the advocates of most cuisines, especially the Italian, French, Chinese, and Japanese rhapsodize about how important food is to their respective cultures, the Indian culture outdoes all of the others with the depth to which religion and culture affects the food mores of the Indian subcontinent. In fact, if I am to believe this author, food choices are even more important to the Hindu than it is to followers of Jewish holiday and kosher traditions. The best known and deepest strictures are those which encourage vegetarianism, based on the Hindu doctrine of reincarnation, where it is believed that animals contain souls of past or future humans. In addition to this doctrine, there are associations of particular foods with various Hindu deities, such as the devotion of Lord Krishna with milk, butter, and yogurt. These traditions are not unlike the associations of the ancient Greeks who, for example, linked Athena with olives. On top of the religious connections, there is the Ayurvedic system of nutrition that has the weight of both religion and `science'.
I have reviewed many books on Asian ingredients covering Japan, China, and Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Burma, but virtually none of them include specifically India. Even Bruce Cost's classic `Asian Ingredients' stops at the border between Thailand and Bangla Desh. Therefore, this book is a great addition to a culinary library that aims to cover the world.
While the book is not quite as detailed as Cost's book on linguistic and scientific matters, this volume does include the very important scientific names of plants which yield the herbs, spices, vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, and other products featured in the book. This may not seem like much to the casual reader until they try to match up European and Indian ingredients. The very first item, dill, it turns out, has both a European and an Asian species. Fortunately, unlike basil, the differences between European and Indian dill are small, so one can easily be substituted for the other. The scientific name is essential when comparing items in this book to similar books on Western produce.
Each section devoted to a particular plant has the following items:
How it Grows: geographical distribution, size, harvesting, and whether it is an annual, biennial or perennial
Appearance and Taste: Weight, aroma, and important components
Buying and Storing: How and what to select and how to store in the pantry.
Medicinal and Other Uses: Folk remedies and non-culinary uses. It is probably worth warning the reader at this point that the virtues attributed to many of these herbs are probably as much due to a placebo effect as to any genuine pharmacological efficacy. I suggest you do not take these suggestions at face value and only rely on suggestions that are corroborated from a more scientifically oriented source.
Culinary Uses: What kinds of recipes use these ingredients.
Each section also offers one or more recipes in which the highlighted ingredient is used. Each recipe is introduced with a brief headnote on the recipe's source region. Each section also has at least one or more good photographs of the product.
By far the most useful chapter of this book is the second that deals with the famous Indian spice mixes. There are many more named combinations than the simple `curry powder' rubric. There is garam masala from Northern India, Sambhar powder from Tamil Nadu, Goda Masala from Bombay, tandoori masala from the Punjab, panch phoron from Bengal and Kholombo powder from the southwestern coast. Aside from its regional specialities, each mixture has a speciality. Few of these mixtures are `hot' in the way chili powder is hot from dried capsicum.
The first item which gave me the sense that this was a useful and accurate source of information was when I saw the treatment of cinnamon and cassia as two different spices, in spite of the fact that practically everything labeled cinnamon in the United States is actually ground cassia.
Next to the spice mixes, the most interesting chapter is the last, dealing with miscellaneous products. While I know little in detail about Indian cuisine, I was surprised at the number of items I found where of which I had never heard. Among these are the little crackers named appadams, sago, a starch similar to tapioca made from tree sap and subja seeds from a plant in the basil family. I was also surprised to find edible silver foil. This was a surprise not because I had not heard of it before, but because there was no section on edible gold foil, as gold has an enormous role in Indian culture.
Possibly my only disappointment from this book is that unlike the spice mixes, there was no chapter dedicated to chutney recipes. There are several in the book, but they are distributed across sections for various different ingredients.
As this is the very first book on Indian cuisine I have reviewed, I recommend it with the caveat that while I am sure this is better than many, there may be others that are as good or better. But, this is an attractive, high quality trade paperback that is worth the money if you are really interested in Indian ingredients.
Spices, Recipes, Beautiful Photos: All in One
Rating:
5 / 5
I too am another satisfied reader of this wonderful book. It has so many appealing features. First of all, the book is worth the price just for the information it contains not only on spices but also on rices, legumes, flours, etc. But in addition it gives you many outstanding recipes that are well thought out, easy to make, and most importantly, achieve the desired results: delicious Indian food.
I am a Novice Indian cook with a capital N and yet I have succeeded in turning out great-tasting dishes one after the other. I have tried 8 so far and I am pleaseed with them all. I will definitely try many more.
Now on top of all this, the book is filled with mouth-watering and artfully presented color photos that are in themselves a treat for your eyes. All in all I can recommend this book as a valuable addition to any cookbook collection.
A Good Introduction to Indian Cooking
Rating:
5 / 5
The Indian Spice Kitchen is a good reference book for learning about the spices that are common in Indian cooking. The information is classified by spice or ingredient type. Each spice is given a two-page spread in which information is given about the taste, appearance, source, history, and cultural signifigance of the spice. Also two recipies are given which use the spice mentioned. The recipies are nice, but I think that the main function of this book is to introduce the spices common in the Indian kitchen. The book is filled with full-color pictures throughout, and it will please any serious foodlover. If you already know a lot about the spices used in Indian cooking and are more interested in recipies, perhaps you should look for a more focused cookbook. For beginners to Indian cooking, this is a perfect introduction.
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