Customer Reviews

Cuisines of India: The Art and Tradition of Regional Indian Cooking

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first off, although i think this is a must-own book, i would not recommend it as a first-buy indian cookbook. for someone completely new to indian cooking, one of the classics by sahni or jaffrey would be better as an introduction and basic resource. for instance, if you don't know what paneer is, the authors' unexplained use of the term "cottage cheese" when paneer is called for will be more than confusing. but, as a book to expand your repetoire of indian recipes, this is fabulous! anyone who has more than one or two indian cookbooks has probably noticed the surprising duplication, even between authors, of the same recipes, which is amazing, given the vastness of india and the incredible number of cultures in it. however, this book has more unduplicated recipes than any of my other indian cookbooks (and i have far too many), and i look forward to cooking all of them. but for me, the second, equally important reason to buy this book is the wonderful introductory paragraphs before each recipe. it seems that it is mandatory for indian cookbooks to inlude history as well as cooking instruction,which is no bad thing, given the ignorance of other cultures in this country. i have enjoyed and learned much from the texts of other indian cookbooks. however, the authors of this book write exceptionally well and amusingly, and the subjects not only include indian history, culinary and social, but even anecdotes about apicius, the roman credited with writing the first known european cookbook; a dishonest medieval english baker; elihu yale, for whom the college is named; and many other fascinating known and unknown people. there are quotes from the diaries and writings of european visitors to india from the 17th to the 19th centuries which are fascinating. (sample fascinating fact: poundicherry was a french colony for three centuries, and the cuisine reflects this.) there are stories of indian rajahs and the english raj. if fact, it might be difficult to keep your attention on the recipes while cooking, there is so much else that is interesting in this book. the line drawings are another plus. all in all, this is a superb book--tempting, wide-ranging recipes, entertaining reading and beatiful illustrations.

INdian is perhaps my favorite cuisine & I've been to allot of Indian restaurants and own several books. This one though was mediocre at best. Allot flash in the pan, nothing spectacular though it was nice to see the book divided into 6 chapters for the 6 regions of the subcon.
I think that the sisters tried to make the recipes harder & more complicated than they are in the name of authenicity. Most of these recipes were very elaborate with lots of steps.
I would recommend Lord Krishna's book, Julie Sahni's or one Madhur Jaffrey's early books instead.

Being new to Indian cooking, I immediately appreciated this book for completely describing everything. The author writes with a very personal touch in the written passages before the recipes. What I really like is that she offers suggestions for substitutions, and where to get ingredients that I was not normally familiar with. Many of this dishes have ingredients that have been found in my kitchen for years. The book is broken down into various regions and the recipes have wonderful introductions to give a brief history on the recipe.
I would highly recommend this well written book to anyone interested in Indian cooking.

I collect cooking books and have a massive collection, with a fair emphasis on east Indian cuisine. This book rose above the herd because it has a decent discussion of history and tradition etc, and is well organized. The recipes are fairly pedestrian (ie: not that very different than you can find in other Indian cookbooks), but I wa not sorry I bought it.

Smita Chandra has a great sense of humor and history. Purely educationally, this book is GREAT to read. However, no one mentions trying any of the recipes in their reviews, so I decided to check the book out from the library before buying it. Disclaimer: While I love Indian food that I get in restaurants, I was mostly looking for great new ways to eat vegetables.
Conclusion: I'm glad I checked this cookbook out from the library, I'm glad I didn't buy it.

For example, on page 13, I tried the recipe - alu ki subzi, subtitled, "potatoes cooked with tomatoes, thickened yogurt, and spices."
Had I added the amount of water called for in the recipe, I would have had tasteless potato water. Tomatoes are also not in the list of ingredients! So what is the subtitle talking about?

I was also not really impressed with saag matar, "spinach cooked with green peas, onions, tomatoes, and spices." The depth of flavor usually present in indian food was not there. Makes me kind of hesitant to try other recipes in the book. who knows? the meat and chicken recipes in this book, which sound delicious, could be a huge hit. Everything with lamb and chicken makes my mouth water. but the vegetarian recipes I tried were not so good.
Lastly, I think this book also suffers from not having pictures.
If you read all of what I said, I'll summarize again: this book is good as an introduction to indian culture - historically, and from both an indian person's and a foreigner's perspective. but something is, unfortunately, a little off.

Smita and Sanjeev Chandra teach cooking classes in Toronto. In 2005, I participated in one of their classes and learned several of the recipes from this book. Every one of them was delicious, some of the best Indian food I've ever eaten. They also have an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of spice which they included in the presentation and is in the book. Over the years since that class, I've tried many more recipes, such as "chicken with cashews and coriander" and "spicy baked cauliflower with cottage cheese, bread crumbs and nuts". Absolutely wonderful. It takes patience to assemble all the spices but the result is well worth the effort. I highly recommend this book - a real authoritative text on Indian cuisine.

I'm not the type of person who usually READS a cookbook, but this one has some very interesting stories woven in with the recipes. The author goes through an essential "shopping list" of spices with their descriptions at the beginning, and once I enhanced my spice collection a bit, I was ready to go! The recipes are very approachable; not too tedious or demanding (at least not the ones I've tried so far). This book will certainly have a premium spot in my vast collection of cookbooks, and will get frequent use in my kitchen, as its recipes are getting rave reviews! Highly reccommended!!