“Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts is more than a cookbook—it is a collection of treasured memories and delicious family recipes presented against a backdrop of Indian culinary and cultural history. Augmented with an extensive bibliography, the book is also a wonderful guide to cooking with herbs and spices. A comprehensive glossary provides the origins and history of each grain and spice. Familiar with Western cooking methods, Ramachandran shows how to integrate these recipes into a Western-style menu and suggests ways for home cooks to expand their repertoire without having to create an entire menu of dishes. Culinary historians and home cooks alike will enjoy Ramachandran’s treasured stories and recipes in Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts.”
—Monica Bhide, Writer and Author of The Spice is Right & Everything Indian Cookbook
“Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts is a labor of love … offering both mouth-watering recipes and a personal account of an ancient matrilineal culture. Highly educational yet approachable, this is a must-have for anyone interested in the food and customs of the Indian subcontinent.”
—Suneeta Vaswani, Cooking School Teacher and Author of Easy Indian Cooking
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The purpose of this modest no-frills book is to place a region, its history, and its family and cultural heritages into a coherent context for understanding food. -- By Anne Mendelson in The New York Times, July 18, 2007
"Ammini guides you through Kerala's history and heritage, seasonal festivals, and irresistible varieties of precious recipes handed down from one generation to the next". -- My Workshop, March 26, 2007
"Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts is the perfect kind of book to curl up with and experience Kerala cooking at its best." -- Indian Food Rocks, March 14, 2007
"Ramachandran has preserved the originality of her traditional family recipes, and made them accessible to those outside the tradition, without overwhelming the readers". -- Mahanandi, March 19, 2007
"This cookbook do justice to a very unique and sophisticated culinary tradition emerging from what was once considered the spice capital of the world". -- Jugalbandi, April 12, 2007
As experience shows, anything one makes following a recipe from this book is bound to turn out delicious - be it a deceptively simple potato stew or a medley of vegetables in the classic dish, aviyal. -- By Vidya Heble in India SE, Singapore, August 7, 2007
From the Back Cover
"Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts is more than a cookbook-it is a collection of treasured memories and delicious family recipes presented against a backdrop of Indian culinary and cultural history. Augmented with an extensive bibliography, the book is also a wonderful guide to cooking with herbs and spices. A comprehensive glossary provides the origins and history of each grain and spice. Familiar with Western cooking methods, Ramachandran shows how to integrate these recipes into a Western-style menu and suggests ways for home cooks to expand their repertoire without having to create an entire menu of dishes. Culinary historians and home cooks alike will enjoy Ramachandran's treasured stories and recipes in Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts." -Monica Bhide, Writer and Author of The Spice is Right & Everything Indian Cookbook
"Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts is a labor of love . offering both mouth-watering recipes and a personal account of an ancient matrilineal culture. Highly educational yet approachable, this is a must-have for anyone interested in the food and customs of the Indian subcontinent." -Suneeta Vaswani, Cooking School Teacher and Author of Easy Indian Cooking
Ammini Ramachandran is the author of Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts: Recipes and Remembrances of a Vegetarian Legacy published by iUniverse in March 2007. The book was upgraded and re-launched as a Star Edition by iUniverse in November 2008.
Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts received a very favorable review in the New York Times. In her article Translating India, Sometimes Fluently, Anne Mendelson wrote - "The purpose of this modest no-frills book is to place a region, its history, and its family and cultural heritages into a coherent context for understanding food. Other books have ably explored India's far southern territory, but Ms. Ramachandran reveals amazing range and depth in Kerala's Hindu vegetarian traditions".
Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts was among the four self published cookbooks that ranked #76 in Saveur's Tenth Annual 100 List in 2008.
In the San Francisco Examiner Patricia Unterman wrote "Few cookbooks in English have covered Kerala Vegetarian cooking, with much depth or authenticity. Last year Ammini Ramachandran came out with a book that fully explains the magic behind this seductive cooking". In The Art of Eating, Winnie Yang cited "I Like this book not just for Ramachandran's practical-minded approach but for her enthusiasm, which translates into thoughtful, encouraging instructions".
Ammini was a presenter at the tenth annual Worlds of Flavor International Conference & Festival - Rise of Asia - presented by The Culinary Institute of America in November 2007. She was a featured presenter for The New York Women's Culinary Alliance, American Institute of Wine and Food, Dallas and the Houston Culinary Guild. She was a presenter at the Celebration of our members held by Culinary Historians of New York. Ammini's recipes appear in The Flavors of Asia published by the Culinary Institute of America. Her recipes have also appeared in the Providence Journal and the James Beard award winning food web site www.leitesculinaria.com. She has written a column on spices along with recipes for www.Sallys-place.com, the premier Web site for food, beverages, and travel.
Ammini's articles have appeared in Flavor & Fortune, a quarterly journal dedicated to the art and science of Chinese cuisine. She contributed to Sacred Waters, Food History Primer published by International Association of Culinary Professionals, Entertaining from Ancient Rome to the Super Bowl-an Encyclopedia, Storied Dishes and the Cultural Encyclopedia of Vegetarianism. For the past ten years Ammini has devoted her time to researching and writing about the ancient Indian Ocean spice trade and its influence on her home state Kerala's (India) cuisine and culture on her website www.peppertrail.com. She is a contributor to www.zesterdaily.com.
She has taught Indian cooking classes at Central Market Cooking Schools in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and Houston, Texas and the Institute of Culinary Education, New York.
Her next project focuses on the ancient recipes of south India.
She is a member of Slow Food USA, and Culinary Historians of New York. She holds a diploma in article writing from the School of Careers, Berkshire, UK; a BSc in chemistry from Kerala University; and an MBA from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.Before becoming a freelance food writer, Ammini was a financial analyst in international banking.
I just finished reading the book, "Grains, Greens and Grated Coconuts".
What a fantastic treatise! Congratulations to the author on a superb job!!
This is not just a cookbook but a review of the transition of a way of living from the past to the present.
There is something fascinating about Kerala. They seem to maintain their traditions for a long time. Some activities (Harvesting the coconuts for example) are the same today as they were in year 1342 as described by Ibn Battuta. I always felt that if we want to go back and live few centuries back, one of the best ways we can do is to go to Kerala and stay in a remote village.
But for many in Kerala, the past few decades have brought the biggest change in their way of living. A society that lived a matrilineal way of life is changing to patriarchical. Joint families of 50 to 100 members living together have disappeared. Individual kingdoms are no more and their special kitchens are gone. Families have become global rather than local.
So we may feel a need to look at the past and review the shift in culture from the past to the present.
This book fulfils such a need. What a "delicious" way to "taste" the past through a cookbook from a person who has experienced the change, first hand. Author has done a magnificent job. Not only has she given us descriptions of festivals throughout the year, family functions, the typical food served at each occasion and their recipes but also the history behind some of the ingredients. What a treat!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. Congratulations to the author.
This book is a great introduction to the myraid flavors of Southern Indian cuisine - which are simple and sublime.
The book focusses on Kerala and the author provides a fascinating background into the culture and customs of that state, immensely helpful to anyone new to its cuisine. I am from the South of India myself and can vouch for the authenticity and reliability of the recipes.
Ammini's voice is reassuring - introducing vegetables like telinga potatoes, ripe and unripe plaintains and breadfruit or teaching the basics of pillowy appams.
I have tried many of the recipes from the book and they are all keepers.
If you are interested in the culinary history of food of kerala, treat yourself to this book!!
This is a really remarkable book, self-published and free of hype. There are no glitzy photographs of the food, which is a shame because I'll bet it's beautiful, but there is a pithy history of Kerala and then there are the recipes. They are exquisite, and the vibrant flavors of the food are conveyed by the author's enthusiastic descriptions. I'm not a vegetarian, but could live meatlessly and lusciously for weeks on these recipes. For vegetarians, this is a bonanza. The recipes range from relatively simple to complex, but none of them seem undoable in an American kitchen. The author has lived in America for a while, so she is familiar with the equipment and ingredients available here, and makes this cuisine approachable for us. Her notes are thorough and engaging, and well worth a read even if you don't plan to make that particular dish. If you have any interest in Indian cooking, or even if you don't want to cook it but enjoy reading about it, this is the best book on Indian cuisine that I've seen in a long time.
I had the manuscript in my hands way before the book ever went into production. And that was a thrill of a lifetime.
And today, I have bought a copy of the book for my sister. And now I have to think of others I can send it to. And I know there shall be many.
Congratulations Ammini!!!
Below is the foreword I wrote for the book... that should sum up everything in my words.
Suvir
Foreword
In this richly flavored book on the household cooking of Kerala and its many vegetarian marvels, Ammini Ramachandran takes us into a journey that even tour guides driving you through Kerala's many vistas would be unable to share. How fortunate and blessed I feel to be able to introduce and perpetuate this brilliance. These are recipes gathered over a long, heartfelt, and celebrated lifetime. That Ammini calls Dallas, Texas, her home should be no surprise; hers is a passion and respect for the native land that only someone living outside of it can have. Lucky for us!
I first met Ammini through online chat forums that I moderated and that she contributed to. Always generous, never one to take credit, she posted meticulous and detailed missives on the magic of her region's culinary traditions. I was smitten at reading her first post. The rest is history. Her works soon became the stuff of midnight yearning. When hungry for good food, and being lazy to cook or eat, I found myself sating my hunger with the aromas that wafted through the computer screen as I read her writing. How exciting it is to finally see her passion in print, enabling us to cook like her, live her history, and celebrate her Kerala....
Having aristocratic blood from her father--yes, he was the son of the maharaja of Kochi (Cochin)--she found herself living in her mother's matrilineal family home at the age of eight. Her father had sadly passed away in a plane crash en route to New Delhi. Living in a joint family gave Ammini a new abundance that one can find peppered through the head notes that come with each recipe. A household of twenty-one family members made for great conversations, diverse tastes and palates, and, to the advantage of us readers, a cookbook that finds itself richer for it. Even a favorite recipe from her favorite chef at the family home finds itself into the curry section (Varutharacha Sambar).
Having grown up vegetarian, Ammini was disappointed by the lack of vegetarian options shared in books of Kerala's cuisine. She was challenged by her husband, while waiting in a traffic jam over the Williamsburg Bridge in New York, to stop complaining and write her own book of favorite recipes. Fortunately for us, she has never been lazy, and here, after years of reflection, introspection, testing, and cooking, she has spilled her vast knowledge onto the pages of this book. And all of us, Malayali (people of Kerala) or not, Indian or not, shall be forever filled with great vegetarian options that not only give us healthful dishes to bring to our table, but flavorful foods, prepared in our modern kitchens, with respect for the past, true to authentic flavors, and never compromised.
Having grown up in New Delhi, I was delighted to see so many of our traditions find common practice across the different regions. The kitchen was the sanctum sanctorum in Ammini's home, just as it was in mine. And it was here that she found love, respect, intrigue, and a lifelong fascination with food. Daily fare, festival dishes, and puddings all enthralled her, as did the picking of sea salt from the uppumarava (wooden salt box), which kept the salt moisture free, even in the humid environs of Kerala. Homesick in the United States, having become a member of a cooking club, finding success in recipe development and creating, she submitted a recipe for her mother's coconut rice in a contest held by Woman's Day magazine. It should be no surprise that she won first place and found herself, a few weeks later, cooking coconut pancakes with the food editor of The Providence Journal, who then featured her recipes and story in an article in the food section the following week. Soon, recipes that came along with letters sent weekly by her mother in India found their way into a journal, and now these pages. Her two decades in the world of finance (and its exacting standards) have found their way into her recipes. The recipes from her mom, which had pinches and fistfuls and other not-so-precise adjectives, have been replaced with streamlined measurements and clear instructions. Even the clumsy amongst us can follow these recipes to roaring success.
If you crave coconut milk but want it to be healthy and flavorful at once, try the recipe for Oolan. Vegetables easily found in your supermarket will acquire a nod of sophistication, guided by Ammini. Okra will not be slimy again if you make the Okra Kichadi (fried okra in a coconut and mustard sauce); even you who love slime in okra will enjoy this for the aromatics that only add to the overall enjoyment. Could onion soup ever take on new heirs and flavors? Yes, and in the recipe for Mulaku Varutha Puli, Ammini empowers it with the fire of green chilies, the sourness of tamarind, and the comfort of savory shallots. That mustard seeds and curry leaves are in the recipe only adds to the overall decadence of this simple-to-prepare soup that shall replace any cravings you have for the most mundane, classic rendering of an onion soup. Any table, any time of the year will do well to have the recipe for Mottakoozu Thoran placed atop it. A great side dish, cabbage has never ever tasted the same in any other version. Indians are masters of treating cabbage well, and this recipe is a great specimen of their prowess. Fans of rice pudding will find a wonderful Kerala version of this comforting dessert in the recipe for Neypaayasam. With brown sugar in it, it is still wonderfully rich and different; if you use the jaggery Ammini suggests, you will have yourself holding a bowl of deeply flavored rice pudding that has texture and flavor, and that leaves a lasting, scintillating taste on your tongue that shall bring you back to flirt with these pages in your kitchen.
Foods that celebrate the gods, foods that celebrate mere mortals, and foods that celebrate mortal ancestors--all find a place in the pages Ammini has shared with us. Traditional dishes prepared for the days of the dead, dishes prepared to celebrate festivals in different seasons and regions, recipes from temples--all find places of pride in her repertoire and now in yours. You only need to cook from these pages, and you shall find yourself living traditions and cultures that you wish could have been yours in tender years. Evocative introductions, brilliant descriptions of flavors, and rich interplays of spices and aromatics never cease to excite the mind and coax you into trying these recipes, most of which, even to this Indian, are foreign and exotic. You will find yourself cooking these recipes in no time; and tasting these flavors, you will find yourself hooked on classics of Kerala, favorites of Ammini and tastes of an era that is dying and would be lost forever if it were not for this tome.
This book will portend the coming of age of Malayali cuisine. With the same ceremony that was attached to Ammini's Thirandu Kalyaanam (as you will read about in great detail in Chapter 12), Ammini has ensured that the passage of time has not deprived any of us of the magic that takes place around every moment of Kerala life. The dishes that marked the four-day celebration of her coming of age shall become yours and mine, just by our reading the intricacies shared here. She was bathed and jeweled in celebration, and for us, she has cleansed age-old recipes of bygone terminology but bedecked them with prose and instruction that at once relate them to the past and yet keep them fresh and meaningful to lives today. Ceremonies of the past have lost their social significance, as she tells us in this chapter and across the many other stories shared; but through these pages, you will find yourself reliving history, cooking delicious meals, and most of all, living Kerala without drama, right in your own kitchen and home.
May there always be Nagaswaram (drums and wind instruments) bands and men holding valum parichayum (swords and shields) for every young girl that comes of age in Kerala--and, even better, all over the world. I also wish every man could learn a lesson or two. The world then would be even better for it. We would be poorer if more Amminis are not able to share their magic with us. And to Ammini Ramachandran I give salutations for a book well written and long overdue, and for being a modest but powerful voice in the world of food and culture. I certainly cannot resist having this book perched on my kitchen counter, cooking and eating my way through the vegetarian jewels of Kerala.
Suvir Saran
Author of Indian Home Cooking (Clarkson Potter, Summer 2004) and
