Customer Reviews

Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As a Vedic Vegetarian book, it contains no recipes that use garlic or onions. Two vegetables that are staples in other Indian cookbooks, and suprisingly through the substitution of other spice combinations, the recipes do not lack flavor at all.

Some of the dishes are hard to take on, but all are delicious. The information included here is indispensible, not just for the recipies, but for the explaination of countless spices, techniques and ingredients that one often wonders about in other cookbooks, which will often only clarify with an "Available in Indian Groceries" annotation. This book includes a list of actual sources for the spices, should the need arise to obtain black onion seed, and no one in Boseman has it... This lexicon of information makes it possible for one to improvise endlessly from the recipes provided, which I believe, are just samples showing the possibilities.

All in all, the combination of tasty recipes and the voluminous definitions, explainations and sourcing material make this an excellent cookbook, both for the cookbook collector, and the serious home gourmet.

`The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking' by Yamuna Devi can be placed among those great expositions in English of national cuisines such as Julia Child's `Mastering the Art of French Cooking', Marcella Hazan's `Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking', Diane Kochilas' `The Glorious Food of Greece' or Mimi Sheraton's `The German Cookbook'. And, this book has an IACP Cookbook of the Year award to prove this fact. This book even exceeds the ambitions of the books by Kochilas and Sheraton in that while these authors do an excellent job of surveying the entire national cuisine from either a serving or geographical point of view, they do little to analyze their cuisines in the way Nancy Harmon Jenkins dissects and builds a picture of the Mediterranean cuisines in `The Essential Mediterranean'. Ms. Devi does this and more.

In fact, as big as this book is, it does itself and its readers a service by covering only the Hindu vegetarian cuisines, without touching on the cuisines of India which allow eating meat, primarily lamb and goat. Even more specifically, the author is specifically dedicated to that part of the Hindu religion that embraces Krishna. I will not touch on that aspect of the book except to point out that this means there are areas of Indian and Pakistani cuisines that this book does not cover. For those, the first stop is obviously the books of Madhur Jaffrey who, in her `Indian Cooking' does cover many meat dishes with lamb and goat.

Indian vegetarianism as presented by Ms. Devi in this book is relative broad in that it allows a broad range of milk products. So, while `vegetarianism' allows much more than a diet of vegetables, grains, and beans, Ms. Devi treats vegetable cookery with a depth I have not seen in any book except James Peterson's book, `Vegetables'. Ms. Devi presents three basically different ways of cooking the same vegetable and suggests that these three methods may be applied to every different type of vegetable. The first method is Sauteeing and Braising Dry Vegetables (cooked entirely in oil. No water.) I believe this is what the French would call a vegetable comfit. The second method is to saute in oil followed by a braise in water based broth. This is closer to what a western cook would call a braise. The third method precooks the vegetable in water and finishes it with high heat in oil (ghee) or highly flavored sauce or broth. Pairing them up with a choice of several different seasoning mixes permutes these three methods. The author sets off with this introduction to discuss the various different types of vegetables and how the various methods can be applied to each vegetable.

Most of this is not too different from what you can get from a close reading of Marcella Hazan's books. The Indian way with milk and yogurt is an entirely different matter. The Indian traditions with milk products seem to be about 180 degrees away from the European traditions involving aged cheeses. The only point of similarity between Indian yogurt and Western European traditions are with the Italian ricotta and the Spanish queso fresca. Even contemporary American yogurt is not the same material as traditional Indian yogurt. While much western yogurt is made with skim or reconstituted dry milk, Indian yogurt is made from fresh whole milk. From yogurt, the Indians derive a fresh cheese and a curd that serves the same purpose as the Far Eastern tofu.

As with milk, the Indian approach to bread is just about as different from the western European tradition as you can imagine. It would be fascinating to read an analysis of the differences between, say Italian and Indian bread making traditions. The two biggest differences is that while the Italian tradition requires yeast and a hearth, the Indian tradition uses no yeast and does almost all baking on a griddle to produce a wide variety of flatbreads. Thus it is quite odd to find that while the Italian tradition does include a version of the French crepe, there is not a very big niche for pancakes, but the Indian cuisine seems to outdo even the wide range of American variations on the pancake / flapjack / hoecake / Johnny cake genre.

While the French may have exhausted most of what can be done with their superb, high fat Normandy butter in their rich cuisine, the Indians may just have outdone them by a bit when it comes to using butter, in the form of ghee as a cooking medium. While the French are satisfied with simply clarifying butter, the Indians take this process one step further and cook the clarified butter to a nut brown color which can be stored at room temperature. One implication of the central role of ghee in Indian cooking is that if one wishes to embrace Indian cooking fully, one needs to be prepared to embrace the use of saturated butter fats, which from a purely nutritional point of view may bring back to your diet the saturated animal fats you are avoiding by not eating meat.

The two greatest contributions to British cuisine from the Indian subcontinent are curries and chutneys. This, this book includes an entire chapter to chutneys, which may be made from either fresh or cooked ingredients. My biggest surprises were to find peanuts and cashews in chutney recipes in addition to the expected fruits and spices. In addition to chutneys, there is also a sizable chapter on related pickles, jams, sauces, and gravies. Oddly, there is no chapter on curries or even on the subject of garum masala. There is a brief article on garum masala in the superb appendix, `A-Z General Information', but no in depth discussion of Indian spice culture.

If you take on this book, it will probably be wise to find a good Indian or Pakistani grocery for some of the less common ingredients and to have someone with whom to ask advice on techniques and equipment.

My Mother gave me this book when it was first published, and I hung onto it for ten years before beginning. I'm so glad I did! Over the past five years, I have cooked an ever widening range of it's dishes, and I have years worth of cooking still to try. I knew nothing about Indian spice combinations or an indian kitchen before reading this book, and it has transformed the contents of my cupboards. Definitely a book to grow with. The only cookbook I use more is "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" by Deborah Madison, which actually references this one!

Recipe Quality: Almost every single recipe produces a dish that my family and all my friends love. I find that for our taste, we can generally cut the oil by 30-50% and the dish is right for us. Also, we tend to add more salt, up to double. Also, for some reason (we think it's because we use heavy cast iron soup pots so little steam escapes), we almost always have to cut the amount of water in the dals by about 40% or so, to avoid completely watery dal. But the spicing and proportions are otherwise dead-on to produce mouthwatering favorites.

I do agree that there's too much fawning over the author's mentor in the introductions to the recipes. However, many of the intros give little vignettes about being in households in different parts of India, and these I found fascinating. I only wish this part of the book had been expanded upon a little, so I could come away with a clearer idea of the differences in regional cooking.

Overall, a terrific introduction to Indian cooking and one that can keep teaching you new tricks for years.

As the reviews here show, people either rave about the book or find it tedious. I find it fascinating reading,and if you're interested in learning about this (admittedly small) branch of Indian cooking, this is a good start. Vedic cooking does not use onins, garlic, nightshade vegetables, and has some other restrictions. In some ways, this does make for a blander product, and many of these recipes lack the initial "punch" so many of us are used to in Indian cooking. But the author makes up for it with an extremely varied, almost dizzingyly broad array of ingredients and combinations that are both very exciting and very demanding. The results, for me, have been very nice, but they come at a high price. To put a meal together out of this book is a tremendous undertaking in time and ingredients, even for an experienced Indian cook. The recipes can be extremely intricate and time consuming. The result, however, is fresh, vibrant, and really quite unlike what you may be used to in Indian food.

the best veggie book there is...bar none. I am american, and my husband is punjabi. He eats only desi food. my in-laws do not speak English...I cook indian food every day and have been for the last 24 years! I make fresh roti almost every night. whenever I need to check on anything as a reference....this is it....the only one. now my in-laws say I cook better than most indian woman....go figure! amazing...and so is this book. I have been waiting for it to come back into print so that i can send it to all my in-laws!-especially to the new members of the family, the younger generation do not know how to cook at all. thank you Yamuna Devi.

I've been on an Indian cooking kick lately; which, incidentally, has me feeling pretty darn good.
This book is so far above others I have bought that it really deserves all the good press it can get.
Like the first reviewer, I was surprised to learn that Vedic cooking does not use garlic or onions, and I was a bit skeptical when first approaching these recipes. However, everything I have made, from the bread, chutneys and rice dishes, to the plethora of vegetable courses, has been really excellent and very flavorful.
I did go on-line to [...]to purchase some of the harder-to-find spices, and pappadums (the super thin lentil wafers you can make in 30 seconds on a dry frying pan that are really fun and healthy), but almost everything was available locally at our co-op.
As a seasoned cook, I usually just want to jump to the chase (the recipes) and avoid all the blather about what makes each recipe so special, but I found myself fascinated by the text at the beginning of each chapter, as well as before each recipe.
If you need a present for someone who loves to cook, and wants to make authentic Indian vegetarian dishes at home, this is the apotheosis of what's out there.

This is truly the sourcebook of Indian Vegetarian cooking. Author must have spent enormous amount of time perfecting the recipes. We have tried many and found them to be very easy to follow and results to be very sunptuous. It is not easy for me to be pleased by ordinary recipes as I was born in Bombay and lived there for first 25 years of my life. In Bombay, one is exposed to all regional Indian cooking and recipes, both at various homes and many, many restaurants in the city. This book has that authentic aroma and ring of Indian kitchens and Indian pots and pans. Author is smart enough to guide foreigners through complicated Indian cooking procedures and make them easy to follow. Her mastery and extent of recipes is extraordinary. Highly recommended.

Of all cookbooks on my book shelf, this is my all-time favorite. I have cooked through the recipes in the book nearly four times now. Why do I find it so outstanding?

It is well written, well researched, graphically pleasing, the recipes are easy to follow, and the tastes are simply sublime. Further the A To Z reference section answers every imaginable question a cook might have--its like attending a cooking class taught by Yamuna Devi herself!

I highly recommend this book. Do youself a favor--purchase this cookbook for yourself, and buy copies for good friends. This book is a treasure. You will thank yourself if you do!

`The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking' by Yamuna Devi is an awesome Indian cookbook. Yamuna gives you the history behind the recipe, and her style of writing is extremely interesting, it makes you feel you were there while she tasted the meal for the first time, and decided that the recipe should be in her book! She's extremely knowledgable in Indian cooking although Yamuna Devi is by no means Indian. You would never know that from her knowledge of Indian cookery, and certainly not from her name (she has an Indian name because she changed her name).

Most of her recipes are of North Indian cuisine - which for those who don't know it, is totally different from South Indian cuisine. If you like the spicy curries and other dishes like that, you're a fan on South Indian cuisine. That doesn't mean that you won't like these recipes though, as there's an abundance of South Indian cooking and spicy meals in this cookbook too!

For those who prefer a milder version of Indian cooking, I have good news for you too! This book contains mild recipes too. In fact, in Indian cooking you can change the "hotness" or spiciness of a recipe to suit your tastes.

A word of caution : Traditional Indian cooks (my grandmother included) didn't use oil to excess like many recipes in this book. Grandma used more oil back in the day when it was ok to do so, but as time went by, and my mom told her about the dangers of using too much oil in her food, she cut down on her use of oil. But by no means did she EVER use as much oil and ghee (clarified butter) as some of the recipes in this book call for. It's absolutely ridiculous to use huge amounts of oil when cooking, and I wish Yamuna Devi had improved on that aspect of Indian cooking. Deep frying - if it's done ocassionally, would probably be ok, but even Grandma learned to use alternative methods of cooking, and her food was as delicious as ever!

So, my advice is cut down on the amount of oil these recipes call for, bake or grill whenever possible, and deep fry ocassionally if you want to enjoy a recipe that requires deep frying. Apart from that, enjoy this cookbook because I certainly do!

I am not Indian and I own lots of vegetarian and non-vegetarian cookbooks, but this is consistently THE cookbook I use most. In these nearly 800 pages, Devi manages to make the Indian cuisines (plural) accessible to American and British cooks without in any way watering down their authenticity or their bold flavors; the glossary of ingredients and possible substitutions, for instance, is the best I've ever seen. Even a great book can have an occasional flaw, and this one does: Devi fawns over her guru in its pages to a mildly nauseating degree. But if you can ignore that...and you can... this is the best few bucks you'll ever spend on a vegetarian cookbook.