Customer Reviews

The Raj at Table: A Culinary History of the British in India

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is chock-a-block with interesting insights and hilarious anecdotes set against a scrupulously researched tissue of culinary-cum-cultural history. I could not put it down, and there were moments when I laughed at loud! To read and understand *The Raj at Table* is to taste the cross-cultural confluences that continue to temper our sense of culinary style today

This book is absolutely fascinating and I'm sorry it's out of print. There's nothing better than getting to know a country, a period in history or a culture than through local cuisine. With quotes from Kipling and other historical anecdotes, this tome makes highly entertaining reading and transports you to the era of Colonial India. The attitudes of the time, with frequent references to political backdrops both in India and the world, pre British food attitudes and how they changed and adapted to British life in India, the complex hierarchies of the hired help, their servile resentment of the sahibs and the irresistible draw of India to its foreign rulers is well outlined in this book. What a rare and lucky find! Whoever is lucky to get a copy should buy it immediately!