Customer Reviews

Street Food of India: The 50 Greatest Indian Snacks - Complete with Recipes

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

 

 

Limiting oneself to just 50 of the greatest Indian snacks is a feat in itself. Add to it rich, colorfully detailed photos of individual snacks direct from the streets of various cities across India, and you have this substantially sized hardcover book good enough for the coffee table or kitchen collection.

Actual photos taken around Bombay, Delhi, Amritsar and Varanasi, show readers just how ingrained street vendors are in the Indian palette. And while the selections truly are some of the best snacks, many of which I have sampled, a broad representation from all corners of the country are missing.

DIY recipes are included for the most passionate to attempt in recreating at home. But, as any lover of street food will attest to, part of the joy in handing over your cash in exchange for a freshly steamed momo or fried samosa, is the experience of eating with others in the open as the world passes.

First time travelers will enjoy comparing their notes while learning a bit more about the food represented in the book. Locals and repeat tourists will read the book as a trip down memory lane; Memories of places where you drank the best cup of chai, or encountered a night of restless pain at the hands of tainted food just a few hours earlier. Either way, it left me hungry and eager to return to the streets.

I got this book as a gift for Christmas. Everything about this book is great..The dishes look delectable and the writing through out the book is easy to read, informative and nostalgic for those who have eaten in the streets of Delhi. It is a great coffee table book with incredibly candid shots of Delhi street vendors selling the food. After perusing the book, I did make a couple of the items featured in the book and consulted the recipes too. hmm..hmm..good!!! It makes for a great gift.

Great photos of India, but the recipes are not specific enough for me....I cook Indian food very frequently and find that Julie Sahni's recipes, although long, make for delicious outcomes each and every time compared to those in this book.

The book is beautiful--full of pictures and color and some interesting recipes. Most of the book is photography, with recipes "on the side." One problem with the book is that it is somewhat impractical: the recipes are not conducive to cooking in a western style kitchen, with western ingredients, so it is somewhat difficult to duplicate the results... however with some creativity the formulas can serve as a springboard for attempts to make delicious Indian street food. Since it's not a "plug and play" type recipe book, it would not be advisable for cooks who are not familiar with Indian tastes to purchase this book, and it would not be ideal for timid cooks or cooks who prefer to follow recipes exactly.

The reason I couldn't give this book a five star rating is because of the above-noted impracticality of the recipes. That warranted four stars. However, I had to pull it down another notch to three-stars just because of the tone taken by the authors in the commentaries. I felt that the narration and commentary was somewhat racist and insensitive, seeming to characterize much street food as "poor man's" this or "poor man's" that, treating the people almost as specimens to be observed and amused by rather than people whose culture deserves respect and admiration.

Like I said, I wanted recipes. Just got this for Christmas and I was really disappointed once I had a chance to look through the book. There are 192 pages in this book and 50 are recipes. So it is mainly a photo album of Indian street life. It should be called Indian Street Life with recipes. So, if you want to buy a book of photos this is for you.

This is a visually stunning book. The main focus of this collection is definitely the photographs, with the recipes taking a back seat. That being said, the recipes are simple in preparation, as long as you can locate the proper ingredients (you'd be surprised how difficult it was to find mango powder and black salt in non-bulk proportions that didn't also charge an arm and a leg for shipping). I agree with a previous reviewer who said that this would make a great coffee table book - the photos are too beautiful to keep tucked away on my cookbook shelf.

This book would be a great addition to the library of any Indian cuisine lover, foodie, photographer, or vegetarian.

Bought this gift for an ex-chef from a restaurant. They love it. Great concept, good layout, and a solid coffee table book.