India is an enormous country with many regions, each with its own food customs, flavors, ingredients and traditions. Trying to learn "Indian cooking" (from all over the subcontinent) would be like trying to learn "American cooking" - you'd have to incorporate étouffee from New Orleans, Blueberry Grunt from Maine, Hotdish from Minnesota and Oyster Stew from Virginia. Who can afford to stock eighty spices from all over India? I wanted to focus on my own part of the country, and just learn how to cook what its people grow and eat.
I moved to Maharashtra a month ago with this book and little else for guidance aside from familiarity with a stack of classic Indian cookbooks (that don't really address this region's cuisine well - they did not travel with me), and some useful YouTube videos for techniques (for how to cook aloo paratha, Manjula's Kitchen can't be beat).
I have been cooking every day with this book's useful tips and recipes, and the results have been better than fair. Although I remain a novice and confess I am clueless about a number of ingredients, my local friends are able to enjoy my cooking anyway! I especially appreciate Marathé's warm, inviting tone, the prefatory material that discusses the climate and culture of this beautiful area, the comprehensive glossary, and her effort to offer a broad range of tastes, many types of dishes, and use many varieties of local fruits and vegetables. Her explanations are clear and helpful and I never feel at a loss halfway through a recipe.
I showed the book to the young chef of a neighborhood eatery that caters to picky westerners, and he said that this was the very food he grew up with in Pune, classic Maharashtra everyday home cooking (if Mom's a really good cook, which his is) that all locals would recognize and enjoy. That's just why I purchased the book, to get the local flavors right.
I had to take off one star because I find the index frustrating (I would prefer to have recipes listed by the primary ingredient's English name) and I often wish for drawings or photos of unfamiliar produce so I can identify and prepare what is in the market, and learn how best to take advantage of seasonal bounty. This week I cooked what turned out to be a sugar beet without a clue as to what it was, a project that the book did not help with.
I was amused that the author recommends rubbing a cut cucumber with its trimmed ends "to draw out bitterness," a custom from my childhood in the fifties that I had long forgotten.
I remain confused about how two very different items can be packaged as "chana dal" and I know I still have much to learn. But the book is not meant to be encyclopedic, and it does not have to be to earn its price, which it did the first week I was here.
I will be looking for the other English cookbook by this author next time I get to a city. Meanwhile this will remain the kitchen bible at my Meherabad house, with much gratitude for the exact measurements and the clarity of the instructions. I will also be cooking from it when I return to the US, knowing I will get good results every time.
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