Madhur Jaffrey's "A Taste of India" fills a big gap in my Indian cook book range.
For a start, it arranges itself by regions; it is easy to forget that India is bigger than Europe. We would not put a Cornish pastie on the next page to a haggis, and surely Indian regional cookery deserves the same consideration?
Madhur Jaffrey - A Taste of India
ISBN 0-689-70726-6
A taste of India does not pretend to be a definitive work on Indian cookery, despite hype to that effect in the reviews quoted on the back page. I see it more as a tour through the rich culinary heritage of India. The book is lavishly illustrated with pictures of everyday life, with the emphasis on the food chain, from fishing boats at night to the paddy fields, from street foods vendors to elaborate feasts.
Food in everyday Indian lifeThe text of the book provides a rich overview of the role of food in everyday life at different levels of Indian society and in the different regions. So for example, a Moghul royal banquet may be described on one page, but the simple living conditions in a single room of a Koli fisher woman and her husband will also be given space in this wide ranging book. I'd recommend A Tste of India simply for this rich descriptive view of food in everyday life, but it is presented not as some Michael Palin style tour of Indian cultural/food heritage, but as a recipe book. So it does need to be reviewed on the basis of the recipes.
A Taste of India - recipes Most Indian cook books I have are divided into sections by ingredients, breads, rice, pulse etc. A Taste of India instead interrupts its regional narrative with recipes, which, despite the index, is going to make it a little more difficult for anyone approaching their cookery from the "what do I do with this chicken" point of view. I am more than happy to forgive this approach, as the recipes cannot be separated from the cultural tour.
Unusually each recipe is given accreditation to a cook. Most of the dishes are illustrated well with photgraphs and the instructions are clear and concise, as well as having more of a feeling of authenticity than many Indian cook books. I sometimes quite like those cook books with the recipe on the left hand page and a big photo on the right, but there is a lot to be said for packing in more recipes with the terser approach of A Taste of India.
The range of recipes is impressive, and more to the point not so exotic in the ingredients that you are going to have a problem sourcing stuff at any Asian grocers.
A Taste of India - conclusions If you are starting out with Indian cooking, i'd reluctantly say that I think you would be better off with a different book, as I think basic Indian cookery is easier to learn with the breads, rice, pulses approach and this book seems more than a little short on teaching the basics. For anyone else i'd give it a whole hearted recommendation.
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