Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail

Lamb in Spicy Lentils and Red Pepper Crust, Pumpkin Kedgeree Risotto, Roast Cod with Spiced Coriander Sauce, Orange Cardamom Indian Custard, Chocolate and Cinnamon Striped Kulfi - in this illustrated collection of subcontinental recipes, Leslie Forbes evokes the culinary magnificence of India. She includes over 100 dishes that bring together the exotic flavours, techniques and colour of this vast land. There are recipes, for example, from Malabar using fish spices, green masala and coconut; from Gujerat using asafoetida instead of garlic in vegetables, pulses and pickles, cardamom, cloves and yoghurt, and lehson masala (a garlic / chilli paste); and from the South using tamarind for souring and pulses as spices and the classic pickling spices of turmeric, mustard, fenugreek and cayenne. A look at spices for religious use reveals, for instance, a 5000-year-old Ayurvedic system of using spice and herbs to purify the body and how the Jain (Jainism predates Buddhism) fear of harming living creatures including insects and worms, turned them into merchants than farmers.
In relating the cultural history to the cuisine of today, she also brings to life the diversified culture and beauty of the colourful landscape of India. We discover the Udipi tearooms, the theatre food of Theyyam and the Onam spice paintings of the vegetarian South, drive along the Great Trunk Road from Kabul to Calcutta and taste the savoury dishes, tandoor meat and bread of the Lahori cafe. We note how the Maharashtrians are particularly proud of their mastery of the left hand side of the thali - where one finds chutneys, pestos and pickles - a suitable metaphor for Bombay on the left hand side of the subcontinent and home to many of its minorities. We savour the Moghul-inspired cooking of Hyderabad with the richest legacy of rice biryanis (using whole spices not ground) and sample multiple masalas in the layered parothas of Delhi. Leslie Forbes looks at the fusion of Western culinary traditions with Indian ingredients and vice versa, and asks where it will lead. Leslie Forbes, previous books are "A Table in Tuscany" (Penguin), "A Table in Provence" (Penguin) and "Remarkable Feasts" (Bloomsbury).