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“Over the centuries, new foodstuffs and recipes have transformed Indian food. In modern India, the kitchens of the growing Indian bourgeoisie have joined the imperial kitchens of the Mughal emperors, the bakehouses of the Portuguese settlers at Goa, the Vaisnavite temple kitchens in the south and the cookhouses of the British in India as the engines of culinary change. Every town and city in India now has a substantial middle class made up of Indians from many different areas. Women living outside their home regions, away from the grandmothers and aunts who are the traditional sources of recipes and culinary advice, have turned to cookery books and recipe columns in newspapers and magazines for inspiration. These new English-language recipe books rarely confine themselves to dishes from one region. Thus, while housewives might look to them to help reproduce traditional food from their own regions, they are increasingly exposed to recipes from all round India.��

The book comprises of ten chapters:

1: Chicken Tikka Masala: the quest for an authentic Indian meal
2: Biryani: the Great Mughals
3: Vindaloo: the Portuguese and the chilli pepper
4: Korma: East India Company merchants, temples and the Nawabs of Lucknow
5: Madras Curry: the British invention of curry
6: Curry Powder: bringing India to Britain
7: Cold Meat Cutlets: British food in India
7: Cold Meat Cutlets: British food in India
8: Chai: the great tea campaign
9: Curry and Chips: Syhleti sailors and Indian takeaways
10: Curry Travels the World

There are undoubtedly plentiful ways of eating a bona fide Indian meal.

However, there are certain primary principles governing Indian food. These are derived from Ayurvedic (science of life) medicine, which is still practised today in India and many other places throughout the world.

The founding texts of Ayurveda were two ancient medical treatises, known as the Caraka-samhita and the Susruta-samhita, first written down sometime in the first century BC. These medical texts outlined the principles governing a correct diet. They argued that the body needed to be kept in a state of equilibrium with its environment.

This translated into a recommendation that people living in marshy damp areas should eat hot heavy iguana meat and those living in the plains should eat the light and nutritious black antelope.

Diet also had to be adjusted to the seasonal variations in the Indian climate. During the hot weather, when the body needed to conserve energy, the Caraka-samhita advised a diet of cold foods such as milky gruels.

The arrival of the Muslim in India between the 10th and 11th centuries resulted in a large combination of culinary traditions.

With Mesopotamian, Persian and Middle Eastern cuisine, culinary art reached the peak of complexity under the Mughals. The latter have left behind not only the Taj Mahal and Red Fort but also a rich legacy of food, which remains alive after centuries.

The Muslims brought refined and courtly etiquette of both group and individual dining �� basically sharing food in fellowship. In doing so, they revolutionised simple Indian food. Items native to India were enriched with nuts, raisins, saffron and aromatic herbs. Each of the Muslim rulers offered something or the other to make Indian food a potpourri of spices, taste and flavour. Babur brought grilled meats along with different varieties of fruits and nuts from Central Asia.

Humayun introduced Iranian flavours of sweet and sour, and the use of nuts and saffron.

Rice-based pilaus, bhartas and stewed meat called kharosh, which later took the shape of korma in India, appeared during his reign. Cartloads of almonds, pistachios, walnut, dried apricots and plums, and raisins were imported to Hindustan along the new roads which were constructed to facilitate trade throughout northern India, Central Asia and Persia.

Several centuries later came the colonial rulers.

A story goes: When English memsahibs sent their empire-building husbands off to work, what went with them in their lunch-boxes were slices of roast from Sunday’s lunch, wedges of cold pork pies, leftover stew with a few boiled eggs thrown in.

The determined brown sahibs who shared offices with these Englishmen were impressed with these packed lunches and began to believe that these bland and often insipid offerings were the secret to the power of their masters.

And so, somewhere in Bombay, an exasperated homemaker, egged on by her upwardly-aspirational husband, fashioned a dish that was a cross between a shepherd’s pie and a pasta casserole, using leftover curry. Thus was born the dabba gosht.

Over the centuries, cuisines in India have assimilated a lot of colonial influences. These have gone both ways. From the chamosa of Portugal that is inspired by the Indian samosa, to the kedgeree that pays tribute to our khichdi. While tracing the lineages of these dishes may prove difficult, the fact remains that a delicious legacy continues to prevail.

Little new information comes out of this book. The author nonetheless must be credited for the orderliness of presentation.

Three stars.