My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking [Hardcover]

I received my order of "My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking - Niloufer Ichaporia King."

I STRONGLY recommend this book. My wife is Parsi, and I enjoy cooking Parsi cuisine (along with many other cuisines, but Parsi cuisine is a favorite) and have a number of books on the subject, so I looked at how she treated some recipies I had already done, Patrel and Dhansak Masala. I've visited where my wife grew up in Bombay on M Karve Road near the Eros theater. There I also enjoyed Goan cuisine (my wife's 'nannys' were Goan and are superb cooks of both Goan and Parsi cuisine). Reading this book made you feel like you were back in Bombay learning a cuisine at the hands of someone who had mastered the cuisine and was gracious and competent enough to be teaching it to you with the clarity and style of a master teacher. Clearly this book is written by a Parsi in America, paying attention to the difficulties of obtaining certain ingredients, noting appropriate substitutions, yet showing the knowledge that could only come from someone who had been a part of the culture in Bombay - maintaining a most authentic result. The book isn't simply a collection of exquisitely presented recipies demonstrating exemplarary versions of those recipies, but the recipies are presented within the cultural context of the Parsi traditions, noting the culinary likes and dislikes of Parsis, what are mainstays of the tradition, etc etc. Delightfully written - a pleasure to read (excellent editing) and a clear presentation of information that I've struggled to get elsewhere.

Dhansak Masala is a complex spice mixture composed of dhana jiru and sambhar masala, each complex mixtures in their own right, with endless variations as numerous as there are cooks. I have searched high and low on the internet for these recipies only to find ones far more mediocre than the excellent verrsion she has presented in this book.

Her explanation of making Patrel would have saved me endless hours trying to find out that Colocasia leaves are actually taro root leaves. She lays out the techniques in a clear style reminiscent of Julia Child of exactly how to assemble this dish. I know that reading each recipe cover to cover will be a treasure trove of information.

I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that if you have an interest in Parsi or even Indian or Persian cuisine, this is a must have for your collection.

I really couldn't recommend a cookbook more highly. I'm not alone either - she is strongly recommended by Alice Waters, who wrote the forward of this book, famous for her restaurant in Berkeley, Chez Panisse and a major influence to cooks everywhere on the use and incorporation of local fresh ingredients being used in her food preparations. Also Paula Wolfert, who has written an excellent book on Moroccan Cuisine among her many accomplishments, and Dianne Kennedy, whose Mexican cookbook is a classial reference of Mexican cuisine. And other esteemed chefs and editors. I really couldn't be in better company in recommending a book.

Finally, my ultimate critic of my cooking, my wife, has been absolutely delighted by the recipies in this book, partiularly the Parsi scrambled egg recipe.

Alice Waters calls Niloufer Ichaporia King "one of the great cooks I know." It makes Waters crazy that King has steadfastly refused to open a restaurant. But it delights Waters that, on the Parsi New Year, King consents to cook a feast worthy of her mother's Bombay kitchen at her legendary restaurant.

I've never been to that dinner. Nor have I ever enjoyed an Indian meal that King might claim as her own. I'm the standard American who claims to love Indian food --- I look over the menu and wonder one thing: how hot to order the curry. Oh, and maybe whether to get the king-size beer if I've thrown sanity to the winds and ordered a vindaloo.

But smart friends have said "My Bombay Kitchen" is the cookbook event of the year.

And Alice Waters --- she created Chez Panisse and almost singlehandedly launched the good food movement --- certainly knows her way around an entree.

And as even a skim of her book indicates, Niloufer Ichaporia King doesn't cook the mundane fare I'm used to.

One reason fits all: Niloufer Ichaporia King's people are not quite "Indian".

The Parsis were Persians who migrated to southern India from Persia. They had a highly evolved culture, heavily shaped by the teachings of Zoroaster, a prophet who lived in the seventh century before Christ. King calls Zoroastrianism "a religion of conduct rather than piety," for it holds that all people --- that includes both sexes --- are equal, that we are stewards of the earth, and that life is "an ongoing struggle between light and dark forces within each human being."

Because Bombay is a port city and a commercial hub, its tastes were sophisticated when King was growing up there. So was its food --- as King writes, Bombay had "a real magpie cuisine" that drew upon the old ways and, at the same time, featured local modifications of the food of other traditions.

King learned about food from her mother and the family cook, then went off to boarding school, where food was "a constant preoccupation" and luxury was "a can of baked beans after lights out." Though she moved to America, she had a keen memory of her childhood meals and the joys of "a diet not constrained by religion." With the help of her mother's recipes --- and her mother --- she began to use her training as an anthropologist to chronicle Parsi cooking.

Most of her recipes will be of interest primarily to hard-core foodies. Are you likely to make your own Indian breads? Have a hankering to whip up some brain cutlets? Can your butcher get kid for you? And how about banana leaves to wrap fish filets?

So what's left to the amateur chef --- or, more urgently, the home cook who'd like a modest expansion of his/her repertoire?

Just enough recipes to justify the purchase --- and whet the palate for the more adventurous recipes.

So I'm starting with Parsi crudités, a selection of off-the-beaten track vegetables (jicama) and fruits (green mango crescents), accompanied by bowls of salt and cayenne pepper and lime wedges. Then it's on to carrot and coriander soup, served hot or cold. Lamb shanks spiced with a ginger-garlic paste, cumin seeds and red chiles. Irish stew (yes, Irish stew). Cashew cream chicken, with its "thick, creamy" gravy. Caramelized fried rice. And a cauliflower custard.

Which recipe will most tempt you? I vote for the custard. It took me just minutes to prepare. It was, like so many great dishes, even better the second day. And, I can happily report, it was at once as familiar as quiche and exotic as...well, Bombay.

Like many great affairs, it began in the bedroom and moved to the kitchen. I was so entranced by Ms. Ichaporia-King's writing that I had the book at my bedside for weeks of enticing, and entrancing late night reading. I then brought the book into my kitchen for what I anticipate will be a lifetime of delicious meals. I used to cook for profit, but now just for pleasure and it is a book that can be either inspirational (oh, I think I will try that spice combination with my old favorite pork dish) or instructional (so that is how you make chili pickles) and most often both. I hate when Amazon says "people who liked this book, also liked..." But I will say for people who liked Simple French Food by Richard Olney, The Zuni Cookbook by Judy Rogers, or Nose to Tail Eating by Fergus Henderson, they will adore this book. I now have a little Bombay in my kitchen, and everyone is thrilled about my latest affair.