The book is an accumulation of the columns that Mehta wrote for various papers, including HT Brunch. A compendium of some of the road trips that he took across India. Mehta’s chosen to group them according to all the chai stalls that he met on the road. ‘There’s not a highway, road or dirt track in India where you can’t find a cup of chai whenever you want it’ he writes and so he sets out to write about travelling down India’s rickety or mountainous roads fuelled by a passion for seeing new places and cups of tea. To begin with the chaiwala is a constant factor along with odd or touching encounters over cups of tea, like the saffron tea that he shares with a Kashmiri shepherd, but along the way tea gets overtaken by a love for Enfield Bullets.

Rishad Saam Mehta

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I remember a friend’s mother teaching me how to make a kadhi with mango juice and cumin seeds. She was a Gujarati and a great cook – whenever I went to visit her son, a small plateful of snacks would appear like magic or an invitation to lunch. And thanks to her, I grew to appreciate the wonderful variety of vegetarian dishes that her westernised son occasionally sniffed at.

Bhanu Hajratwala’s treasure trove of Gujarati fare was originally learnt from her family in Fiji and then taken with her to the US after her marriage.

Bhanu Hajratwala

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All recipes have some kind of historical significance to them. How they originated, where they originated and why they are the way they are. In The East Indian Kitchen, Michael Swamy sets out to trace the culture, traditions and culinary practices followed by the East Indians – of Mumbai, who were the original inhabitants of the seven islands that formed Mumbai and who converted to Christianity after the Portuguese arrived in the islands. The book in the end turns into a very personal search for culinary roots and origins written by a chef who studied at the Cordon Bleu Culinary School in London, who has worked as a food stylist for Indian TV channels and whose grandmother is East Indian.

The East Indian Kitchen is the second edition of Swamy’s book Enduring Flavours, which was based on the way the East Indian community had adapted to changing times.

India, Michael Swamy

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Chettinad food is known for its spicy hot flavours, that can bring tears to the eyes of those unused to encounters with chillis. In the last few decades it has been making its presence felt in five star hotels and offering foodies an alternative to the traditional South Indian vegetarian cuisine. Alamelu Vairavan’s third book makes few concessions for Western readers like offering mild spice variants, even though she herself is based in Wisconsin. In this book she has listed 170 recipes, clustered under different headings to make the book easy to navigate.

Each recipe has a detailed list of ingredients including the traditional sambar – there are nine varieties to choose from – six different rasams, including prawn and chicken, chutneys and tamarind rice, though the recipes in this book are primarily non vegetarian, since that is what Chettinad food is famous for.

Alamelu Vairavan, India

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Janez Bogataj’s The Food and Cooking of Slovenia has the look and feel of a fairytale book and, looking at the beautiful photographs and reading the names of some of the dishes, you might be forgiven for thinking there’s something almost other worldly here. Famed for its beautiful mountain scenery, myriad castles and picturesque medieval towns rather than its cuisine, Slovenia is not a country that springs to mind when talking about the great culinary traditions of Europe. It does borrow fairly heavily from its neighbours – in the western part of the country in particular pizza is very good, while most restaurants in the east will rustle up a hearty gulasch – but there is a strong gastronomic tradition if you know where to go and seek it out.

Janez Bogataj

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Food writer Ratna Rajaiah has put together a book that adds new insights to the familiar ingredients of Indian cookery. What she does do is take coconuts and chillies, mangoes and jackfruit, ragi and channa dal, ghee and jaggery, mustard seeds and curry leaves and reintroduce them to us by delving into the pages of history.

She goes back to vedic times for the evolution of rice, though in one of its simplest forms, the humble conjee or kanji, and talks about how the word for rice was actually used in Asian countries as a synonym for food.

India, Ratna Rajaiah

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There is rather a charming tradition these days of combining cookery with stories of the way of life that inspired the recipes. In keeping with this, George has spiced her recipes liberally with family anecdotes. “Food and memories are interconnected. Most of us have everlasting memories that are evoked by the foods that we prepare or eat, don’t we?’ George says.

While containing 150 recipes that encapsulate the richness of Syrian-Christian cooking, ‘The Suriani Kitchen’ also gives you a sneak peek at George’s family secrets.

India, Lathika George

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If you don’t have the time or culinary skills to follow in the footsteps of celebrity chefs but won’t be satisfied with ready meals that take just a few minutes in the microwave, Tom Norrington-Davies’ ‘Cupboard Love’ could be the ideal cookbook for you. The idea is to establish an up-to-date version of an old-fashioned larder in your kitchen. This may entail an initial outlay to build up a well-stocked cupboard, but once you have the basic ingredients you can produce a variety of home-made dishes with the addition of fresh produce in a short time and without too much fuss. It does of course mean that you are in control of the ingredients and can use olive oil or butter rather than hydrogenated fat, and pure sugar as opposed to dextrose or corn syrup.

Tom Norrington-Davies

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Having lived for over twenty years in Cairo, where home cooking was the norm, on returning to the UK I gave in to the temptation to try out quite a few of the ready meals that I came across in the supermarkets. I was often short of time, and that was my excuse for not going overboard on home cooking.

I did think it might be useful to have a recipe book just in case, and bought The Good Housekeeping Cookery Book for as little as one pound as part of an introductory offer when I joined a book club. It went up on the top shelf of the bookcase, and there it stayed until I thought I would check its advice on roasting the Christmas turkey.

cooking

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When I ordered this book I was under the impression that it was just a cookery book, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there was a substantial introductory section written by a dietician, Catherine Collins, that explains how cholesterol travels round the body, how it builds up and why this is dangerous, how to reduce your risk factors, what a healthy-heart diet is and why a Mediterranean diet is one to be seriously considered. This section is followed by one hundred healthy and delicious recipes from chef Daniel Green.

Cholesterol

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When I was little my mum was always baking cakes and pies etc and I really enjoyed helping her. However, in this busy day and age, the art of home baking seems to be dying out a bit – there are so many ready-made cakes and pies to buy, and I guess we are all that bit more health and weight conscious so do not want to be continually eating this sort of food. Having said that there, there is little more satisfying than seeing your freshly baked cake come out of the oven, and within a short while actually being able to taste it!

I was on the lookout for a good baking recipe book, mainly because I thought it would be good to do some baking with my daughter like my mum used to do with me. I already knew of Leiths Cookery Bible so when I saw Leiths Baking Bible I didn’t need to look any further! The recipes are actually compiled by Susan Spaull and Fiona Burrell but are all tested at Leiths School of Food and Wine.

baking, Fiona Burrell, Susan Spaul

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