A gentle memoir filled with family anecdotes; this is not great literature but it is a lovely read. The author has a style that is wonderfully evocative of place. She draws a Madras (now Chennai) from her childhood that is such a faithful representation of the one I lived in for a couple of years that I can see the locations in front of me. This is the domestic Chennai that tourists never see.
Like many of the Desi diaspora, the biggest culture shock she experienced once she reached the US was in terms of food. Suddenly ingredients that were ubiquitous are difficult to impossible to find (not to mention ludicrously expensive) while the scarce Indian restaurants around tend to be geared toward Western palates, bearing little or no relation to the dishes for which one yearns.
Small wonder then that Shoba Narayan's memories are intricately interwoven with the flavors and fragrances of Indian food; each anecdote includes a meal, a treat or a festive occasion, and culminates in a recipe relevant to the piece.
I have tried a few and they are "housewife" recipes: they work and produce a reliable result. Of course, for some of the items we prefer our own recipes, but then again we are not Tamilians, and our own yearning is for subtly different spice combinations.
