Just finished reading "Climbing The Mango Trees - A Memoir of a Childhood in India", an autobiography by Madhur Jaffrey which recounts her childhood and adolescence years growing up in India. I have been a big admirer of Ms. Jaffrey's cookbooks ever since my mother bought "Eastern Vegeterian Cooking" more than ten years back. I really like her writing style and for the longest time, I used to read the narrative accompaniments preceding the recipes rather than the recipe itself. My mother then increased her collection of Madhur Jaffrey's books to include the "Far Eastern Cookery" and "Madhur Jaffrey's Cookbook - Food for Family and Friends". I read all of them, they would be my introduction to hummus, tabbouleh, and satay ayam. To a girl growing up in Pune, these were exotic recipes indeed and later after moving to the US, I had a very definite idea of all that I wanted to try eating. In fact, I carted these books to the US with me and my brother gave me " A Taste of India" as a wedding-going away gift. I still had not read the recipes, quite far away from trying to cook any of them. It would still take a couple of years for me to start cooking from them , though my mother had already tried out many of the recipes to great success. Still, I was surprised at how easy it was to follow the recipes and somehow the narratives with each recipe gave me a much better idea of what I should expect the end result to be (a very helpful factor in case one has never tasted the food item before).
So when I saw "Climbing the Mango Trees" on Amazon, I knew I had to buy it. It chronicles Ms. Jaffrey's years growing up in Dehli. What I really liked and which was a natural extension of the narratives which I used to like before, was the writing style which interwove the story of growing up in north India in pre-Independance years, with the eating rituals which seem to be a staple of the Indian culture across geographies and time. The book evokes the varied experiences of life in India, the most poignant perhaps being the one about anticipating the monsoon. The emphasis on seasonality and fresh home cooked food would also be a constant in my childhood although it would be the 1980's then and I grew up in a totally different part of India. Perhaps living in the USA where I see the same vegetables year around and people loading grocery carts with ready made frozen food makes my hyper aware of these facts. Growing up, my mother rarely let us eat leftovers, at the most the next day, but food was cooked to be sufficient for one or at the most two meals and if there was any left over, it was inevitably thrown away. I still do not like to eat food left over from more than a day, although there is not much one can do at times about that. Cooking fresh for each meal also meant a huge variety of food, prepared in different ways. R never likes to see the same dish for more than 2 meals.
The only complaint I have with this book is that it stops too soon,I would have loved to know more about Ms. Jaffreys prolific career, both theatrical and culinary. Hopefully there's another book coming out soon.
So when I saw "Climbing the Mango Trees" on Amazon, I knew I had to buy it. It chronicles Ms. Jaffrey's years growing up in Dehli. What I really liked and which was a natural extension of the narratives which I used to like before, was the writing style which interwove the story of growing up in north India in pre-Independance years, with the eating rituals which seem to be a staple of the Indian culture across geographies and time. The book evokes the varied experiences of life in India, the most poignant perhaps being the one about anticipating the monsoon. The emphasis on seasonality and fresh home cooked food would also be a constant in my childhood although it would be the 1980's then and I grew up in a totally different part of India. Perhaps living in the USA where I see the same vegetables year around and people loading grocery carts with ready made frozen food makes my hyper aware of these facts. Growing up, my mother rarely let us eat leftovers, at the most the next day, but food was cooked to be sufficient for one or at the most two meals and if there was any left over, it was inevitably thrown away. I still do not like to eat food left over from more than a day, although there is not much one can do at times about that. Cooking fresh for each meal also meant a huge variety of food, prepared in different ways. R never likes to see the same dish for more than 2 meals.
The only complaint I have with this book is that it stops too soon,I would have loved to know more about Ms. Jaffreys prolific career, both theatrical and culinary. Hopefully there's another book coming out soon.
