A Classic Indian Cookbook Returns, This Time for Americans

[elleng]

'When Sameen Rushdie was a child in India in the 1950s, she unpacked a tiffin at school every day. The steel compartments of the traditional lunchbox held home-cooked macaroni and kheema bound with melted Cheddar and covered with grilled tomatoes. Smoky kebabs with tender, cold parathas. Moats of mashed potato around ginger-spiked beef and peas.

It was only lunch. But for Ms. Rushdie, who would go on to write “Indian Cookery,” a cult-favorite cookbook published in 1988 in the United Kingdom, it was also a lesson in how food, history and politics were inextricably intertwined.

The contents of her tiffin told a story: Ms. Rushdie was a Muslim kid, sitting down to eat British-influenced Indian food, in the cosmopolitan hub of Bombay at the end of British colonial rule. She knew that eating meat put her in the minority among the Hindu vegetarians at her school, and she came to think of lunchtime as an opportunity to quietly rebel, to assert all the particulars of her identity while relishing in its flavors.

In 1947, the country was split into India and Pakistan, and millions of people were displaced. Though many Muslim families went to Pakistan, Ms. Rushdie’s family stayed put in Bombay. “To be a Muslim who had not defected to the promise of safety and prosperity was a complex and confusing thing,” she wrote in her book, which has since fallen out of print in Britain.

But later this month, her book is due for a comeback, as Picador publishes “Sameen Rushdie’s Indian Cookery,” a new edition that for the first time introduces American readers to Ms. Rushdie’s work and to the recipes of her childhood, from her family’s special Sunday lunch of sabut raan (a whole leg of lamb rubbed with yogurt and toasted spices and braised in the oven), to everyday vegetable dishes of okra and eggplant, to her father’s favorite: calf’s brains sautéed with garlic, ginger and fenugreek.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/dining/indian-cookbook-sameen-rushdie.html?

Sabut Raan (Whole Roast Leg of Lamb)

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019301-sabut-raan-whole-roast-leg-of-lamb

[PJMcK]

1. It's time for a new cookbook, then!

Remarkably, I read your post last evening while I was waiting for a friend at an Indian restaurant. This cookbook sounds really good!

There's one quote in the article that I disagree with. Salman Rushdie says that Indian food was poorly represented in NYC in the late 1980s. I think he just didn't know where to look! From the late 1970s onward, my foody friends and I scoured the city for Indian food and we found many delicious and attractive restaurants. Today, they're nearly as ubiquitous as Chinese restaurants, (which I also love!).

For the record, last night I had Papadum, Mulligatawny soup, Chicken Vindaloo, Basmati rice, Aloo Paratha with Lemon Pickle and Mango Chutney as condiments. Dessert was a modest scoop of Mango ice cream. The food was delicious and the company was fun!

Thanks, elleng, for bringing this new book to my attention.

[elleng]

2. Interesting, PJ!

My Pakistani friend lived in NYC during the '80s, so will ask him about Indian restaurants then. Now he's in MD, and visits small, suburban Indian + Paki places often, was going to do so last night but stayed home due to storm. He MIGHT have cooked!