Book Review: Indian Food – A Culinary Corner Historical Companion by K. T.
Achaya, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1994, 322 pages. Reviewer: Premlata Venkataraman
Getting ready for Diwali is never easy. But in the midst of making – and if you are an adult man, mostly eating – burfis, halwas and other delectables, has it ever crossed your mind how our ancestors ever came up with these complicated recipes? If it hasn’t, it’s probably because they were always there as far as your or your nani’s (patti’s, or ajji’s) memory goes. Then again, probably it has, as you struggle to re-create Indian holidays with the convenience of refrigeration, canned foods, and ready-mix powders. The mystery is now solved in the book I quite accidentally ran into that tells the history of Indian cooking, starting, not surprisingly, from the Indus Valley civilization and the Vedas.
Indian Food-A Historical Companion by K.T.Achaya of Bangalore is a well-researched, comprehensive book – over 800 references, exhaustive glossary of non-English words and Latin words, author index, and subject index. This book, a feast coming out of Achaya’s labor for satisfying the author’s culinary curiosity, is the culmination of a project funded by the Indian National Science Academy. It describes the origin of food materials and their preparations covering the whole of India. Without the author’s first name, biographical sketch, or photograph, I have assumed Achaya is a “she.”
Achaya has used a multipronged approach in trying to find how old some of the unique Indian preparations are. With the help of talented people — mostly women — and historical sources in Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati, Bengali, and others, the author cites the earliest references for food items, some versions of which are popular even today in our diet. She traces how foods from far away shores arrived in India and were integrated into to our cuisine. She elaborates the various regional cuisine, the influence of Moguls, Persians, and Europeans on the Indian diet. Interspersed with the narration are food factoids like the paan reaching India from southeast Asia. I found these factoids quite fascinating.
Achaya, for example, tells us that
• in Vedic India animals were sacrificed, with different parts of the meat offered to different Gods of the Hindu pantheon,
• the battle against meat eating in Vedic India was won by the Jains and the Buddhists out of their enlightened idea of jiva-karunyam (compassion towards living creatures, mainly animals), much like anti-smoking campaign of our times, and
• thirty-one types of alcoholic drinks (with authentic Sanskrit names) fermented/distilled from grains, fruits, and flowers were known.
Take the simple papad we routinely snack on. Its origin, both in etymology and preparation, Achaya tells us, is in parpata, created from powdered pulses mentioned in the 3,500-years-old Vedic literature. Similarly, the Vedic vatika is the precursor of the all-Indian vada we relish in all its variations, dunked in rasam or dahi, or eaten with chutneys. The dosai, a variation of the Dravidian appam made even today in South India, and sevai, the steamed rice noodles, another Dravidian delicacy, are ancient. Achaya cites references in the Sangam period’s Tamil literature (first few centuries before and after Christ). But the popular idli is, strangely, a much later addition to the Indian cuisine.
She traces the origin of the popular milk-based Bengali sweets — Rasgolla, Sandhesh, Rasmalai — prior to sixteenth century. How? Because Mukundram Chakravarti in his 16th century book Chandimangala describes them. Similarly, Gujarat’s Lavanyaswamy (~ 1200AD) mentions vadi, laddu, kheer, sukhadi, talwat, and edhami, prepared in Western India with great relish even today.
Green chili, so beloved in our cooking, is an import from South America just a few centuries ago. That is perhaps why more traditional Indian food (as those prepared for shraddha) used black pepper.
Also included are excerpts from Sanskrit cooking manual Manasa Ulasa (literally, Mental Pleasure) attributed to the Chalukya King Someshwara (1100s AD) that elaborates vegetarian and nonvegetarian food preparations fit only for kings, Nemichandra’s Lilavati (1170 AD), and Basavaraja’s (1700s AD) Siva-tattva-ratnakara describing the royal kitchen and banquets.
Do you want to know about good eating manners and the placement of food items in the Bengali thali-kathori style, or on the banana leaves common in the South India? Read Achaya.
Given that Indians are annoyingly picky about the food they eat – specially when others make them – Achaya has presented the endless variations of Indian cooking without being judgmental, without showing her preferences and betraying her prejudices. This makes the book a storehouse of objective information. It is simply fascinating to read the cuisine of Kashmiris, Dogra Rajputs, Parsis, and Bohra Muslims, and Goans, to mention a few, in the book.
Your kitchen library may include books from the popular Joy of Cooking to Meenakshi Ammal’s utilitarian Cook and See (literal translation of her Samaittup-paar in Tamil or its equivalent. Still, Achaya’s book will be an interesting addition because going beyond the smell, look, taste, feel, and texture of food, it traces their very origins. The book is fit to be part of your family heirloom. END