Purchase
A Memoir of a Childhood in India
Knopf
October 2006
On Sale: October 10, 2006
320 pages ISBN: 140004295X EAN: 9781400042951 Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction Memoir
Today’s most highly regarded writer on Indian food gives us
an enchanting memoir of her childhood in Delhi in an age and
a society that has since disappeared. Madhur (meaning “sweet as honey”) Jaffrey grew up in a large
family compound where her grandfather often presided over
dinners at which forty or more members of his extended
family would savor together the wonderfully flavorful dishes
that were forever imprinted on Madhur’s palate. Climbing mango trees in the orchard, armed with a mixture of
salt, pepper, ground chilies, and roasted cumin; picnicking
in the Himalayan foothills on meatballs stuffed with raisins
and mint and tucked into freshly fried pooris; sampling the
heady flavors in the lunch boxes of Muslim friends; sneaking
tastes of exotic street fare—these are the food memories
Madhur Jaffrey draws on as a way of telling her story.
Independent, sensitive, and ever curious, as a young girl
she loved uncovering her family’s many-layered history, and
she was deeply affected by their personal trials and by the
devastating consequences of Partition, which ripped their
world apart. Climbing the Mango Trees is both an enormously appealing
account of an unusual childhood and a testament to the power
of food to evoke memory. And, at the end, this treasure of a
book contains a secret ingredient—more than thirty family
recipes recovered from Madhur’s childhood, which she now
shares with us.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|