Purchase
CLIMBING THE MANGO TREES:
By: Madhur Jaffrey
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
Todayβs 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 βsweet as honeyβ) 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 Madhurβs 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 fareβthese 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 familyβs 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 ingredientβmore than thirty family recipes recovered from Madhurβs childhood, which she now shares with us.
 Media BuzzAll Things Considered - November 25, 2006
| 
© 2003-2026