Kitchen Qissas

Only some of the courses in this anthology of food writing satisfy the appetite

- Ruchir Joshi

If this book were a meal and if you, the reader, were a cactusy old sybarite of a begum or nawab, say a glutton chewing for flaws, you would find lots in here to complain about. In her foreword, Karachi-based writer Bina Shah writes: “Muslim South Asian kitchens are the engines of an entire culture.” If your question happens to be “how is a South Asian Muslim kitchen different as an engine of culture than other kitchens to other cultures?”, you won’t find the answer in most of the pieces in this book. The glitch, of course, is in the baghaar of the initial formulation. One could argue there is a loose homogeneity to Muslim cuisine across the sub-continent, but finding a definable shape would be hard work. Each piece in this book is accompanied by a recipe and a look at about half of them immediately throws up the question: what is particularly Muslim about palak aur methi, baingan ka bharta, vegetarian bun kabab, kaali daal, samosa, carrot kanji, lotus stem yakhni, khichri or egg, aubergine and tomato curry?