A feast of words

I'm not surprised Shoba Narayan's rasam isn't as good as her grandmother's: no authentic TamBram recipe for the "lentil broth" recommends sauteing tomatoes in olive oil. Nor, incidentally, does channa masala need seasoning with black mustard seeds.

To be fair, Narayan isn't writing for people who may be expected to have more than a nodding acquaintance with Indian cuisine. She's catering for American readers""and has Americanised her recipes accordingly.

Which is why she suggests Thai or serano chiles for making coconut chutney and the liberal use of Tamcon (readily available at Indian stores, she adds helpfully).

But this is not a book of recipes. Monsoon Diary is that relatively new genre: the food narrative (remember Like Water for Chocolate?). Narayan's recollections of growing up in Coimbatore and Adyar are interspersed with recipes of the dishes that made that childhood memorable.

That's a theme I can identify with: taste, smell and memory are so intrinsically intertwined for most of us that a whiff of something can effortlessly transport you back in time to a better place.

Narayan clearly feels the same way. "A smell can carry a memory, and certain foods can compress the memory of an entire childhood into them. The tastes and smells of my childhood were the twin bastions of TamBram cooking: idlis and coffee," she writes.

Narayan is a skilled raconteur. (She should be: she studied at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she won a Pulitzer Fellowship, and has written for Gourmet, Food & Wine and The New York Times, among others.)

Her narrative begins with her choru-unnal ceremony""the first food that is ceremoniously fed to any newborn in India. From there Narayan moves lightly to her grandparents' home in Coimbatore, where she stayed while her mother returned to Madras (now Chennai) with her baby brother.

Life as the granddaughter of a relatively well-to-do government doctor was cushy"" overflowing larders, the air redolent with the aromas of ghee, cumin and coriander.

"Meals were a pageant of colours and flavours, all combed together with an array of spices," writes Narayan. The little Shoba followed her grandmother around as she painstakingly soaked vegetables in sour yogurt to make vatral and fashioned vadam with wet rice flour.

Adding flavour to her memories are the recollections of the maid Maariamma, who converted to Christianity every time the nuns from the convent nearby distributed new saris and cash to neophytes.

The gentle, unhurried pace of life continued even after she moved back with her parents. Whether it was looking out for the milkman Raju, who named his cows after his wives, or watching awestruck as the press-wallah (Narayan calls him the iron man) handled live coals with his bare hands, Narayan's life was a charmed one, untouched by worries or care.

Food is, of course, at the centre of it all""whether it's pav-bhaji, her mother's baking classes, or the ritualistic meals prepared for the annual shraadham.

In a family that celebrated food and the preparation of it so much, it doesn't sound too incredulous that the decision to allow Narayan to go to the US for a year's study, too, hinged on a meal.

She was asked to make a traditional south Indian meal that matched up to her extended family's high standards of culinary excellence. For someone who till then had never prepared a full meal, Narayan proved to be more than a match for her family.

From there, Narayan's narrative moves to the US. She vividly describes life as an almost indigent student in the US, hosting a benefit dinner to fund her studies, a breakneck journey in a New York cab to replace some dead goldfish and her growing fascination with metal sculpture. The only bitter note in this otherwise ebullient book is reserved for her discord with the faculty at her university""it resulted in her degree being withdrawn.

That's when she moved back home and agrees to an arranged marriage. Life as a married woman in the US and her attempts at fusion cooking""which continued until her husband voiced his objections to entertaining the United Nations in his kitchen"" are a fitting end to the book.

Monsoon Diary is an engrossing, entertaining read. Narayan is adept at sketching vivid pen sketches of how the middle class Tamil Nadu and student Americans live.

Less believable is her description of a train journey to Bombay""complete with fat Marwari matrons with their gigantic tiffin carriers. Surely that cliche has been done to death already?

And unpardonable is the blatant attempt to latch on to the Mira Nair bandwagon""Monsoon Diary? If there's any connection between the title of this book and its content, I missed it.

As far as I'm concerned, Monsoon Diary will rank right up there in any list of vacuous book titles.

Shoba Narayan
Penguin
Pages: 223
Price: Rs 295