Colleen Taylor Sen makes you think about many things — What is Indian CuisineIJ What is so ‘Indian’ about itIJ Is it an authentic cuisine or an amalgamation of flavours, recipes and ingredients from around the worldIJ The book is like an Indian thali, mélange of various ingredients — anecdotes, recipes, funny and interesting stories. It is a complete book, a whole compendium of many small and big facts related to foods of India. It talks about how Indian food travelled to the world — and still exists in different parts in veiled forms.

The title makes you think, the two words ‘feasts’ and ‘fasts’ are used together despite being contradictory terms. Just like these two words, India is also a land of contrast, in its seasons/climate, soil, ideas and rituals, attitudes and taboos regarding food and cuisine.

Food and its history cannot be seen in isolation — it has to be seen in relation to the climate, seasons, crops, trade and availability of the raw materials. Sen goes deep into the history of food, delving not only into ancient practices, techniques of cooking but also the etymology of words related to food which reveal a lot about their origin.

This well researched book is a collection of various food trends starting from ancient India right up to the 21st century. It is a compilation of odes to food, extracts from various ancient treatises to recipes from modern India and different trends like the rise of vegetarianism. This book has interesting information for everyone — the lay critic, the foodie, the gourmet, the aspiring food historian and the lovers and the connoisseurs of food.

It never gets dull or boring despite the sort of dissertation research it proves to be. This is because the information is often interspersed with recipes, facts, theories and enticing food pictures.

She describes various significant Indian festivals where fasting and feasting are both integral to the celebration such as Navratris where fasting serves the double purpose of detoxification and consuming healthy food. She also describes the origin of fasting and the various reasons for its popularity today. It is not only a form of worship but is also performed out of a sense of gratitude, a petition to God for a favour (Monday fasts for a good husband, Karva Chauth for husband’s long life and many more in different parts of the country). Fasting is an instrument of self discipline and a method of physical cleansing. In India, women usually fasts more than men. Her perspective seems to be that fasting is not very different from feasting as it is just a restricted way of eating vegetarian food.

Sen explains how food is central to many important events in life — marriage, pregnancy, birth, death and funeral rites. She also makes a connection between food and medicine, contradictory food ideologies and the great science of Ayurveda which recommends certain foods and beverage pairings according to body types. She mentions turmeric (haldi) as an ancient Indian spice that has medicinal properties. She also discusses various ancient medical theories associated with food. The book  elucidates on dietary rules and restriction of different regional cuisine — northern, eastern, western, southern and Islamic.

The author tackles the subject of ‘food snobbery’ while talking about the great cuisine of the Mughal emperors by describing food etiquette of the royals, the position and status derived from the quality of food served in court. She elaborates on the European influence on food in India — how the British in India avoided local cuisine out of a sense of superiority. The famous ‘stiff upper lip’ applied to Indian food cooked by Indian servants. She describes other European influences on Indian food such as the Portuguese invasion which led to the introduction of various new fruits and vegetables like potatoes, chilies, okra, papaya, guava and custard apple.

The dietary changes accompanying economic growth have led to many life style diseases which she calls diseases of ‘affluence’ — diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, thyroid etc. She analyses new trends in Indian food extremely well linking the emergence of a new middle class with larger disposable income to the change in dining at home and in restaurants. The increase in meat eating despite the deep rooted vegetarian ethos in Indian society is a result of the globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation policies.

The culture of restaurants and public dining is a recent phenomena as is the trend of sanitised street food making its presence felt in malls and food courts. She gives credit to Kundan lal Gujral, a Punjabi refugee for not only inventing Tandoori and Butter chicken, but also for pioneering the pleasant family friendly restaurant — Moti Mahal, the success of which led to a series of such clones namely Quality’s, Embassy and Gaylord’s.

She talks about globalisation of food with coming up of American fast food chains and proliferation of Thai, Italian, Chinese, Mexican and African restaurants. She dwells on the growth of food culture in India starting from the recipe columns in newspapers, restaurant reviews to present day blogs and restaurant review platforms like Zomato.

In the final chapter she goes beyond the foods of India to talk about the food of the Indian Diaspora, comparing their foods and explaining the reasons behind the common roots.

The system of Indian cuisine has been perfectly described by Nobel laureate Octavio Paz: “In India, the various dishes come together on a single large plate, neither a succession nor a parade, but a conglomeration and super imposition of things and tastes: a synchronic cuisine, a fusion of flavours, a fusion of times.”

The reviewer teaches English in a Delhi school