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Book highlights Indian 'spice coast'

Nitish S Rele in Tampa

Savoring the Spice Coast of India: Fresh Flavors from Kerala (HarperCollins, Pages 230, $27.50)

Cook or no cook, you don't want to miss this book. The mouthwatering recipes will inspire you to grab an apron in the kitchen and reach out for inspiration as you bring out the never-cooked-in utensils and light up the stove.

Acclaimed cookbook author Maya Kaimal takes you on a pleasant and beautiful journey of the southern state of Kerala with her just-released book.

Savoring the Spice Coast... features more than 100 recipes, each carefully adapted for the home kitchen. Chapters on getting started, stocking your pantry and planning a complete South Indian meal provide thoughtful explanations of ingredients, seasonings and techniques, making it easy for even the novice to create the complex layers of flavour that characterise Keralite cuisine.

Indeed, Kaimal has taken great efforts to explain in detail the meaning of the Kerala pantry, which includes basic Indian food ingredients such as dal, masala, cilantro and ghee. And you cannot but be struck by the outstanding, lush four-colour photographs in the book. Photographers Ruven Afanador, Zubin Shroff and John Bentham deserve a pat on the back.

Some of the recipes that will make your mouth water are idli, upma, okra stuffed with masala, fried eggplant in yoghurt sauce, masoor dal with toasted coriander, tamarind shrimp, stuffed fish with sweet and spicy masala, chicken kurma, lamb vindaloo, shrimp biryani, hot mango pickle, etc. You can top it all with desserts such as coconut burfi and cardamon coffee.

Kaimal, winner of the 1997 IACP Julia Child Award for First Cookbook, has also written Curried Flavors: Family Recipes from South India. She has appeared on the Today show and the TV Food Network and contributed articles to Food & Wine, Saveur and the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

A resident of New York, she frequently travels to India.

Excerpts from an interview with the author:

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Your birthplace, your childhood, where you grew up and how did this fascination for Kerala come about?

I was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and lived there until I was 10, at which point my Indian father, American mother, sister and brother moved to Boulder, Colorado. My father was raised in Kerala and both his parents are from there, so growing up I was exposed to a good deal of the food, culture and traditions of this Indian state.

How did the liking for cooking come about and then how did it result in writing cookbooks?

When I was five my grandmother came from Kerala and stayed with us for nine months in Boston. She showed my parents how to make some of the food from Kerala using the ingredients that could be found here, in an American kitchen. After that, my father began to make this food from time to time. He experimented with different recipes (he is a scientist by trade) until he felt he had achieved the truly authentic flavour of the curries he remembered. He taught me how to cook with precision, and how to know when a curry is in balance. He taught me the things his mother had taught him. Around the time I finished college I decided I wanted to find a way of sharing these delicious and easy-to-replicate dishes with others, so I became interested in writing cookbooks.

How has the response been to the book? Will it also be released in India?

People have been extremely receptive to this book so far. I think the American audience is ready to learn more about Indian food than restaurant cooking. By now they are pretty familiar with North Indian food, and they are beginning to understand that there are regional differences. As for a release in India, I have to say I'm not sure. But I'll check with my publisher.

What is your full-time profession?

I am photo editor of Saveur, a food magazine. I work there full-time, setting up photo shoots for our stories and editing the film that comes in.

The photographs in the book are just out of the world. Who gets the credit for all of them?

Since I'm a photo editor, I do know a number of photographers in the field. The credit goes to three different photographers, because I liked all of their work and I felt they all captured different aspects of Kerala. I wanted the book to be very evocative of the place, since I think it is beautiful and different from most people's image of India.

Your future plans, are you working on another book?

I have some thoughts about the next project, but I'm in no rush.

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