I dislike the word ‘foodie,’ a vastly overused term that sounds affected and silly. But I do love good food. Often, while having breakfast, I ask the wife what we’re having for lunch, at lunch I ask about dinner and at dinner I ask about the following day’s breakfast. It’s exasperating for her and, indeed, what she says is true: all I ever do is think about food, which includes ingesting new and interesting forms of sustenance, watching restaurant reviews on YouTube and, yes, reading books that are about food. And one of those books is Zac O’Yeah’s Digesting India, which I first spotted on the Speaking Tiger (the company that has published this book) website, and subsequently got a copy to read.
Going by the information available on his website, O’Yeah is a Swedish author who’s currently based in Bangalore. The website says he’s written 19 books, including fiction and non-fiction, several of which are bestsellers. It also says his writings have been translated into over twenty languages, included in various anthologies and short-listed for multiple literary awards. If that weren’t impressive already, here’s more – O’Yeah’s talents aren’t restricted to writing alone; he’s also the lead vocalist for Swedish cyberpunk-disco orchestra, The Ändå, who aren’t exactly The Spotnicks or The Cardigans or even the Swedish House Mafia when it comes to Swedish bands, but that’s alright.
What really matters, as far as I’m concerned, is that O’Yeah likes to eat, is willing to experiment and has written a book about his gastronomic adventures that’s just utterly brilliant. That book is, of course, Digesting India, which the publisher says is ‘a wildly entertaining and informative adventure through the landscapes of Indian culinary art. O’Yeah, we’re told, has ‘a readiness to stomach anything and everything that grows or walks on earth’ and that the book ‘combines the three things that he loves most about life – eating, drinking and travelling.’ Sounds good already.
The book gets off to a promising start, with the author describing the one meal he’d never forget – a ‘slightly dubious tandoori chicken in a somewhat seedy drinking den in Patna.’ The rather explosive aftereffects of that meal are best left to your imagination – I won’t go into the details. O’Yeah, on his part, goes on to describe other instances where certain other meals were had, followed by rather urgent expulsions of those meals via miscellaneous bodily orifices. In the three decades he’s spent travelling across the world, the author says, he’s sampled thousands of astonishing meals – from fried silkworms in China to rotten shark in Iceland, and from goat intestines in Zimbabwe to raw meat sandwiches in Demark. Of course, as one occasionally must on the international food trail, he’s also had to pay his dues – everything from Delhi belly and Kathmandu killer-craps to Moroccan motions and Zimbabwean zumbas. All that suffering for you, dear reader, for as O’Yeah tells us, ‘If I played it safe, I might not have suffered inconveniences but would have had no stories to tell you.’ And please note, his challenges are on a scale different to anything you and I might ever be able to imagine. If you’ve ever had nightmares about not getting enough pieces of chicken in your dum biryani, O’Yeah was having nightmares about having to eat barbequed pangolins and bat fritters in a Wuhanese chophouse. Hardcore, you think? O’Yeah!
As the author travels, he recounts his culinary adventures across India even as he experiences cuisine that one would be hard-pressed to find anywhere else in the world. Chicken fried in coconut oil, extra-spicy Andhra biryani, sandwiches stuffed with chowmein and Schezwan bhelpuri in Bangalore, kingfish steak, plump prawns, fiery-hot curries, puttu and appams in Kerala, dry-fried mutton, grilled fish, vazhapoo vada, khuzipaniyaram and parlameen kuzhambu in Tamil Nadu, kebabs, meat stews, bedmi aloo and kachori in Delhi, and vinegary pork vindaloo, clam soup, assorted fried fish and cashew feni in Goa, where O’Yeah says he found the best bar snacks in the country. The thing is, just about anyone can probably reel off a list of things they’ve eaten and liked, but it requires a hefty dollop of writing talent in order to weave interesting stories around food and that’s where Zac really shines.
Using food as his central protagonist, O’Yeah tells us intriguing stories that are populated with endlessly interesting characters. Stories of our cities, of how food has evolved and changed over the decades, of slow food and fast, of establishments that have been around for decades and which are now an integral part of the local eating-out culture, from the royal repasts of the rich to the simple streetfood of the masses, of magnificent old hotels and rustic backpackers’ hostels, the slick and the shabby, the glitzy and the sleazy, the elegant and the run-down, and since this is India we’re talking about, the orderly but also, certainly, the chaotic. In some ways, the book is perhaps a microcosm of India itself, rich with anecdote, always with a surprise up its sleeve and with enough diversity to keep every palate satisfied.
While the book is all about food and food is what takes centrestage across its 300 pages, Digesting India also works as a particularly interesting travelogue, a guide to various cities across the country, a history book of sorts and a reference book for hyperlocal culture, customs and traditions – all in the context of food, of course. Foodies (yes, well, that word again) will certainly love it but so will just about anyone else who appreciates good writing, a subtle sense of humour and a story well told. Personally, I quite liked the book and would recommend you get a copy for yourself you like to read about food.
Digesting India is available on Amazon
No comments:
Post a Comment