Eating the present tasting the future by Charmaine o’ Brien
Unlike when I was a kid, I didn’t lie on the bed and read anymore. I do so on while snuggled in cosy chairs at home. k would have a thing or two to say about how the chairs were meant for her and how the boys and I have hijacked themð«¢. I love to soak in a tub (in luxury hotels) and read. Or in cafés over a cortado.
I rarely do this with a non fiction book unless it’s a gripping auto/biography. Not food related books as I read to escape.
Eating the Present, Tasting the Future by @charmaine.obrien published by @penguinindia broke my ‘rules’. It’s mean to be a sociological treatise and is yet not didactic. It is a page turner that bucks the trend. Has it covered every aspect of Indian food? Could it have focused more on the south and east? Charmaine didn’t set off to write an encyclopaedia on Indian food.
How dare a foreigner write about Indian food!?
Well she has travelled to more parts of India than any food writer I know of!
Does the book have a leftist touch? I’d say that Charmaine is in the corner David and not Goliath. A humanist.
Does the book have recipes?
Don’t we have enough of those?
Would those not into food interesting?
I think so as it covers matters of social change in India.
Am I writing this because I was pleasantly surprised to find my name mentioned twice? Hmmm the book is a review copy sent to me.
Any minus points? No disrespect to all concerned but it would have been nice if the name of the book was shorter and the book cover less crowded, but that’s an artistic choice and you can’t dissect that!
