Monday, 11 February 2013

Picklehead-The Review

 
Picklehead is written by Rohan Candappa and is subtitled 'From Ceylon to suburbia,a memoir of food,family,and finding yourself.
It starts in aisle seven of his local Sainsburys(Well there is a brief bit about being offered curry for school dinner as 'Your Indian.You'll like this)where he picks up a 500gram jar of Sainsburys own label korma cooking sauce.He reads the recipe on the back which then causes him to pause and think about stuff.This eventually leads him to set off on a journey,physical and metaphorically to discover his families story.This journey starts in the green jungles of Burma,heads to Ceylon eventually landing in London.

He talks about various members of his family and also introduces some of their recipes.(I am not a lover of indian food but i thought that was a nice little touch). He even explains how we in the United Kingdom,a nation of curry lovers are eating them all wrong.
You also get to know a bit about the writer himself in amongst the main framework of the book.

One of the most interesting sections of the book was 'A Brief History of Curry in Britain'.This was split into five sections and did as it said in the title.It covered the history of spices,incorporated the history.albeit briefly ,of the Raj,when indian restaurants first appeared in the United Kingdom,the partition of India,comedy stereotypes,and everything in between.This could in fact have benn expanded into a full book i felt.
All in all an excellently entertaining book especially as i only bought it for 49p.

                                                                                                                The Monday Baker.

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