Fabulous Feasts, Fables and Family: A Culinary Memoir

Deeply personal and intimate, this absolutely magical culinary memoir by Tabinda Jalil-Burney combines recipes and memories from the idyllic summers of her childhood which she spent with her grandparents in Aligarh. There, presided over by Amma-- her formidable grandmother-- the extended clan gathered and as the women concocted delicious dishes, they exchanged family stories and lore, embroidered, knitted and crocheted, while the children played games free of distractions.

Family entertainment included bait bazi, involving people reciting couplets in a chain. Some family dishes were prepared by talented home cooks and some by the women from extended family. Over the years, recipes began to be associated with a particular aunt or grand aunt. No one used a recipe book or measured quantities when cooking. They cooked with the seasonal produce available at home and measurements were by andaaza. Everyone would eat sitting cross-legged by a courtyard with tamarind and guava trees and the large thorny bushes of the sour kakronda berries.

In here are family secrets for the best shami kebabs, qormas, chuquandar gosht and desserts. This richly textured, densely peopled memoir conjures the vanished world of an Aligarh family in the sixties and seventies through food and cooking, and of India long gone.