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Be it seasoned chefs or novice cooks who have discovered their innate skills for cooking, baking, grilling etc...., all are now on a roll not just inside their kitchens but in bookstores too, dishing out one culinary tome after another.

Cookbooks have taken a jump in quality as well as quantity in the past decade with more and more of them hitting the already overflowing well-stocked shelves of book shops and still managing to maintain the element of variety, so say several cooks who have turned authors.

‘Ten years ago, the choice of cookbooks was fairly limited. With the opening up of the culinary scene in India, the demand for more mainstream cookbooks has risen sharply.

There is huge demand for cookbooks that offer much more than recipes. And hence we get to see a variety of cookbooks,’ says celebrity chef Aditya Bal, who has compiled his recipes into The Chakh Le India Cookbook.

Moving beyond books meant to be read by aspiring chefs or housewives who wished to enhance their culinary skills, the genre of cookbooks has advanced to catering to all kinds of Indian and global cuisine.

‘Earlier the cookbooks used to have typical shahi paneer, dal makhni, butter kitchen type recipes but nowadays we can get cookbooks to suit everybody’s needs,’ says chef and host of TV show Master Chef India (season 2) Vikas Khanna whose cookbooks titled
My Great Indian Cook book
and Khanna Sutra were published by Penguin and Om Books recently.

With the multiple avatars of cookbooks the choice of categories for cookbooks have also widened. These days you can find books as per state’s cuisine and as per lifestyle as well.

‘The world has shrunk and we are interested in all kinds of cuisine. Ingredients are easily available in most major cities that one can cook from home. Whole lot of regional cookbooks have come into the market and it is no longer a niche market. Fusion cookbooks are available,’ says Chandra Padmanabhan author of Southern Flavours.


Not only have the number of cookbooks available in the market soared up in the previous few years they are also reporting good sales.

‘A decade ago nobody would have bought a cookbook worth Rs 1,000 but my all books are priced in the (rupees) 800-1500 range and all of them have been selling well. This shows that cookbooks have become more acceptable and the demand has also increased,’ says Vikas.

With the trend of turning vegetarian becoming a fashion statement, vegetarian cookbooks have become another interesting category.

‘Cookbooks have moved ahead from just providing recipes.

These days chefs add much more to the cookbooks like various anecdotes, health tips, alternative ingredients and much more,’ says Anuradha Sawhney who has authored the cookbook for vegetarian lovers titled
The vegan kitchen
Bollywood style.

‘I believe the main reason for this change is increased awareness amongst people, especially with reference to their health. Today, it is possible to find a cookbook which can guide people to reverse these lifestyle diseases without using any medication’ says Anuradha.

More state specific cuisine books have also rolled into the market recently with the most recent ones being Pondicherry Kitchen and Southern Flavours by Westland books.

‘Pondicherry Cuisine has been an untouched area when it comes to cookbooks. Cooking is an art and fine chemistry so why any area should be untouched especially when it offers potpourri of flavours,’ says Lourdes Tirouvanziam-Louis, author of
Pondicherry Kitchen.


Gujarati Kitchen, Flash in the Pan, Thinner Dinner, Simple Cooking for the desperate housewife and The quick cook-60 minute menus are other interesting books in the category.

Another one of-its-kind cook book is A Memsahib Cooks, a cookbook exclusively dedicated to Army kitchens published by Roli Books.

‘The layout of the book is not based on food categories but the events in the lives of army families. In the Army there is no definite pattern...one can be living in a beautiful old home in one station, or a broken down hut in the next. One can wait for months to be allotted appropriate accommodation and the shortcomings of the kitchens/facilities non-withstanding, hospitality continues at its best,’ says the author Kikki Sihota. (PTI)
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