Mangoes & Curry Leaves Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent

For this companion volume to the award-winning Hot Sour Salty Sweet, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid travel west from Southeast Asia to that vast landmass the colonial British called the Indian Subcontinent. It includes not just India, but extends north to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal and as far south as Sri Lanka, the island nation so devastated by the recent tsunami. For people who love food and cooking, this vast region is a source of infinite variety and eye-opening flavors.

Home cooks discover the Tibetan-influenced food of Nepal, the Southeast Asian tastes of Sri Lanka, the central Asian grilled meats and clay-oven breads of the northwest frontier, the vegetarian cooking of the Hindus of southern India and of the Jain people of Gujarat. It was just twenty years ago that cooks began to understand the relationships between the multifaceted cuisines of the Mediterranean; now we can begin to do the same with the foods of the Subcontinent.

For people who love food and cooking, the Indian Subcontinent is a source of infinite variety and eye-opening flavors. Home cooks discover the Tibetan-influenced food of Nepal, the Southeast Asian tastes of Sri Lanka, the central Asian grilled meats, and the vegetarian cooking of the Hindus of southern India.

Jeffrey Alford is the author, along with Naomi Duguid, of six award-winning books on food and travel: Flatbreads & Flavors, HomeBaking, Seductions of Rice, Hot Sour Salty Sweet, Mangoes and Curry Leaves, and Beyond the Great Wall. In stories, recipes, and photographs, the books explore daily home-cooked foods in their cultural context.

Alford now lives in northeastern Thailand, just near the Cambodian border. He plants rice in May each year, and harvests by hand in late November. He writes, gardens, grows orchids, and cooks, and he's learned to love the taste of red ant eggs, crickets, grasshoppers, and leguminous tree leaves. Nowadays, Jeffrey seldom photographs a person he doesn't know.Naomi Duguid is the author, along with Jeffrey Alford, of six award-winning books on food and travel: Flatbreads & Flavors, HomeBaking, Seductions of Rice, Hot Sour Salty Sweet, Mangoes and Curry Leaves, and Beyond the Great Wall. In stories, recipes, and photographs, the books explore daily home-cooked foods in their cultural context. Her newest book, Pinch of Turmeric, Squeeze of Lime, is a collection of recipes and travel tales from Burma. 

Naomi Duguid, traveler, writer, photographer, is often described as a culinary anthropologist. She is a contributing editor of Saveur