Braddy Reads Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors

We could use more history texts like this one.

Once upon a time, I attended a religious class, where the instructor spoke about Christ administering the sacrament. He said the reason bread and wine were used were to endow everyday items with significant spiritual lessons. This way, whenever a disciple of Jesus looked at a loaf of bread, they would be compelled to think of him.

I bring that lesson up because that's the approach I see in Lizzie Collingham's Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors. It's a history textbook that illustrates how the culture of India evolved as foreign influences entered the country. And it tracks those changes through a close analysis of Indian food.

So there are a lot of recipes in the book - many of which are pretty involved. That's pretty cool. For me, though, the real draw here is the connections between food and history. For example, it turns out that peppers, a common ingredient in Indian cooking, were first brought to India by Portugese traders.

The biggest problem I had with the text is actually in the vocabulary. I'm not overly familiar with the region or the history, so I wasn't familiar with a lot of the place names or the different ways of referring to royalty. I took a course on Middle Eastern history once, so that helped a little when the Muslims appeared on the scene. Otherwise, I floundered a bit.

But that's what reading's for, I guess - learning something new, and sometimes getting in over your head. Although I have to say, the thought of getting into curry over my head is appealing. Sticky, and probably hot, but appealing.