I wrote this post about a year ago andย enjoyed thisย book so much, I bought a few copies and gave away to friends.ย Last week’s edition of the Week End’s Financial Times has reviewed the very same book ! James Crabtree writes about the old and new India revealed through it’s coastline. ย Remember you read about this book on www.doindubai.com first !ย The cover of the book has now changed and it’s on sale for ยฃ8.99
I know you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but what a difference between this new one and the original !
ORIGINAL POST June 2011
When 7 Days www.7days.ae ย (our daily round-up paper) published a snippet on a South Indian tradition of curing asthma by swallowing a live fish (“Fish Remedy is a Sigh of Relief” Thursday June 9th 2011ย p12) you could almost smell the skepticism! But rest assured, I read about this very same remedy in a book called Following Fish by Samanthย Subramanian and in fact it’s a great read for anyone who loves travel and food, but an obvious present for Fatherโs Day as well.
Forget European flavours of lemon, butter and maybe some green herbs, think tamarind pulp for tang, fresh golden, ground semolina ย instead of breadcrumbs and mustard seeds to flavour oil. Apparently Mangaloreans use tomatoes in Chicken and Mutton dishes but rarely to add curry gravyย to their fish dishes.
I bought my copy of Following Fish at Cochin airportโs very well stocked bookshop after a long conversation with the assistant who assured me it was an authentic, new read for someone who liked food and travel. Weโd just completed a fabulous 10 day tour of Southern Indiaย and what better last-minute souvenir than a book all about a Fish Foodieโsย guide to the South Indian coast.ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย
Subramanianโs book comprises of 9 essays or stories about fish, how to catch it, the best places to eat it, how to eat it (forget the accompaniments of curry and rice!) and even how to use it as medicine. All his stories incorporate the importance of fish and the sea in South Indian life. Youโll learn about the right fish to eat in the Toddy shops of Kerala, how a tiny silver fish gets people queuing to have their asthma cured (that’s what the snippet in 7 Days was about) and the perfect rava coating for the Mangaloarean Mackerel, with lots of South Indian legends and history along the way.
Subramanianโs criteria for a good restaurant is that itโs food must be so cheap and so goodย that poor rikshaw drivers and wealthy businessmen set aside their backgrounds and eat at the same table. And precisely this used to happen in Mumbai where we lived for a year, 3 back alley seafood restaurants that had just this mix of customers, one was even called ExcellentSea !
Following Fish is an excellent read.
thanks Monica.
Remember you read about this book on http://www.doindubai.com first ! It’s just been reviewed in the FT this week, June 2012 by James Crabtree who also thought it was a great read ! Have you read this book ? What did you think ?
Glad I’ve finally found something I agree with!
That’s really thinking out of the box. Thanks!