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Learn to COOK - Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India (Vintage)
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $10.17
Your Save: $ 4.78 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5092
EAN: 9781400078202
ISBN: 1400078202
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2007-10-09
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 2007-10-09
Studio: Vintage
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Editorial Reviews:
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Whether acclaimed food writer Madhur Jaffrey was climbing the mango trees in her grandparents' orchard in Delhi or picnicking in the Himalayan foothills on meatballs stuffed with raisins and mint, tucked into freshly baked spiced pooris, today these childhood pleasures evoke for her the tastes and textures of growing up.
This memoir is both an enormously appealing account of an unusual childhood and a testament to the power of food to prompt memory, vividly bringing to life a lost time and place. Included here are recipes for more than thirty delicious dishes that are recovered from Jaffrey’s childhood.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Food and family flavor this memoir
Comment: Mixing together family, food, history and culture, Madhur Jaffrey gives us a fascinating glimpse of upper class life in India. Her delicious descriptions of the daily life of the privileged contrast with what many hear of the poverty and troubles of that country. There are amusing tidbits such as "the art of getting thirty people into two cars" and the mischievous "Holi" day celebrations, and an indepth look at the intricacies of life in a large extended family, plus a sprinkling of family photos. Although she delves into the darker shadows of family troubles and the consequences of WWII and political changes, Ms. Jaffrey keeps those experiences on the light side, leaving me with more questions than answers.
As with many memoirs, there is some disjointedness, but through it all there is the food - delightful, delicious, descriptions to make one drool. The average reader will undoubtedly find the recipes included at the end of the book to be daunting, but a trip to an Indian restaurant should be a most satisfying ending to this book. I enjoyed this book which offers literally a taste of India. My only question - since Madhur failed cookery in school, how did she learn to cook so well?!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Madhur Jaffrey's remembrances of life and food in India
Comment: Madhur Jaffrey is a personal favorite - I loved her reading of Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance (Oprah's Book Club) & it's a delight to see her pop up unexpectedly in movies like Prime (Widescreen Edition) in small but juicy roles. So, it was a pleasure to read about the author's childhood in this enjoyable remembrance of an India past.
Ms. Jaffrey's family was obviously prosperous and privileged, as attested to by the grand house ("Number 7") that was the center of her early life. You quickly take that standard of life as a given. We get a look at the 'joint family' style of living - all the incomes pooled & the family living under the extended roof and paternal care of her respected and successful grandfather ('Babaji').
You'll want to rush out and order Indian food every night. Each remembrance is embraced with recollections of specific foods and the preparation that goes into making those dishes for a large family. There's a full 50 pages of family recipes that follow the Epilogue.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Delightful!
Comment: Madhur Jaffrey is one of the foremost authors of indian cookbooks. This book is a memoir of her childhood in northern India during the 40s and 50s. It is packed with all the joys and flavors of an extended family with liberal food descriptions and delightful flavors of multi ethnic indian cuisine. She obviously had a very rich, privileged up bringing which is perhaps not what every indian born child is privy to, but her writing is compassionate, mindful of the privileges she had in comparison to the rest of the country - and allows the reader to really travel visually and enjoy a taste of the same. One cannot help wishing though that she had dealt with, at some length, on some real struggles with a dysfunctional uncle (Shibbu dada), the changes in the family during the post independance era (all families went through a lot of struggle then, particularly privileged ones) or for that matter anything that lets the reader know that the journey was not always a happy or easy one. Read it anyway, and particulary if you are from India, it is truly a delightful nostalgic journey into the joys and flavors and family love that is so typical of extended family life in our homeland and sadly getting to be a rarity for even those who live there.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Mirror of a Childhood spent in Delhi
Comment: This book brought back wonderful memories of a lovely 6 years spent in India. Her portrait of the lives of the wealthy and privledged of that era were hauntingly familiar. An excellent read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable
Comment: I know the author by her association with Said Jaffrey, an actor of some repute
in India, and her famous cookery show and books in the same domain.
Apparently, at one time the author was married to Mr. Jaffrey, but has since
divorced and is now re-married to a gentleman in New York and settled in the
same city. I presume she still writes books on Indian cooking. In any case,
the Jaffrey name and the title were enough of a ruse to get me to read the
book. What emerges is a tale of a priviledged childhood in pre-independence
India: her family traces its roots back to the time of emperor Aurangzeb
(the last Mughal ruler of India) in whose court Madhur's ancestors used to
ply their craft as writers. The emperor gifted land to her ancestors in what
would later became New Delhi, enabling Madhur a luxurious childhood by Indian
standards. Her family was well to do: grandfather was a barrister, father
owned mills, the family took trips to Europe and possessed two American cars -- and
this is in pre-independent India, mind you. The book itself is composed of short
chapters, each one detailing some memory of childhood: cousins, siblings, aunts and
uncles, grandparent, summer trips to Simla, train rides, traumas, first love, the
travails of a joint family, etc. A common thread that runs through all the chapters is
the association of food with the memories. Madhur (which means "sweet, honey-like" in
Hindi) draws upon her strength -- food -- to permeate each chapter. The writing
style is informal and colloquial, but enjoyable nonetheless. As an added bonus, the
last portion of the book contain her favorite recipes. (July 2007)
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