Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India » (Reprint)

Regarded by many as the world authority on Indian food, Madhur Jaffrey is an award-winning actress and best-selling cookbook author. Her classic first book, An Invitation to Indian Cooking, was published by Knopf in 1973, and she has been the host of a series, "Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery," for BBC television. She has appeared in more than 20 films, including Merchant Ivory's Heat and Dust, and written more than 15 books. She won James Beard Awards in 1982, 1994, 2000, 2002, and 2004. She lives in New York City.

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.

The New York Times - Jan and Michael Stern

For those who now know her as a culinary authority, it s funny to learn that before leaving India she failed the cooking exam at school, where her formal kitchen education had concentrated on what she calls British invalid foods from circa 1930. She finally did learn how to cook via letters from her mother, but the irresistible savor of this memoir proves that taste precedes technique.