Climbing the Mango Trees or Cooking on a Stick

Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India

Author: Madhur Jaffrey

Today’s most highly regarded writer on Indian food gives us an enchanting memoir of her childhood in Delhi in an age and a society that has since disappeared.

Madhur (meaning “sweet as honey”) Jaffrey grew up in a large family compound where her grandfather often presided over dinners at which forty or more members of his extended family would savor together the wonderfully flavorful dishes that were forever imprinted on Madhur’s palate.

Climbing mango trees in the orchard, armed with a mixture of salt, pepper, ground chilies, and roasted cumin; picnicking in the Himalayan foothills on meatballs stuffed with raisins and mint and tucked into freshly fried pooris; sampling the heady flavors in the lunch boxes of Muslim friends; sneaking tastes of exotic street fare—these are the food memories Madhur Jaffrey draws on as a way of telling her story. Independent, sensitive, and ever curious, as a young girl she loved uncovering her family’s many-layered history, and she was deeply affected by their personal trials and by the devastating consequences of Partition, which ripped their world apart.

Climbing the Mango Trees is both an enormously appealing account of an unusual childhood and a testament to the power of food to evoke memory. And, at the end, this treasure of a book contains a secret ingredient—more than thirty family recipes recovered from Madhur’s childhood, which she now shares with us.

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.

Publishers Weekly

The celebrated actress and author of several books on Indian cooking turns her attention to her own childhood in Delhi and Kampur. Born in 1933 as one of six children of a prosperous businessman, Jaffrey grew up as part of a huge "joint family" of aunts, uncles and cousins-often 40 at dinner-under the benign but strict thumb of Babaji, her grandfather and imperious family patriarch. It was a privileged and cosmopolitan family, influenced by Hindu, Muslim and British traditions, and though these were not easy years in India, a British ally in WWII and soon to go though the agony of partition (the separation and formation of Muslim Pakistan), Jaffrey's graceful prose and sure powers of description paint a vivid landscape of an almost enchanted childhood. Her family and friends, the bittersweet sorrows of puberty, the sensual sounds and smells of the monsoon rain, all are remembered with love and care, but nowhere is her writing more evocative than when she details the food of her childhood, which she does often and at length. Upon finishing this splendid memoir, the reader will delight in the 30 "family-style" recipes included as lagniappe at the end. Photos. (Oct. 11) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

KLIATT

Jaffrey was born in India in the 1930s, and thus is the age of grandparents of today's adolescents. She has been praised for her books about Indian cooking, winning coveted awards. Her face is familiar because of her career as an actor in films. Climbing the Mango Trees tells of exotic family life in India, with the food prepared and eaten a central fact of that life. It's unusual that a memoir focuses so intently on food--the tastes of a family. At the end of the narrative are 50 pages of family recipes. Any young person who has grown up in an Indian family would have an immediate connection with Jaffrey's memoir because of the food, and perhaps it would help intergenerational understanding. Jaffrey grew up in a large, middle-class family, for many years sharing a home in Delhi with grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins. In fact, the cousins did climb up onto the branches of the mango trees in the yard to eat the fruit, green or ripe. This was the time of colonial rule by the British, of course, and Madhur and her sisters attended private English-language schools, starting school not understanding a word of English. Especially of interest to Indian American readers, and to all who love Indian cuisine. Age Range: Ages 15 to adult. REVIEWER: Claire Rosser (Vol. 42, No. 1)

Library Journal

Readers will be surprised to learn in this culinary memoir that Jaffrey (An Invitation to Indian Cooking), one of the best-known writers on Indian cuisine, actually failed home economics. Although she later learned to prepare the traditional Indian food of her childhood, her early culinary education was primarily concerned with outdated recipes from British colonial days. What is not surprising is that Jaffrey, a descendant of a long line of record-keeping Kayastha Hindus, is a gifted and generous writer. She shares treasured recollections of how her close-knit family lived in Delhi, conveying the safety and warmth of the presence of many siblings and cousins, the love of food and learning, and the unease and disturbance of the partition of India and Pakistan. Thirty-seven photographs of the author and her family are scattered throughout. There are more than 30 family recipes, including Phulkas (a kind of Indian flatbread), Mung Bean Fritters, and Ground Lamb Samosas, all written in Jaffrey's easy style. Highly recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/06.]-Rosemarie Lewis, Broward Cty. P.L., Ft. Lauderdale, FL Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A beloved food writer recalls her youth through the lens of cuisine. Jaffrey (Market Days, 1995, etc.) grew up in India during the 1930s and '40s, the fifth child of two doting, well-heeled parents. Her family was Hindu, but embraced certain touches of Muslim culture: The women wore both the loose culottes favored by Muslims and long, traditional Hindu skirts; at school, Jaffrey studied alongside both Muslim and Hindu children. Her story has no clear narrative arc and no tension that requires resolution, but the meandering is pleasant. Almost every vignette includes a description of food. When she was born, her grandmother spelled out the word Om in honey on her tongue, and Jaffrey's first name translates to "Sweet as Honey." Summer afternoon thirsts were slaked with fresh lemonade or a mixture of fruit syrup and water. Monsoon season brought its own sweet treats of chilled mango juice and "pretzel-shaped jabelis" dipped in milk. A long bout of chicken pox was made bearable by her grandmother's chutney. Even Partition had culinary consequences: Hindus who headed into India from what became West Pakistan introduced Delhi to Punjabi food, including the terrific paneer dishes and tasty tandoori specialties that are now staples of Indian restaurants. Punjabis also loved dairy products; they made the richest yogurt, and the creamiest lassi, a cool yogurt beverage. As an adult, Jaffrey went to college and then moved to England to study drama. Not until she landed in London did she really begin to appreciate her mother's cooking. She wrote home, begging for instruction on preparing the delicacies of her youth, and soon airmail letters thick with recipes began to arrive. Fifty pages of thoserecipes round out the text. Readers will lap up this mouthwatering memoir and hungrily await a sequel. First printing of 40,000

Books about marketing: Big Book of Appetizers or Mixer Bible

Cooking on a Stick: Campfire Recipes for Kids

Author: Linda Whit

Going on a family camping trip? Watching dad grill burgers in the backyard? Hiking with your scouting group? Then you'll want to help the adults make some food you really want to eat.

With two dozen easy-to follow recipes for all kinds of food--from main dishes to desserts--you'll have plenty of choices How about Moose Kabobs? Or Loony Eggs? Cozy Caves? Maybe Deer Baubles?

Whatever you choose, you'll learn how to prepare it on a stick, in a pouch, or on the grill. Simple ingredients and preparation, thorough safety guidelines, and basic campfire instructions will help make all of your supervised outings fun ones.

Children's Literature

Rikki Raccoon introduces the reader to the delicious world of campfire cooking be it in the backyard or in the woods. He provides campers with a list of cooking equipment and a grocery list. Then Rikki introduces safety tips for handling fires, and offers tips for gathering firewood and building a cooking fire. The recipes are very simple and are illustrated for appeal. Recipes range from main dishes such as Porky on a Poke, a pig in a blanket variation, to the favorite camper's treat, S'Mores. The recipes in the collection adapt well to summer backyard cookouts. Some of the recipes do require adult supervision. Grandparents with grandchildren visiting for the summer may want to try out some of the ideas in this delightful cookbook.