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By Root 274 0

former seamen who left their ships with the hope of making a living, somehow or other, in America, and as cooking seemed to require no unusual skills, a great many became restaurateurs, copying the standardized menus of other Indian restaurants and refusing to experiment with dishes from their own villages which they perhaps knew much better. The result of all this is that the sauces in such eating places inevitably have the same color, taste, and consistency; the dishes generally come “mild, medium, or hot,” which is an indication that the food is not being cooked with the spices, as it should be, but that something is being ladled on; appetizers are suggested not because Indians eat them, but because it is felt that Americans cannot do without them.

Naturally, it is difficult to recommend such a restaurant. The only alternative is to invite the people in question home for dinner. I did this for several years, justifying the expense and the effort by telling myself that someone had to let Americans know what authentic Indian food was like and that I couldn’t heartlessly ignore their curiosity and interest.

So I kept feeding people in large numbers until exhaustion finally put an end to what I considered was rather discreet proselytizing. A better scheme, as effective as it was cheap, occurred to me. I began writing down the recipes of my most popular dishes and made several copies of them. Whenever someone started a conversation about Indian food, I just handed out a recipe. It worked so well that once when we attended a party, we found that every single dish had been made from my recipes. The hostess, a new acquaintance, was totally unaware of this. In fact, when somebody praised the food and asked her what cookbook she had used, she replied, “Well, my dear, these recipes seem to be just floating around. I got them from Edith and she got them from a gal at work.” I smiled and said nothing. I was so grateful that Americans were showing such an interest in authentic Indian food and that it wasn’t I who was doing the shopping, paying the bills, cooking, and washing up.

I soon found myself mailing recipes to friends in North Brookfield, Massachusetts; Detroit, Michigan; Madison, Wisconsin. I heard from a family in Boston who had loved the marinated butterflied leg of lamb—and this family included two little children who had been, until then, extremely dubious about all foreign foods.

As the number of Americans cooking from my recipes was getting larger, this cookbook was, slowly and inevitably, taking shape. Now that it is done, my sense of relief is overpowering. For all those people who say they love my food, well, here it is: Indian recipes completely adapted to the American kitchen, some easy and simple, others to be mastered with patience and practice.

I realize that many of you may be cooking Indian food for the first time. I have tried to write the recipes in great detail, describing how the food should look at the end of each major step as well as when it is fully cooked. This may make the recipes a bit long, but don’t let that put you off. My intention is merely to lessen the chances for error. Also, don’t be discouraged by a long list of spices. Once you have them on your shelf, it is just as easy to sprinkle in five of them as it is to add two.

It may, perhaps, encourage you to know that I myself learned to cook not from observation and practice in our family’s kitchen in Delhi but from recipes written on flimsy air-letters, mailed to me by my mother. As a teen-ager growing up in India I was preoccupied with the usual teen-age concerns—boys (whom we saw only at a distance and therefore coveted), my ambitions (why can’t I play Hamlet?), and other such nonsense. I went into the kitchen only as a dilettante, more to taste than to help or learn.

It was when I was twenty and went to England as a student that I started to learn how to cook. I was extremely homesick, and this homesickness took the form of a longing for Indian food.

The canteen at my drama school served a see-through slice of roast beef accompanied