Book Review: Chillies And Porridge and Some Thoughts On What Goes Into My Mouth

Title: Chillies and Porridge

Author: Mita Kapur

Pages: 296

Rating: 2.5/5

It has been a long long time since I did a book review. Also, my reading took a very slow turn too. Really slow than I wanted to. And this book, Chillies and Porridge,  although it revolved around something I loved,  it did slow down my reading. 

This book is an anthology, a collection of stories and memories relating to food by various authors and eminent personalities including Rocky and Mayur and Anita Nair. There are more, but these were the names I knew from the list. The book talks about the authors' favourite memories relating to food, their food related travels and random musings about food. 

The book was a bit too dry, despite revolving around my favourite topic. There are about 23 stories/writings, yet only few were able to impress me. I loved Rocky and Mayur's description about their childhood days and their food memories where they brought back memories of the ice-cream uncle, the foods that we have from our friends' home that always had a slightly extra taste to it. They reminisced about their friendship, their childhood days and food that connected all the dots together. Then there was 'Walks With Lyla' by Niloufer Ichaporia King where the author takes you through the Mumbai markets - Colaba Market for your everyday purchases, Fort Market for masalas, Grant Road market, Bhaji Galli, Bhuleshwar and Null Bazaar, Abdul Rehman Street, and so many others. The way she has described the marketsand her walks through it, it gave me a feel of being by her side through her walks, equally excited and exploring these beautiful places. The 'Chilli High' by Bulbul Sharma was also a pleasant read where she talks about Indians' love for chills and making friends with the unlikeliest of people, while abroad, in the relentless search for a chilli fix. She speaks about her adventures with the chilli and it was surely interesting. 'A Table For Three' by Sumana, Jayaditya and Bikramjit spoke about a tale of friendship and their love for food. I also loved Anita Nair's 'The Theatre Of The Table' where she speaks about the conversations revolving around food, the conversations that her family have in the dining table, her parents enthusiasm for food, meal times, the elaborate planning of each meal and she ends writing about how each meal, at her parents' home, is a thanksgiving to life - loved it!

But my most favourite of all in the book has to be Srinath Perur's 'The Things I Will Put In My Mouth'. He speaks about being a vegetarian and having done a confused sliding to the other side in the vegetarian - non-vegetarian scale. He speaks about the usual questions that come with being a vegetarian. I have been a vegetarian for the past couple of years, and even before, I've always skipped from being a non-vegetarian to a vegetarian every now and then. In that line, what resonated to me the most was "I knew I wanted to travel widely and experience different cultures - and what is food if not culture?" and "that I should be able to partake of anything that a fellow human being considered food". Despite being vegetarian for the most part of the time, these last couple of years, I've never failed to try local cuisines which would mean trying out dishes that I have't had before. To me, that is one of the most significant ways by which I can know about a place and the best way to know the people. I would eat anything that I haven't tried before because I would love to taste it and know how it is.  And I get it when he says, "on that scale that goes from pure veg to hard-core non-veg, I suppose I'd count as some sort of hard-core non-practising non-vegetarian". Right when I was having an existential crisis and wondering which category I really fall into, his words brought a clearer picture of what I am to me and yes, I too am a hard-core non-practising non-vegetarian!

I didn't like this book much except for the few stories that I mentioned above and a couple of others too. I felt a few stories could have been done away with and made the book small and concise to hold the reader's interest. There were many a times that I wanted to close the book and start another one, yet I carried on for reasons still unknown to me. Food and books are two topics that I can spend hours on yet this book, revolving around food, failed to capture my interest.