About this eBook
Throughout a career spanning thirty years, well-known food critic and writer (and little-known collector of spice-grinders of eclectic origin), Marryam H. Reshii has had a relentless love affair with spices. Such has been her passion that she has travelled across the country and to various corners of the world – crushing, grinding, frying and tasting – in a bid to understand every aspect of these magnificent ingredients.
The result is The Flavour of Spice, a zesty narrative that brings together stories about the origins of spices and how they evolved in the cuisines we know and love; colourful anecdotes gleaned from encounters with plantation owners and spice merchants; and beloved family recipes from chefs and home cooks.
From the market yards of Guntur, India’s chilli capital, to the foothills of Sri Lanka in search of ‘true’ cinnamon, and from the hillsides of Sikkim where black cardamom thrives to the saffron markets in the holy city of Mashhad, Iran - this heady account pulsates with exciting tales of travel and discovery, and an infectious love for the ingredients that add so much punch to our cuisines.
About the author
Marryam H. Reshii has written about food for the past three decades for a number of publications, including the Times of India. She is the curator of the prestigious Times Food Guide for Delhi and the author of several works on Kashmir, restaurants, chefs and recipes. She thinks of her life as divided into two phases - before she discovered spices and after (although it is impossible to say whether Marryam discovered spices or they discovered her).
