The Great Indian Food Trip is an entertaining and erudite adventure through culinary landscapes, showing how three decades of eating, drinking and travelling have helped Zac O'Yeah to understand India, his home of many years.
This fast-paced yet profound account charts a writer's untiring quest for new cultural and culinary experiences. We accompany O'Yeah on a 'spare parts' tour of Shivajinagar, Bengaluru's slaughterhouse area. He shares the pleasures of drinking beer in Karnataka, toddy in Kerala; eating boiled vegetables and masala-less curries in the Mahatma's ashram, and savouring the rich red lal maas (spiced goat) of princely Rajasthan. He discovers Goa's literati sipping cashew feni with Orhan Pamuk and Amitav Ghosh, and finds two of his favourite foods-mushrooms and cheese- in Bhutan's shamudatsi.
Whether you're a lover of Indian cuisine, at home or abroad, or a wanderer seeking inspiration for your own voyage of discovery, this multi-course meal promises many delightful surprises about India's delicacies, their origins and their locales. O'Yeah captures India in a nutshell-a big, coconut-sized one.
Industry Reviews
'There is literary suspense in this culinary exploration... The Great Indian Food Trip operates as a series of investigations that propel the reader [...] There is poignancy in [O'Yeah's] desire to understand India, this paradoxical, magnificent country, and to realise that it will continue to change centuries after he has gone.'
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The Irish Times'A paean to India, from a man who has learned to love the country in many ways, not least through his stomach.'
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Samanth Subramanian'Zac takes the reader along on a wild rollercoaster ride across the sub-continent, magically expanding and contracting time and space at will ... This drool-worthy a la carte memoir is a thrilling page-turner- an irresistible invitation to throw caution to the wind and binge.'
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Pushpesh Pant, food critic and historian'With his trademark humour, Zac O'Yeah delves deep into the underbelly of the country that he loves ... a rollicking read.'
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Shoba Narayan, author and journalist