Member Reviews
If there's anything that really surprised me in this book, it's that some people believe that poor people use chilis to mask the taste and aroma of rotten meat. Seriously, people. That's just one of the many interesting tidbits that I've gleaned from reading this book. History and recipes in one book.
Slowly but surely realizing that culinary history, when done well, can be a favorite subgenre of mine. This is one of the clinchers for me personally, well done.
I love love love this style of cookbook. The personal notes and touch on each ingredient and dish appeals to many fans of food writing, while making the subsequent recipes in the chapter feel easy to navigate and do-able. This book is also clearly well-researched and fact checked, it is noticeable the passion, intelligence and heart that stirred this book together. It was a joy to read and to learn more about the food History of India and would be thrilled to read more food journeys by this author.
This book is a combination of a memoir, a cookbook and a travelbook. You learn lots of interesting facts about history and culture of India. After a bit of background history on the origins of ingredients in Bengali cuisine or on the eating habits of people in Bengal, you get a short recipe of the meal that you were just reading about. On top of it, you get some tips and personal stories of the author and her family about the recipe. Although this many-sided nature of book makes it quite original, the writing feels a bit disorganized. at times as it jumps around between anecdots and thoughts.
Especially those who like travelogues and foodies who`d like to pick up some interesting recipes should read this book. I sure put bookmarks on some of the tasty-looking recipes!
I thank Netgalley for this book in exchange for an honest review.
I love reading about travel and food history. And recipes? Yes please. This book was informative and interesting to read. But it felt disjointed to me. It didn’t flow like I felt it should. I was confused at times but I’m not sure if it was the writing or the editing.
Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy for review. All thoughts are my own
As someone who works in academia and who loves food writing, I thought I would figuratively eat this book up. Unfortunately, I found it dense and dry, to the point that I nearly DNF'd it. I learned a lot from this book; it's a disappointment that came in such a challenging package.
Green Chili and Other Imposters is a very detailed book on culinary history. It would be great for any fan of history and food. There was quite a bit of detail in this book.
Nina Mukerjee Furstenau’s Green Chili and Other Impostors is an ambitious, fascinating, and unique history of food in India. I learned so much about not only Bengali cuisine in India but about world history, culture, and eating habits. However, I really wish the writing was more balanced and focused as the narrative can be disjointed and sometimes meanders. Moreover, Furstenau tends to be distractingly verbose.
This is such a unique book that I struggled with writing a summary! This book is an eclectic combination of historical information, cultural insights, food writing, travelogue, and memoir. Furstenau traces the origins and history of essential Bengali ingredients and examines their presence and influence in India today. There are chapters on cheese, limes, potatoes, tea, among other important and common foods. Each chapter also includes meaningful recipes and personal anecdotes from Furstenau’s life in America as well her travels through India.
I had no idea that so many of these foods were originally from other places and became embedded in Indian culture through trade, migration, and colonialism. I liked learning about the various minority groups like the Chinese, Armenians, and Jews who helped contribute to the landscape of Indian food and culture. I loved Furstenau’s interactions with chefs as well as people in the food industry like the impressive and formidable restaurateur Monica Liu. I admire that the book does not only include established restaurant chefs but also values the input from the author’s ordinary friends and relatives with extraordinary stories. I also love the carefully curated recipes. Many are personally significant to Furstenau or are famous Indian dishes. I also like the tips and helpful substitutions that she offers for many of the dishes.
The book also includes a few relevant pictures but most of them are not particularly memorable or remarkable. I really would have loved to see pictures of some of the places Furstenau talks about or some of the completed dishes.
I am fascinated by the multifaceted nature of this book. However, I really wish there was a better balance in the information as certain chapters could have been better organized. I also wish Furstenau’s writing was clearer and more focused. In several chapters, the narrative is a bit disjointed as the writing tends to wander off into somewhat purple prose or repetitive anecdotes. I sometimes had trouble following her train of thought. While Furstenau’s descriptions are interestingly evocative, she is sometimes distractingly verbose and meanders.
Although I sometimes found the book to be disjointed and wish it was better organized, Green Chili and Other Impostors is interesting and informative and is definitely worth the read for foodies and those who are interested in food history.
🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ out of 5 peppers!
The book starts the author's personal history and how the food of her people of Bengal is eaten today. And herein starts our rabbit hole of finding out more about this cuisine and its various ingredients.
The chapters are arranged according to food groups like grains and dairy etc. The imposters are any food not indigenous to India. Their origins and their enthusiastic cultural acceptance is discussed.
Food created from trade with nearby countries and the ensuing foods that it churned out and how it has been changed to appease to local taste buds are all covered. Food items introduced due to colonisation are also mentioned.
Nina has a definite way with words. Its like the food in her mouth churned out the very words which the feeling evokes. The book is largely information and historically driven. It does have recipes but more importance is given to how it all came out. Would have definitely preferred more pictures though.
Thank you University of Iowa and netgalley for this Arc.
A great combination of a travelogue, a cookbook, an analysis of history, and an emotional memoir. With a focus on Bengali food, the author lays down and often contemplates the origins, influences, and impact of the various ingredients that have not only been an integral part of her life but are also integrated through intergenerational stories, historical tales, and the mystery of food heritage.
Green Chili and Other Impostors is a great book for anyone interested in learning more about the history and culture of food in India.
It's part memoir/travelogue, part history book, and part cookbook. At times I found it a bit unfocused and sometimes wished more time was spent on a deeper dive of a particular historical topic before going back to, say, visa troubles, but on the whole I learned a lot about various ethnic groups in India, the importance of food in religion, and the paths of different ingredients and dishes across the centuries.
I occasionally found the transitions from food history to the author's travel and life experiences a little jarring, and sometimes hard to follow. It's not a big problem, but she does tend to wax poetic and interrupts a story about the importance of a potato with things like:
A moist sliver of potato flies off the chopping block and lands on the counter. Hello there, food, I murmur until I catch myself, then retrieve the small deviant.
It's not really my thing. I'd really rather just learn about the potato.
That being said, she does have a real talent for describing food, and her writing is fantastic at getting across what each dish is like. Everything she mentioned sounded delicious and vivid in my imagination!
The end taste of Sankar's fish molee is piquant, creamy on the tongue, with a hint of citrus and a touch of spice.
Really gets the salivary glands going, right?
Overall, this was a great introduction to a slice of India's food history and its connections to other cultures and countries. Green Chili and Other Impostors gives many popular dishes some cultural context while introducing other, less well-known ones. And of course, I have a number of Bengali dishes I'm eager to try out now!
Green Chili and Other Impostors is a well written nonfiction book full of food lore, history, and trivia written and presented by Nina Mukerjee Furstenau. Due out 1st Nov 2021 from the University of Iowa Press, it's 240 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.
This is a fun and interesting book for foodies, complete with recipes. The book grew out of the author's working trip to Kolkata on a Fulbright study grant and contains reminiscences and history both of her own childhood and life (as an Indian American in Kansas) as well as the deeper, richer fusion of India's traditional cuisine from a blended and varied history as a cultural crossroads and melting pot from antiquity to the present day.
The chapters are arranged whimsically and (somewhat) thematically: dairy, limes, grains, "imposters" (foods which are traditional but not indigenous such as chilies), potatoes, fusion cuisine, peas, British(ish) desserts, several less thematic chapters covering varied memories and reminiscences, Armenian/Indian with cultural anthropological ruminations, religious observance and temple food (with a discussion of the truly staggering logistics involved in feeding so many thousands of temple visitors, monks, and the gods themselves), and "curry" with all its geopolitical ramifications.
Recipes are written with a title and description followed by ingredients in a bullet list sidebar. Measurements are given in US standard only. Special tools and ingredients are also listed, along with yields and cooking directions. Nutritional info is not included. Many of the ingredients will be easily sourced at any moderately well stocked grocery store. The difficult to acquire ingredients are often listed with substitutions. I would imagine that larger metropolitan areas will have access to Asian/Indian/World Foods stores which will have the more esoteric (for the USA) ingredients available. The book also includes a short metric conversion chart. I noticed a few errors in the pre-release ARC given for review which will almost certainly be corrected in the final print release: for example, the conversion instructions for pounds to kilograms are to multiply by 453.6 (that should be grams, not kg).
The recipes are not photographed and there are no serving suggestions or presentations. The graphics are simple and contain a number of well rendered maps and monochrome facsimiles, but no food pictures. The recipes are varied and well developed, but it's the background cultural and historical thoughts which really shine in this collection.
Four stars. A good choice for food-and-culture-interested readers, public and school library acquisition, and gifting to food interested friends and family.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Thank you to the author, University of Iowa Press and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The author's personal history resonated with me, growing up in the US Midwest but from another place entirely. I loved the way she interwove her family's history and personal experiences with the history of Bengal cuisine. Such a pertinent question: Whose food is this, historically? And even more interesting: What has it become, how has it been changed, adapted and transformed? My only quibble was with the featured recipes. Although the author often mentioned switching out ingredients that are not readily available, she did not give as much guidance on this as I had hoped, nor did she deviate from the standard US measurements - cups, ounces and quarts are not things most of the rest of the world works with.
Furstenau takes readers on a journey to discover the origins of some of our favorite foods ranging from cheese and limes, to green chili, potatoes and tomatoes. Giving readers a taste of India, Furstenau shows readers how a love and respect of food can bring together people of all nations.
Food microhistories are one of my greatest loves. Ever since I first broke out The History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage, my love of microhistories about food has endured through volumes on tequila to candy. However, this is my first volume that speaks specifically to Bengali or Indian cooking. Sure, I’ve read the occasional section here and there that mention different spices, but nothing as compared to this. Before this I mostly just knew that the food was delicious, but not the history behind it.
Green Chili and Other Imposters takes readers on a journey from Kansas to India and beyond (meaning history not space). Weaving together equal parts travelogue, cookbook, history, and memoir. Furstenau gifts readers with fantastic tales and research that are sure to pique the interest of the most avid microhistory reader to the most casual.
Thank you to Netgalley, University of Iowa Press and the author for providing me with an eARC of this book. However, all thoughts and opinions are my own.
Not what I was expecting. There were some good parts but the writing wasn't really compelling and the narrative choices kept me from finishing the book.
A delightful travel book through food, family stories, and food. Furstenau traces the various threads of Bengali cooking conversationally and engagingly both in Kolkata and Minnesota with recipes offered throughout. I wasn't expecting much and it was actually really great. I loved the meandering through time and place.
Quite a thoughtful read. The author shares her history, culture and customs from growing up in America, and contrasts then to her family in India when she visits.
My main criticisms are:
1) this send to have a bit of an identity challenge to me. Is this meant to be a journal, reflecting, informative, educational, or a cookbook reference? It seems to be a combination, which I suspect is the intent, but as a reader, I have a hard time following the thought process often
2) this read is extremely verbose. I get lost in some of the anecdotes
That being said, it is a unique read and I do recommend giving it a try. I suspect I am not the primary audience intended.
Green Chili and Other Impostors by Nina Mukerjee Furstenau is a lovely book that can be utilised in so many ways. You can read it as a history book exploring Bengali cuisine and culture, you can read it as a cooking book with many recipes pulling from Bengali cuisine, Jewish Bengali cuisine, Chinese Indian cuisine, Armenian Bengali cuisine and more, you can read it as an autobiography of one person's journey through their heritage, or a book of curiosities, learning about the 6,000 varieties of rice, or how much the Silver Tips Imperial tea from the Makaibari Tea Estate in Kurseong sold for in 2014.
Nina is a wonderfully generous author. She's warm with her suggestion of substitutions, aware that there are some ingredients that may be difficult or even impossible to get depending on where you are in the world, but she also describes the ingredients used with such love that you'll want to make a real effort to get your hands on items you've never cooked with before. As a cookbook (and this book is so much more than a cookbook), the recipes are straight-forward and well-described.
I enjoyed how thoughtful each chapter was, often focusing on a different food, or cuisine, tracing the movements of potatoes or rice or even tea, and talking openly about colonialisation and racism and appropriation and generosity and politics in ways that feel delicate and eye-opening, and inspire curiosity and learning. There are subjects here that absolutely need to be brought up, but I feel like Nina seasons her writing the way she may her food, with attention and love.
I had to take my time with this. Each chapter does introduce you to amazing threads of information, and sometimes I found myself stopping reading to explore a subject further on Wikipedia. Nina dances from subject to subject, but by the end of a chapter you may find yourself realising that you've learned about 20 different things - cultures, foods, trades, curiosities - and be left reeling with how big the world can be, only to realise you have many more chapters to go! Sometimes it feels like it almost loses focus, but it reminds me of how it can feel to travel somewhere else at times, your senses can't quite keep track, but get to ground back into food again - as you do at the end of most of the chapters with the shared recipes.
I really liked getting to sink my teeth into this review copy. And it does feel like a richly meaty book. You can flit into it for the recipes, or you can go really deep into the chapters, and it's going to be rewarding no matter how you read it. I'd recommend this to so many different readers, obviously people who enjoy cooking Bengali cuisine or want to know more about it, but also people who want to learn more about food heritage, food culture, cultural melting pots and the food stories that come out of them, and anyone who has ever struggled with a heritage that derives from two or more countries, wondering where home is for them, and what home means. This book is its own homecoming, even as it explores the idea of home in the foods we eat and love.
Part travel memoir, part personal memoir, and part food history; it's an intriguing combination. Furstenau discusses her own history - born of Bengali parents, in Thailand, and then growing up in the US. Throughout the book are comments about how hard it was to demonstrate that her visa to India ought to reflect that heritage, but given a lack of paperwork for her parents, it wasn't to be. This sense of questioning where she belongs is woven through her discussion of "Indian" food, as she looks into the histories of both ingredients and dishes. "Indian" because some of what is discussed is about how now-common ingredients in Indian food actually came to India (green peas, chillis, potato... cheese...); and also some things you might think of as Indian are not, and some things appropriated by others are, of course, from India.
The author travels around India, sometimes visiting relatives and sometimes finding food-connected people, who talk about history and share recipes and teach her to cook some of the dishes. And these recipes are included, of course - Sandesh and Nolen Gur Cheesecake; Kedgeree (which is Indian, not Scottish, and the story of it becoming a breakfast staple is fascinating and I have never eaten it!); Koraishutir Kochuri (puffed bread with green pea filling, and goodness I really want to make this)... and so many others.
This book is very readable; it's enjoyable to journey around India, it's varied in what ingredients and ideas it discusses, and the recipes seem easy to follow.
As a person living in Southwest America, I was expecting this book to be another green chili recipe book. I happen to love green chili and missed it immensely when I moved to the East coast. This book came as a surprise when I realized the recipes were Indian dishes. While light on actual recipes, this book is a great history of food, especially as it relates to Indian cuisine. I love food and history, so this book is actually perfect for me. Overall, this work feels like hearing the stories while cooking in a grandmother's kitchen. It has a long list of references, so more sophisticated than your average cookbook. Honestly, this work would be a great gift for an eccentric person like myself as I am always seeking to learn about other cultures, especially as it relates to food.