Madhushree Ghosh’s memoir-in-essays Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory, and Family (April 4, University Of Iowa Press) weaves together fragments of her life, both brighter and darker ones, loosely linked through food. It includes memories of shopping for fish in Delhi markets with her father (her parents were immigrants themselves to India from Bangladesh), her thoughts on language (I loved this: she’s of the mind that words from other languages need not be italicized when writing in English and makes an excellent case for why), and her own lifelong journey of growth as an immigrant woman working in medical science in the US, including the end of her abusive marriage.

There’s a common essay structure of writing about two disparate-seeming topics but eventually bringing them together or allowing their similarities or parallels to reveal themselves. These essays do that, and although I found her switches between topics a little abrupt and I didn’t always follow the connections, when they do work they make strong points. It’s a good blend of critical social topics with the personal.

This is one of those books that’s quietly powerful in its storytelling, sometimes employing a filmy look through memory and elsewhere a lot of detail on a specific incident that greatly affected the author. I found it strayed a bit far from the food theme in several essays, even though it also includes a couple of recipes, but then again I always seem to want more food in semi-foodoir memoirs.

Ghosh is a highly sensitive writer — the kind that makes her pain truly felt in her writing. This felt raw and honest even with the soft, rich language she wraps it in. There’s a lot going on, and although it jumps topics frequently and the lack of a linear narrative can be disorienting at times, it’s one that will speak powerfully to women with similar experiences; it reads comfortingly and reassuringly. It’s an important addition to personal narratives from the South Asian diaspora and a lovely exercise in memory exploration.

This memoir reflects on life, culture, identity and the food that ties people to those ideals. Madhushree Ghosh writes in a beautiful style, however I found it hard to read due to the formatting of the pages. Accessibility is something that is important when publishing a book. Nevertheless I think Ghosh is very talented and look forward to reading more.

A lovely rambling memoir with braided stories both personal and communal. [Note: The author is soon to be a guest on Desi Books at https://desibooks.co.]

Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey, is a weave of many colors and textures, with the idea of food- what the author now cooks and was taught to appreciate in her native India - as a continuous thread throughout. Succulent guavas, the freshest of fish in a neighborhood bazaar, and plantation-grown tea star in their chapters and the far-ranging narrative has an elegant shape and vibrancy. Ghosh’s luminous prose skillfully evokes her childhood and life in a new country. Unsentimental as well as unsparing of herself, she unravels the complex nature of that journey, Khabaar quietly but firmly sets the tone by an examination of the inevitable appropriation and adaptations Western culture makes of food. As she wryly points out, “Imperialism - and as a result, colonialism - has the dubious distinction of evangelizing spices and cuisines of colonized lands. I don’t think we have to debate that...” America, and her current home, California, provide the backdrop for a rather wrenching story of a marriage and escape from an emotionally abusive spouse. I can attest that in particular the story of exiting a marriage with an intractable spouse is told candidly, and with deep feeling. It resonates - the effect of her heartache and rebuilt life rings true. In the “Orange, Green, and White: An Indian Marriage” chapter, her now ex-husband, who often used silence and absence lasting years as punishment for his petty displeasure, hugs her at the courthouse and affects hurt: ”Kya, Madhu, is this how it is to be?” This book is an answer. a memoir that succeeds because it more than fits the brief: Rich in detail and feeling, with the added insight into Indian history as lived by Ghosh’s family. Dedicated to Baba and Ma, her parents, who taught her how to judge produce and fish, to prepare a goat curry and “bunny chow” (not rabbit!), and to celebrate food as a family. The loving portrait she paints of them lingers on past the last pages. Recipes included are the signposts of her journey in miniature. Written during the pandemic, or, as she calls it, “The Great Pause,” it is a sensitive, acute reflection on enforced solitude and its frustrations, fear, but surprising joy, Khabaar is a book alive with personality; flavors to be savored. Highly recommended.

When the publicist reached out to me about this one, I wasn't sure I had the capacity, but it was five months before it was published so I figured I'd make time!*


That sort of happened. Khabaar was on my TBR pile nonstop from February onward but between all the knitting I was doing and getting distracted by EVERY MM romance novel possible, I kept putting it off to my detriment.

Once I, finally, got into the book it was an intriguing read that kept me engaged. I somehow missed that it was more a mostly chronological series of essays than a single narrative taking the reader from Ghosh's childhood home in India and crisscrossing the United States multiple times.

The colonization of the mind and of our immigrant stories is a problematic minefield indeed. It takes decades for multilingual authors like myself to take a stance on how to present words that aren't English but that I grew up with. Should we italicize words our mothers raised us with or not? Are these words foreign and if so, to whom? If a reader doesn't understand the word, what will they do? Stop reading? Start exploring? After all, isn't that what we do ourselves as writers, readers, and learners? Why then, this italics-policing by many publishers to highlight an 'exotic,' 'foreign,' 'unfamiliar' word? Read the sentence. Read the story. You'll get it. Or you'll ask. (Author's Note)

There were so many wonderful essays in this novel that it's hard to choose a favorite. Each one moved seamlessly between present and past tying what at times felt like disparate stories together from the street vendors in Singapore to meeting her future ex's parents, to the domestic violence of a female restaurateur juxtaposed with the Saat Pheras of her wedding. Ghosh wove so many different emotions together with various recipes and food stories the reader is constantly kept in the stories even with the big jumps.

I also learned so much about Indian politics some of which I was aware of, but a lot that was news to me even though it was decades old. Some of that can be explained by me being in my teens/early-20s, but wow. I missed so much on a global scale. It was interesting to read about Ghosh's experience as an immigrant to America writing about having lived in America longer than she had in her home country, especially around the pandemic.

In America, do we learn from previous global experience? No. We create our own pandemic story. The world for us is a fight for toilet paper, for yeast, for the last egg on the shelf, the last Target, Trader Joe's, Costco, and Walmart runs. Our fight is like post-Thanksgiving Black Friday sales mayhem. Why? Because this is a Western World, and when the capitalistic world is out of our control, we return to the rituals of fighting in a land of paucity that created this country in the first place. (Chapter 10)

The other thing that I found really powerful was Ghosh's journey to be okay being by herself. There were definitely traumatic moments, especially coming to terms with her marriage and what she wanted it to be compared to what it was and a harrowing claustrophobic experience you'll have to read to find out about. But, she wrapped a lot of it into the COVID-19 pandemic, which she termed "the Great Pause." And I found this to be interesting to read as we're slowly coming out of it/living with it/moving to an endemic state. How she connected her incredibly busy life and being run ragged to the world telling her (and everyone else) to slow down and connecting it all to food was fascinating.

Every year during Diwali, I am reminded of how one can create one's family, when the family one was born into is gone. Society doesn't give enough credit to friendships that are sometimes closer than family, nor does it give friends the respect we give to spouses. Every Diwali is my unproblematic Thanksgiving.

The memories are happy because I choose them to be. (Chapter 9)

Recommendation: Well worth the read. Ghosh wrote a fascinating series of essays tying various points of her life from childhood to the global COVID-10 pandemic to food and cooking. Sometimes it was hard to read because of the emotions Ghosh was clearly experiencing during the essay, but those moments were balanced with comfort food or entertaining stories connected to food history. I was impressed with the breadth and depth of the collection!

*I received a copy of Khabaar via NetGalley in return for my honest opinion. No goods or money were exchanged.

“To say tea was used as a colonizing weapon would be an understatement. Indians did not drink tea till the mid-nineteenth century, “ writes the author Dr. Madhushree Ghosh. When I began this memoir, I went not knowing what to expect and to my pleasant surprise, Ghosh’s eloquent and beautiful prose makes Indian food the focal point of how we understand our trauma and grief. Written in a style that can only be compared to food journalist writers like Anthony Bourdain, Ghosh’s memoir speaks to the fact that representation matters. Her memoir is not only a lens into her personal experiences into her family, marriage, and divorce as a successful researcher and social justice activist, but also how her cultural experiences growing up in India as major events occur both in India and outside (from the 1947 Partition, prime minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination, the 1984 anti-Sikh violence, Citizenship Amendment Rights Protests, and Covid-19 crisis). She also shares her connections with other South Asian female chefs including the celebrity of Maneet Chauhan, South Asian Punjabi chef who is popular on Chopped.
Lately, there has been a celebration of South Asian representation of the Bridgerton series on Netflix. For me, Ghosh’s voice contributes to the genre of food journalism and becomes a pioneering voice in an industry that has been dominated by Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Zimmerman, and Adam Richman whom I grew up watching obsessively. Ghosh’s voice in her memoir is a refreshing yet meaningful read. If you loved Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, then check out Ghosh’s Khabar, you will love it.

An ok read. I was interested in the author’s life and less so with the food and recipes. The jumbled disorganized arrangement of the content made it difficult to follow and also made my interest wane.

I have to say I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this book going in but it truly was a food Memoir. Ghosh intertwines poignant stories of her life with the food that is meaningful to her and her family. She also expertly intersperses stories of Indians living in the United States who have become prominent in the culinary world- their inspirations, their struggles and sometimes even their tragedy. Towards the end of the book she focuses on how the pandemic affected her life.
I enjoyed reading this book, and may even try some of the recipes she has included throughout. If you like food and enjoy reading about immigrant experiences in the US, this book may be for you.

Thank you to the University of Iowa Press and NetGalley for the advanced electronic review copy of this wonderful book. I really enjoyed the beautiful writing and a well told story. Greatly recommend it to anyone who loves memoir, food, travel, history, and culture.

Khabaar is a love letter to family, food, and the places we call home. The author has woven together many threads beautifully - Indian history, the history of Indian foods, her family's food traditions and her immigrant experience. A thought-provoking read.

I’m thrilled that food memoirs are a thing and was excited to dive into this South Asian delicacy. What I found was a lovely and lovingly told story of food and family, traditions and legacies, journeys and homes. Don't miss this singular volume!

If you're thinking this is a book about Indian food, that's correct. If you're thinking this is a memoir, that is also correct. And if you're thinking you'll learn more about Indian culture and history, that is also correct. So this book packs a real wallop and I haven't even gotten started on the author's very personal reflection of her life as a woman of color.
At first, I was a little put off by all of the foreign words, many of which the reader is left to figure out on her own, either from context or with a dictionary. The author made a conscious choice to not hold back on using her own familiar words. Eventually, I just accepted that I wasn't going to understand them all, that I need not understand them all, and in life we don't get to understand things 100% so this is, after all, a fair representation of what we may encounter in our own lives.

You will get hungry, you will want to seek out certain dishes and you will be mesmerized by all of the different ingredients of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this unusual book.

Beautiful. This memoir touched all of my senses: I could smell the food as the author described the spices and smells - I felt like I was touching the oils and fish and the textures of life in her home country and her adopted one. Seeing photos of food added a lovely element to the end of chapters. I loved reading the nicknames and how the author wrote in Bengali at times - I could almost hear here father’s voice. I learned about history in a way that made it come alive on the page. Stunning memoir. So grateful to Univ of Iowa Press for the advanced copy. Buying a hard copy to keep on my shelf. It’s that lovely. This would be a fun book discussion group choice - it is so full of things to discuss - and rn have the group create one of the dishes from the recipes included.

Being a South Asian immigrant to the US, I was immediately drawn to this book's synopsis. As the author writes in the book, cooking and reminiscing about food from home is an integral part of an immigrant's life. Ghosh writes about her life since becoming an immigrant; her yearning for Bengali food in India, her own cooking and gardening, and the evolution of her food preferences as well. It is an enjoyable read for the most part.

Where it falls short is how it is structured. She narrates stories of other chefs and people in some chapters alongside her own story and it left me confused about why some of those were mentioned. In a few chapters, these even seemed unnecessary. Overall, the individual chapters in the book are interesting but in some parts, the theme of an immigrants' experiences with food seems missing and the chapters do not gel in together well.

A immigrant’s journey from India to California, a history filled with love and loss, food and family. Madhushree Gosh carries us with her as she wanders back through her life, discovering and rediscovering where she’s been and how she ended up where she is now. Like all memories this memoir jumps from past to present and isn’t always chronological. Her story is interspersed with interesting historical facts, well documented as a scientist always shows their work! I loved the recipes and just wish every chapter included one. I look forward to more books from this author. Highly recommend.

I was expecting a cook book and this book was a little hard to access via NetGalley tools for me. The content didn't match what I had thought it would be so I did not finish.

This book is absolutely beautiful. I'm transported with all of my senses to the kitchens of Ghosh's family and the communities in which she and they have lived. The colors, smells, sounds, and of course the flavors of her Bangladeshi world and all the foods that follow are a comfort and an immersive experience. Readers should absolutely not skip the introduction, which explains Ghosh's choices around language and typography, not a small thing in this purposeful memoir. Cooks will be itching to experiment and eaters will become curious to seek out these foods; both will be hungry as they read this lush and gorgeous memoir.

Ghosh's book is a beautiful personal memoir and ode to a food journey through South Asia. Through the lens of food and culture, Ghosh explores immigration, migration, tradition, family, and love in the present day. She traces her own experiences as the immigrant daughter of Indian refugees, as a woman of color, as a woman in STEM, as a woman navigating an abusive marriage, and as a woman who investigates the role of food in connecting with her parents and heritage. Ghosh has a way of moving the reader with her narratives, and I was delighted to be brought along for the journey, food, stories, and all. Highly recommend.

Written and served up with heart, Khabaar, by Madhushree Ghosh, is a memoir about dealing with displacement, about modifying and adapting traditions to address the present. Most especially, it is a book about food and the memories food evokes of love, of family, and of those lost to death and transitions. Ghosh traces her own and her family’s experiences as well as those of others who have migrated from the Indian Subcontinent, highlighting the role of food as a means to connect with family and culture of origin.
Not all migration histories begin with the voyage to America. Ghosh herself, now a biotechnology scientist in California, came to the United States from India’s capital city, Delhi. However her family were Hindu Bengalis. At India’s independence in 1947, arbitrary lines created separate independent nations of India and Muslim Pakistan. This division had sliced apart British Bengal Province, stranding over ten million Hindu Bengalis on the designated Muslim side. Ghosh’s cherished childhood neighborhood in India’s capital – recalled so vividly in Khabaar – was itself a community made up of refugees.
She navigates this difficult history in a moving series of narratives, bringing the reader with her all the way to the pandemic present in California. Reading Khabaar, I wished my own immigrant ancestors had told me more about where we came from.

Khabaar is a food memoir and personal narrative that braids the global journeys of South Asian food through immigration, migration, and indenture. I loved this book and the ways it shows how food and cooking connect us all. Reading this book is like taking a trip without every having to leave your house.