This book was different from what I expected. Most of he recipes were non-vegetarian, which basically meant they were of no use to me. The historical aspects were interesting, but not for people already familiar with aspects of it.
It is definitely a book for people who are interested in the concept of 'curry' but have no prior knowledge of it. It is a great way to learn about the basics, but it was not really for me. I would still recommend it to other foodies. I was unable to read the entire book (I finished 3/4ths) before the time limit ran out, so I cannot provide a more in depth review of the book.

On the Curry Trail by Raghavan Iyer is a beautiful and accessible book focusing on curries of the world.

For a nerdy girl who loves to cook, this is a gem. There are detailed histories of origins of different types of curries, which part of the world they originated from, and recipes (some familiar and some not) featuring the curries. There are helpful tips and anecdotes sprinkled liberally throughout the book, which just demonstrate the vast depth of knowledge that Iyer holds.

The book is colorful and easy to read, while detailing and providing such great information, and while I haven’t tried to make any of the recipes, I can see the recipes are easy to follow and will work. (I’m a trained chef.)

This book is a must for a nerdy foodie, and for anyone who loves a good curry.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

"On the Curry Trail" was an enlightening read, as I did not realize exactly how generic a term "curry" really is. Raghaven Iyer takes you on a cultural journey across multiple continents to explore curry dishes from all over the world, with cultural and historical context. I especially love the Thai curry recipes, but the recipes in general are really solid.

Thanks to NetGalley and Workman Publishing Company for this free digital copy in exchange for an honest review! This book is available now.

I chose Raghavan Iyer's cookbook On the Curry Trail for the "Read a cookbook cover to cover" prompt for Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge because 1) I received an advanced copy and 2) I loved the cover. I was so excited to get approved for this one because it sounded so fascinating...and it absolutely was!

I had no idea curry was so widespread, and I feel like I learned so much with this book. Iyer breaks recipes up by country/area and introduces the recipes with historical background, as well as the differences between ingredients and preparations in the different regions. I found this to be particularly interesting, and I definitely feel like I will revisit these sections for the information. Iyer writes with intelligence and humor, and I really want to pick up more of his books.

The book is tastefully designed and I LOVED the artwork. The whole thing felt warm and inviting. As for the recipes themselves, they range in difficulty (I also am very much a basic cook lol), but so many sound mouth-watering. I can't wait to try some! I live in a smaller area so I know I will have trouble finding ingredients for some of the recipes, but there are definitely recipes in the book that are accessible. Iyer includes "tips" at the end of each recipe and I found myself looking forward to these just as much as the historical background. I enjoyed that he included substitutions as well as tips for how to make a recipe vegan/vegetarian.

If you enjoy curry, or just want to read an interesting cookbook, please check this one out!

Illustrations were absolutely delightful, and I ended up bookmarking a good number of the recipes. The author also writes history in a concise and memorable way, and I don't always find that's the case for cookbooks like this that try to incorporate a vast history into bite-size pieces. It can end up pretty dry or Wikipedia-like, but he really pulls some great stories and concepts. Many of the recipes were more involved than I'd like, and I'm not a novice at curry, so that was a little disappointing. But overall it's great and a must for anyone interested in curry's colorful and global past.

ward winning cookbook author and cooking star, Raghavan Iyer has released a cookbook that will make everyone to fall in love with curries that are served throughout the world. On the Curry Trail: Chasing the Flavor That Seduced the World has unique and fabulous curries from Cambodia, China, Thailand, Tibet, Japan, Britain, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as Europe , Oceania, Jamaica and Mexico.

These recipes aren’t just for curries; rather they include breads, steamed curry buns, curry fried rice, and other tempting curry specialties. There also recipes for curry powders from different regions of the world. The recipes are written in the traditional manner and are easy-to-follow. Some of the recipes have a long list of ingredients, but sometimes that is necessary to get just the right flavors and textures in certain dishes. Both beginning cooks as well as advanced cooks will find that their dishes turn out picture perfect (even though there aren’t pictures here to compare the dishes with).

Although there are cute and colorful illustrations, this cookbook doesn’t include color photographs of the curry dishes. This is unfortunate, and is the one definite drawback to this cookbook. With modern technology, it is surprising that the publisher didn’t insist on real photos.

This is definitely a book for curry lovers. The variety of recipes is expansive, and there are enough appealing recipes to keep curry lovers busy cooking for months. The prose is excellent and interesting, as well as educational.


Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

Amazing recipes that are delicious and not intimidating at all! Mr. Iyer recently passed away, and will be missed as a treasure in the Indian cooking and cookbook community.

I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher.
The book is a mix of a history book, cookbook, and memoir. The author starts with a history of curry and how it has traveled around the world. He then proceeds to the cookbook portion. This section is divided geographically. Each recipe is introduced by how the dish fits in the history of curry and the author's personal experience with the dish. The dishes are a mix of the base spice mixes and regional dishes. For anyone who likes curry, this is a good book to read and use.

This is a great book. It starts by being pleasing to the eye, with lovely bright colours and graphics. is very informative too, thanks to a round the world tour of everything curry. The book covers the various regions of the world and looks at how culture and history have shaped these countries' relation to curry and all its variations. It is really fascinating to see how spices have travelled around the world and combined with the culinary and social cultures to create local curry influenced dishes. I learned a lot and appreciated the research that has clearly gone into writing this story of the curry diaspora.
There is also a wealth of information about spices and ingredients, which will be handy for those who have access to all these spices, but also for those for whom this might be more difficult.
And of course, the recipes! For each country the author is taking us to, there is one or more recipe. The recipes are very well explained, and accessible to anyone who wants to try the experience of cooking curries. I really liked recipes of particular curry powders like the Madras curry powder, the curry pastes and the Ethiopian spiced clarified butter. It is also nice to have bread, rice and pulses recipes. On the top of my list are the Prawn Curry with Darkened Cinnamon from Sri Lanka, the Chicken curry with lemongrass and curry leaves from Malaysia, the Red lentils with ginger from Ethiopia and the Slow cooked chickpeas from Morocco, but there are many more I will cook from this book..On top of that, we are offered lots of tips that make the whole book feel almost like a masterclass in curry cooking.
I could virtually smell the fragrant spices and mixes as I was reading and although there are no pictures of the dishes, I realised I did not miss them because the explanations were excellent.
This book will definitely be in my kitchen!

I loved going through this cookbook and reading about all the different curries and history. The recipes are easy to understand and the layout makes it easy to read. I love that it was different by not having actual pictures of the food but drawings. I also appreciate the tips section since it makes me realize things I might have missed or show me a new technique. This book would be a lovely gift to a friend that loves cooking from different cuisines.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to read and review this book. I received a copy of the ebook in exchange for my honest review

On the Curry Trail is written by a much published and renowned curry chef, Raghavan Iyer. The book itself is lovely, colorfully illustrated with brightly colored illustrations that capture some of the excitement of eating a curry, and its burst of flavors to your palette. The author obviously loves his subject and this transmits into his writing. My mouth watered as he described dishes and the flavor of the spices. He is also obviously well traveled as he mentions other chefs and special dishes he experienced in many countries.

The book starts with a discussion on curry, then a general history of the spice route. But after this introduction, the author writes one representative recipe for every country that has experienced having curry in their cuisine, and this includes a lot of countries! I like curry but I wouldn't have called myself a fan. However the author's enthusiasm has me wanting to purchase the book and try some of the recipes. The way he describes the dishes, the flavors pop out of the pages!

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book. Opinions are my own.

This book is a great mix of recipes, history and personal stories. Admittedly, I had always thought of curry as distinctly Indian, so I loved this trip around the world in the form of curry.

The layout, colors and illustrations are beautiful. The table of contents sorted by country with a numbered map is brilliant.

I haven’t personally tried any of these recipes yet, but one of my favorite things already is that Iyer did something to make his mark on all of them, even if he got the recipes from a fellow friend or chef.

I live in the Southern U.S., and I had never heard of Country Captain Chicken before! I suppose it’s probably more common in the coastal south, and now I’m determined to try it.

I highly recommend this book, not just for the recipes but also as a coffee table book. Even someone who doesn’t cook would enjoy looking at it.

I’m very sad to hear that Iyer is nearing the end of his battle with cancer, and I’m thankful for this one last gift he shared with the world.

Thank you NetGalley and Workman Publishing Company for the ARC!

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read and review this book. On The Curry Trail is an illustrated cookbook that explores the origins of curry around the globe through 50 different recipes. I learned so much in this read, and got new recipes as well. Iyer book travels across Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, and North and South America.

How curry became a global food...

On the Curry Trail takes on the history and path that curry took to become an iconic food.
History, 50 recipes and illustrations make for a lovely book to have on hand, not just for cooking but for the stories and understanding how food traveled the world.
Recommend.

This is both a cookbook and educational piece, and it excels in both aspects. Since 2022, I've been trying to get into cooking, buying myself whatever cookbook catches my eye, and one territory that I've failed (more so, refused) to venture into is curry. I made myself Thai red curry once, back in college, and hated it so much because I could not replicate the same flavors as those of my favorite restaurants, that I swore off making curries completely. Much to my parent's dismay, of course. We're Indian - we eat some kind of curry 3-4 times a week!

That being said, I broke my oath after getting my hands on this cookbook. I made curry paste from scratch and tried the Khow Suey recipe and wow. Wowowow. And that's when I realized - it's not that these recipes are written any differently than what you'd see online. You get, more or less, the same ingredients and the similar instructions. But it's the way that you're walked through the process of making these curries and the tidbits that you get along the way that sets this cookbook apart from others, and allows you to grow as a chef.

Also worth mentioning the cultural insights you get! Never thought I could get a history lesson while I cook, yet here I am. You can tailor your cooking experience towards the continent you're looking to explore, as that's how the book is structured. And the best part: the recipes are of varying difficulty. Some are simple; some take more simple; some have easy-to-find ingredients; some have more exotic choices! Whatever you're looking for, you'll find your recipe in this cookbook and it'll surely be amazing.

I will be posting (hopefully) a video review to my instagram soon!

This was a well researched book with a wide variety of dishes. The brief histories and anecdotes were interesting, and I can't wait to try some of the recipes! While the illustrations were beautiful, there were no photographs of the prepared recipes.

Not only is this a fabulous curry recipe book, but it provides a good read. Curry is popular all over the world, this book shows, not only the history of curry, and its spread throughout the world, but the culture that infuses the spices. The Areas are broken into Asia, Africa & Middle East, Europe & Oceania and The Americans but only in the sense on how the various people and cultures have modified, added and used these fabulous flavors to hold them for their own.
This is a very interesting book, and a must for any curry lover. I really enjoyed it Thanks you NetGalley and the publishers for the DRC

Thank you to the author, Workman Publishing Company and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a unique look at the history of curry - which many may think of as exclusively a South Asian dish - and the way it has spread and influenced food culture around the world. The book is structured in geographical areas, and the author gives fascinating insights into the adaptations of curry into each culture, and includes historical information and recipes from each area. Some of the dishes are very intricate, others are more easily achieved by the not-so-practiced home cook, and the author includes tips for hard-to-source ingredients and unfamiliar cooking procedures. The book was nicely illustrated, but I would have loved to see photos rather than the drawings. My only quibbles with the book were the US-centric view and the lack of metric measurements - although at least there was a conversion table included in the back of the book.

I am a LOVER of curries! And I was so excited to review On the Curry Trail. I loved how the author shared different recipes from different areas of the world. Some of my favorite recipes were in the Africa and Asia section. My only issue is that a lot of recipes used fish and seafood. Some of the fish recipes were unique, making them hard to find at your local grocery store. Some more common proteins would have been nice.

Learn the geography, history and other stories of curries. Its a bold step for a recipe book to not have pictures. The zesty illustrations do a great job. You will be surprised to see how far wide reaching the curry trail is.