Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India by Madhur Jaffrey

  • Lamb patties (Shami kebab)

    from Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India Climbing the Mango Trees by Madhur Jaffrey

    • Categories: Main course; Indian
    • Ingredients: ground lamb; mint; cilantro; fresh ginger; cardamom seeds; black peppercorns; black cumin seeds; whole cloves; nutmeg; cinnamon sticks; ground cayenne pepper; yogurt; chickpea flour; bird's eye chiles; onions; lemons
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Notes about this book

  • vacherin on April 17, 2009

    A captivating biography, with some excellent recipes too

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  • ISBN 10 1400078202
  • ISBN 13 9781400078202
  • Published Oct 05 2006
  • Format Paperback
  • Page Count 320
  • Language English
  • Countries United States
  • Publisher Knopf

Publishers Text

Today's most highly regarded writer on Indian food gives us an enchanting memoir of her childhood in Delhi in an age and a society that has since disappeared.


Madhur (meaning "sweet as honey") Jaffrey grew up in a large family compound where her grandfather often presided over dinners at which forty or more members of his extended family would savor together the wonderfully flavorful dishes that were forever imprinted on Madhur's palate.


Climbing mango trees in the orchard, armed with a mixture of salt, pepper, ground chilies, and roasted cumin; picnicking in the Himalayan foothills on meatballs stuffed with raisins and mint and tucked into freshly baked pooris; sampling the heady flavors in the lunch boxes of Muslim friends; sneaking tastes of exotic street fare - these are the food memories Madhur Jaffrey draws on as a way of telling her story. Independent, sensitive, and ever curious, as a young girl she loved uncovering her family's many-layered history, and she was deeply affected by their personal trials and by the devastating consequences of Partition, which ripped their world apart.


Climbing the Mango Trees is both an enormously appealing account of an unusual childhood and a testament to the power of food to evoke memory. And, at the end, this treasure of a book contains a secret ingredient--more than thirty family recipes recovered from Madhur's childhood, which she now shares with us.

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