"A smell can carry a memory,
and certain foods can compress the memory of an entire
childhood into them." So writes Shoba Narayan in her new
book, "Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes." Narayan, a
food writer for the New York Times, has compressed the
smells, the sounds, and the brilliant shades of roasted
Indian spices into a lyrical, and often hilarious, tale
about growing up in South India.
Narayan's
coming-of-age story paints a richly textured picture of
cuisine as culture, of good food and the memories tied
to it, and of the ways that food helps us better
understand ourselves and those we love.
