Bingo 8: Bollywood
Book title: Bollywood Kitchen. Explanation for square done, except to point out that this book is not a book about food in Bollywood movies, it’s a book about food inspired by how the author remembers or perceives a handful of contemporary Bollywood films. So that means things like a family drama film paired with a Thanksgiving tinged family dinner (spiced roast chicken, sweet/savory pumpkin, and cashew fried rice); or the Shakespeare adaptation of Hamlet paired with butternut squash soup and Himalayan shepherds pie to match the chilly wintry setting of the movie. There are also a few spots where the menu might be focused on the lead actor’s home region, or the general setting of the movie.
Mot sections open with a discussion of the movie, a brief synopsis, and then some kind of essay about the setting, the actors, film making, or even the political backdrop. From the beginning the author is clear that most or all of these movies are available at least with subtitles via the standard streaming services (the release dates run between 1998 and 2016), and that the recipes are designed to be doable in an American kitchen, with one or two exceptions. The entire header for dondakaya is about how “I began this book by insisting that these recipes are accessible {but}…”; ivy gourd apparently tastes kind of like a mustardy-cuminy cucumber. The thing I don’t get is that if you can have a substitution for something like tamarind paste or concentrate, why not here too? The other one I noticed was veggie related as well (baby eggplant) but that is at least sometimes available in a standard grocer.
Most of the recipes lean towards the expected curries, dals, and sauced proteins, and everything looks pretty doable as intended. There really isn’t much of anything too surprising in here; this book is almost more about the movies than the food, but one thing I do like about the food part is that the meal plans are also do-able within a reasonable amount of time/space. Most of them are 1-3 recipes long. I also like the lean towards vegetarian, although has the book points out, a lot of Indian cuisines lean in that direction already.
There are some places where the menu explanation doesn’t really match the movie as described, like I’m not sure how or why a movie described as “haunting, political love story set to unforgettable music” gets a brunch menu centered around lentil-rice crepes with a potato and onion filling and coconut chutney. It makes sense that the kids movie (kind reminiscent of Goonies) has a dinner menu of what’s basically fish sticks, roasted broccoli, and sweet corn, but how/why the “sprawling, pulp-fiction crime saga” gets the “Guy’s Movie Night” menu of burgers and fries and milkshake is a little unclear (and also a tad bit sexist). I don’t know how much of these I’ll end up trying before the book geos back to the library, but I do at least appreciate the introduction to modern Indian Bollywood (and some other cultures linked in there as well) film.