India Post News Service
James Oseland is excited and delighted to showcase reci-pes from the diverse Asian community in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in his culinary book Cradle of Flavors, Home Cooking from the Spice islands of Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia.
Documenting best known dishes and signature techniques, embellished with choice 100 authentic dishes remembered through his travels of 24 years through the tropical archipelago that lies between Thailand and Australia, the book is creative, flexible and enjoyable.
He writes, "Each dish tells a story, with a beginning, a middle and an end-plus a number of fascinating plot twists along the way. Pay attention to these moments and you'll begin to understand what is occurring, the subtle alchemy involved in every change."
Chapters include the versatility and diversity of Asian cuisine, techniques and equipment in the kitchen, serving the meal, street foods, satays, salads and snacks, rice and noodles, ingredients in the market, foods of celebration, sweets and beverages.
It is fascinating to know that many Indian ingredients are easily available in the markets of Sumatra, Bali, Java, the Spice islands. Ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, garlic, rice, cumin, coriander seeds, curry leaves, turmeric and tamarind are staples of Island cooking.
As he treks through rice paddies, bustling streetstalls, and learning how to grind chilies in a tiny Indonesian kitchen Oseland opens up a world of sauces, classic meat dishes, and vegetarian specialities.
He pays close attention to the slicing of a chile, a breaking of a coconut, the smelling of a lilac skinned garlic or the hot oil kissing every leaf and stem of a spinach. Cradle of Flavors is warmly personal offering of simple as well as celebatory recipes that are practical, easy to make and yet the flavors are subtle, complex and always interesting.
Chilies and spice are balanced with vegetables , poultry and fish and every meal is an amazing testament to intuition, planning, innovation and the essence of good eating. There is an astonishing precision and detail in his stories of the connection between food and culture.
He has a passion for food and history as he traces the bonding between political borders that share the same languages, peoples and histories of trade and conquest.
There is a richly detailed glossary, 16 pages of superb pictures, and evocative stories. The book will appeal to experienced cooks as well as beginners who do not know much about Asian cuisine. Play around with spices and you can create a work of art . Oseland even suggests substitutes and omissions .
The book offers creative variations and anyone can expand cooking horizons. A good cookbook is a wonderful addition to a collection and a great gift to give to anyone who has been intimidated with Asian cooking.
The reader is enchanted by the spectrum of flavors, robust and satisfying, piquant and magical, simple and nourishing. You accompany Oseland on his travels as he negotiates buses, motorbikes, rice fields, and old Chinese Taoist temples while sampling Javanese peanut sauce,spiced nyonya rice,pan seared tamarind tuna,black pepper crab, and grilled coconut chicken with lemon basil.
We enter with him a home that is lit by candles, the only source of light and relish the impromptu meal whipped up at midnight by the lady of the house-lemon grass marinated fried chicken, garlicky rice, crunchy shrimp chips , a fried egg, thick cucumber wedges , a sweet and sour pickle and all around is the smell of a cooking fire and the cinnamon drying outside on rattan mats.
We are enchanted. James Oseland is executive editor of Saveur, a native of California and lives in New York city. He embarked on an exhilarating adventure of exploring Asian foods in 1982 when he was an art student in San Francisco.
He visited Asia and was immediately seduced by the beguiling secrets of Indonesian cooking. For the next twenty years, Oseland became a culinary story teller of the Spice islands.
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