Lounge
Peek into bookshelves of chefs
Summary
What do chefs read when they are hungry for inspiration? Memoirs, history and recipe books, food manga and more
Near the entrance of the Mumbai restaurant Bandra Born is a small shelf filled with food books. Taking pride of place is The East Indian Cookery Book, an anthology of recipes from one of the city’s most prominent communities, the East Indians. The rare, out-of-print book is special to Gresham Fernandes, chef partner at Bandra Born, who belongs to this community, because it holds recipes for fugyas, a wedding pickle made with toddy vinegar and vindaloo, which have influenced his repertoire.
Fernandes is an avid reader with an impressive collection of 800 books, ranging from food writing to culinary culture. Like him, chef Niyati Rao of the restaurant Ekaa and the newly opened bar Bombay Daak is a bookworm with over 550 books. She geeks out on books about ingredients. Gayatri Desai of Pune’s Ground Up restaurant is curious about the sources of different cuisines. Her collection spans China, Japan and Mexico. Every bookshelf reflects a chef’s identity, their diverse interests, from wines to manga, and their ever evolving tastes.
TO BOOKMARK
The books are reference material as well as for reading pleasure. Rao is loyal to Christine Ingram’s Cooking Ingredients, an illustrated book on ingredients from all corners of the world with details of provenance and instructions for use. Rao’s new bar Bombay Daak champions regional chakna (bar snacks) and drinks. As part of her research, she read The Indian Spirit: The Untold Story of Drinking in India by Magandeep Singh, which dives into the history of alcohol in India complete with tasting notes of local brews.
Auroni Mookerjee, culinary director at Delhi’s Bright Hospitality Pvt. Ltd, often flips through books by old-school cookbook authors Mary Berry and Julia Child. With recipes for pies and puddings, the food is all about comfort. “Today, guests know about technique-driven food, but what they want to feel is not from the mind, but from the heart," he says, while explaining why comfort food triumphs over all else.
Vanshika Bhatia’s reference books encompass her plant-based approach to cooking and love for baking. She is the chef-partner at Gurugram’s vegetarian restaurant Omo and owns the café Petite Pie Shop. Her go-tos are Ottolenghi Flavour by the inimitable chef Yotam Ottolenghi “because they’re really nice with their taste combinations", and The Elements of Pizza by the master of bread-baking Ken Forkish. For anyone interested in making bread at home, she recommends his Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast.
Also read: How chefs select, source and use masalas
CHEF AUTHORS
“I am a big fan of (Australian chef) Josh Niland, because he revolutionised cooking fish," shares Mookerjee. Niland’s Fish Butchery: Mastering the Catch, Cut and Craft is a masterclass in nose-to-tail cooking of fish. Mookerjee explains that its genius lies in the application of different butchery crafts unique to cuisines from Japan, US and France to slice, dice and skin fish to perfection.
Most chefs have read The Noma Guide to Fermentation by iconic chef and restaurateur René Redzepi and David Zilber. With 100 recipes, it is a foolproof guide to unlock umami and discover new flavours. Bhatia runs a vegetarian restaurant and it’s particularly useful. “There’s something called a ‘Tasty Paste’ in the book. It teaches you how to ferment any sort of fruit with miso and keep it in a vacuumed environment for a week. It develops a really nice kick and it can be paired with a range of dishes," she says.
MORE THAN RECIPES
Mookerjee has a well-thumbed copy of Wine Folly’s magnum edition. It’s a definitive read for wine aficionados like him. Over the years, he has put together an envious collection of old editions of Wine Spectator magazines.
Pune’s Ground Up is an experimental restaurant with fermentation at its core, led by Desai who has a hunger to learn about different aspects of food. “I am drawn towards books that help me understand the source," she says. One of her favourites is Tender by Nigel Slater, she says. Sample the following lines: “The rough feel of a runner bean between the fingers, the childish pop of a pea pod, the inside of a fur-lined broad-bean case, the cool vellum-like skin of a freshly dug potato are all reason to linger. And all this even before we have turned the oven on."
Desai is drawn to good writing, and likes deep diving into food cultures. She names authors like Fuchsia Dunlop, an authority on regional Chinese cuisines; Elizabeth Andoh, author of six Japanese cookbooks; and the “brilliant" Nancy Singleton who has documented Japanese ferments, vegetarian cooking and country-style recipes.
THE MAGIC OF COMICS
If you are a fan of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory, then you know that intelligent minds love comics. Fernandes, Rao and Mookerjee are also fans of manga and graphic novels centred on food. Each of them speak of the cooking manga series, Oishinbo. Every volume in this series focuses on a particular ingredient or dish like pub food, ramen or rice.
“They have incredible lessons in craft and hospitality," shares Mookerjee. The plot revolves around a father who is a revered chef and his son, a food critic. The friction arises because they are constantly throwing challenges at each other and working separately to create the ultimate food guide. The drama is infused with dining etiquette and remarkable teachings on food service. To illustrate, Mookerjee recounts a chapter from the volume on rice. The father takes the son out to eat, where they find that the rice is cooked to perfection with each grain being of the same size. It means the chef carefully picked each grain to ensure it cooked uniformly. It shows his unmatched attention to detail.
Celebrated food author Anthony Bourdain also cooked up comics, says Fernandes, sharing a photo of his copy of the graphic novel Get Jiro with a sushi chef as the protagonist who challenges masterchefs portrayed as antagonists. Another Bourdain comic in his collection is Hungry Ghosts that combines the supernatural with food.
Rao suggests another manga series, Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma, written by Yūto Tsukuda and illustrated by Shun Saeki. In it is an Indian character Akira Hayama who was adopted by a Japanese woman. “He is known as the master of spices, and rightly so. He makes a curry, and it’s no ordinary recipe—it’s the Kerala kozhi varutha with lots of curry leaves. The creators have shown not just ingredient quantities, but gone into details about the optimal temperature for growing them," she says. The comics are hard to find, and she recommends watching the series on YouTube.
From memoirs to cookbooks and comics on a gamut of food topics, a clear theme emerges: Chefs read to not only learn about recipes but also to feast on ideas.
CHEF-APPROVED BOOKSTORES
(By Gresham Fernandes, Niyati Rao, Vanshika Bhatia and Gayatri Desai)
• Books for Cooks in Notting Hill, London
• Kinokuniya, across countries
• Pagdandi Bookstore & Coffee, Pune
• Leaping Windows, Mumbai
• Bahrisons, Delhi and Gurugram
Also read: How Guwahati's dining scene got a gourmet redo
