How the Banana Goes to Heaven: and Other Secrets of Health from the Indian Kitchen

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Ratna Rajaiah takes a walk down memory lane, only to find it redolent with the aromas of her mother s and grandmother s kitchens, and lined with the spices and condiments of her youth. Pausing often, she meets old culinary friends coconuts and chillies, mangoes and jackfruit, ragi and channa dal, ghee and jaggery, mustard seeds and curry leaves and introduces us to almostforgotten joys, like the sight of steaming kanji or the scent of freshly cut ginger. Taking detours, she shares recipes for old favourites (often with a surprising twist!) and reveals delightful slivers of trivia and fascinating nuggets of gastronomic history. Delving deep, she discovers that traditional fare is much more than comfort food (many local ingredients are health-giving and healing too!) and that much of what the West is discovering about herbs and spices has been known to our ancestors for centuries. An unabashed and wonderful ode to the blessings of simple, traditional vegetarian food.

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Ratna Rajaiah graduated from Lady Sri Ram College with a Bachelor s degree in English Literature. Nevertheless, if anyone had suggested to her at the time that she would write a book one day, she would have probably scoffed at them. Indeed, the road that led to this book was a circuitous if intriguing one. First, a postgraduate MBA degree from IIM, Calcutta resulted in a longish stint with Rediffusion Advertising, one of India s top advertising agencies. Later, Ratna left her career in advertising to explore the world of television and cinema. She started by working with Shekhar Kapur, and went on to direct Meri Awaz Suno, a singing talent contest produced by Yash Chopra s television software company. At the same time, she began writing a column for Mid-Day, a humorous, irreverent take on anything and everything, which, much to her delight, became very popular. More writing assignments followed for publications like The Hindu and India Today. And so a writer was born. The Mid-Day column, which had run for five years, ended soon after Ratna relocated from Mumbai to Mysore, but another weekly column was in the offing, this time in the New Indian Express. Called New Age Living , it was an attempt to revisit ancient wisdoms like Ayurveda, yoga, spirituality and traditional food and make them relevant to modern living. The success of that column led to the conception of this book.