GO ON A CULINARY VOYAGE

Travel adventures and tasty food sure go hand in hand. I’m not talking about travelling with a map on one hand and a fork and knife on the other. I have something better than that. Well, you need not go so far to sample one’s regional cuisine. The essential travel cookbooks I’ve listed below are a great way to access to the culture, history and culinary traditions of those far-flung places. All of these books are more or less like a guide not only to just food and cooking but also to a particular place, its history, and its peoples. And it’s always an advantage to be aware of what kind of cuisine to expect and have a decent understanding of the cuisine while dining in a regional restaurant.  

The Hairy Bikers Ride Again

The Hairy Bikers are Dave Myers and Si King from North East England and the theme of their book is riding motorcycles, cooking and eating local food and drinking the local drink, especially beer. They have a TV series as well with the same name. These two globe-trotters, beer loving chefs are on the roads again with their motorbikes rummaging around the world in search of adventurous food and foodie adventures. Celebrating each ingredient and creating scrumptious dishes and also providing some laughs along the way, the book features a whole lot of exciting journeys and exotic locations. They also investigated and recreated local dishes with a totting up of some liberal mizzle of drollness, inanity and repartee. Their appetite for adventure and food and their laugh-out-loud capacity for fun make the book an exploratory one. Also their unruly enthusiasm and gusto for great food puts the passion back into cooking.

Author- Dave Myers and Si King

Price- Rs. 1,136 

Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia

Award-winning cookbook authors Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid have their way in the Southeast Asia. They hit the road to eat their way through the region's towns and villages becoming aware of the fact that the great flavours of Southeast Asia tip out over national borders. They collected recipes, cooking techniques, stories, and photographs. And the book is the glorious result of their travels in the region extending south from China, down through Cambodia to Vietnam and including parts of Laos, Burma and Thailand. It mainly talks about dishes like Spicy Grilled Beef Salad and Vietnamese Chicken with Fresh Herbs and more exotic treats like Jungle Curry from Thailand and Pomelo Salad from Cambodia. Simple warming soups, easy stir-fries, brilliant, hot salsas, and cooling desserts are thoroughly mentioned. And for those who loves sweets there are plethora of desserts including the delectable Sweet Satin Custard and Bananas in Coconut Cream. The authors offer suggestive stories throughout the book like the imagery of their days spent searching out the complex and the photographs of their travels.  

Author- Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

Price- Rs. 2,223

Mystical Places and Marvelous Meals: A Travel Cookbook

Exploring ancient settlements, probing for legendary beasts, dismissing travel folklores and sampling a local delicacy and breaking into little known finery structures is what this book is all about. Authors Sara Nieves-Grafals and Al Getz-a husband and wife team of mental health professionals turned travel/cookbook writers brings over twenty years of journeys sprinkled with geography, history, myths, cross-cultural psychology, architecture, mythology, foreign languages, archaeology, and gastronomy. They have scheduled out seventy-five recipes from their Washington, D.C. home kitchen in the book. Each chapter in the book talks about one destination followed by a number of regional recipes inspired by the story. The book digs into different eras and cultures and discovers some of the delicious food that the world has to offer.  And the authors selected their favourite places not due to the geographic regions but because of their appeal and richness.

Author- Sara Nieves-Grafals and Al Getz

Price- Rs. 852

Nino Pernetti's Caffe Abbracci Cookbook: His Life Story and Travels Around the World

From appetizers to desserts, along with anecdotes of the owner and host of Caffe Abbracci, this illustrated cookbook features over 100 of its best and most popular dishes. Nino Pernetti is the owner and host of Caffe Abbracci and the book has his life story and travel around the world as an author. The book incorporates trouble-free recipes which anyone can make at home like Crostini with Pear and Prosciutto. Recipes from the sea and land flavours including Oysters with Gorgonzola Sauce, Swordfish with Fennel and Basil, Yellowtail with artichokes are there too. Other delicacies like soups, salads, and of course pasta dishes, desserts including a superb tiramisu and much more can be found to round out any home cook's repertoire. Nino also takes readers to exotic locations such as Kabul, Caracas, Singapore, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, and Istanbul, as well as throughout Western Europe. His culinary techniques come from his vast international experience and he focuses primarily on his native cuisine, the northern Italian cuisines.

Author- Nino Pernetti, Ferdie Pacheco, Luisita Sevilla Pacheco

Price- Rs. 1,976 

Nirmala’s Edible Diary: A hungry traveler’s cookbook with recipes from 14 recipes

This book is a gateway to the home kitchens and street markets of South America. Nirmala Narine, the author of the book takes the reader on a gastronomic journey through South America as she eats her way from Rio to Buenos Aires, incarcerating the tang and whiff of South America in recipes and photos. She is the founder and owner of Nirmala's Kitchen, a gourmet food company specializing in spices, exotic rice blends and Global Meal kits. The book has over 70 recipes for tantalizing stews, crunchy empanadas, and fruity desserts. It features 100 pulsating photographs of the foods, people, and landscapes which gives one an idea that this continent is a stunning travel destination. Her adventurous spirit and her love for food are vividly expressed in every page of the book, thus making the book out of the ordinary. Inspiration from the East and the tropical and Caribbean influence is also represented in the book like Indonesian Bami Goreng (stir-fried noodles with chicken) and Cream of Sweet Potato Soup with Plantain Chips.

Author- Nirmala Narine

Price- Rs. 1,359 

Turquoise: A Chef's Travels in Turkey

Turkey is becoming a sought-after travel destination and it is not only enjoyed for its beauty but also for its culinary wonders.  Greg and Lucy Malouf visited the spice markets and soup kitchens of Turquoise and luxuriated in the fish sandwiches on the Bosphorus and drinks in ancient teahouses. They set out for months at a time to eat and travel, drawing culinary maps of places and writing about tradition, history, identity, and fried fish sandwiches. Lucy Malouf writes and savour the delicacies while Greg Malouf who is also a renowned Australian chef, polishes up the recipes. The book contains recipes enthused by their travels capturing the tantalizing flavours that characterize the Turkish cuisine from the ancient ruins of Pergamum to modern day Istanbul. Some are traditional favourites such as Little Kefta Dumplings in Minted Yogurt Sauce while Roast Chicken with Pine Nut and Barberry Pilav Stuffing and Pistachio Halva Ice Cream are Greg's own flavours with his years of experience cooking Middle Eastern food.

Author- Greg Malouf, Lucy Malouf

Price- Rs. 2,470