Vegetarian Cuisine from the Himalayan Foothills- Flavours and Beyond

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About the Book A delectable experience for gastronomes, Veena Sharma's Vegetarian Cuisine from the Himalayan Foothills delves into mouth-watering recipes that draw upon local bounties some forgotten, or less used, grains and greens, spices and fruits - from the Himalayan heights. Exploring a variety of palates and creating a whole range of nutritious and tasty foods, there is an underlay of a desire to retain and re-establish the biodiversity that is vital for your physical and mental health.

Traditional produce are dressed and enhanced to enrich the urban table, catering to your taste buds and nurturing your bodies and minds. Think of nutritional lentil kebabs, vegetables with a twist, zesty chutneys, nourishing soups, and even extraordinary desserts like phony gulab jamuns and luscious puddings. The inclusion of several vegan and gluten free recipes makes the book of interest to those with special tastes.

With striking photographs and useful snippets of information accompanying each recipe, this book is sure to feed your deepest cravings.

About the Author Veena Sharma did PhD from African Studies Centre, International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Study, Shimla (2010-2012), served Head Swahili External Services Division, All Radio, nearly years. position, invited (during 1980s) UN New York, Nairobi, Vienna Council for Namibia, on South Africa, UN International Decade Women, and UN for Namibia respectively. She various part them to and present Studies, as also Pilgrimage she has, along, had interest in Vedanta.

Currently, she Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, where she exploring local produce collecting and creating new recipes.

Foreword Veena Sharma's delightful book an artist's science of Indian therapeutics (Ayurveda) also cookbook, a yeoman's manual, or a chef's makes that pragmatic connection.

chapbook? It is actually none of these as its Food was also deployed as medicine and it became an ornament of cultural traditions. It is in the latter spirit of food as one of the epicurean glories and goals of human accomplishment that Veena Sharma approaches her recipes. Gathered with love and care that is due to preserving a priceless but all too perishable legacy, what a feast for the senses the author has laid out.

value ranges far beyond these binaries.

Through her culinary forays and concoctions, Veena Sharma tries to join and connect rather than separate or divide. As she says in her Entrée, through food and its links to the soil, the sun, and the wind, we make a connection with the cosmic whole.

Seers of India used negatives (neti neti) to describe the Ultimate Self. In fact, the Entrée, penned by the author, brings to mind ancient rishis even more vividly. The Katha Upanishad, for instance, says the path to the Self is only for the brave hearts who dare to walk on razor's edge! But don't be alarmed. Her razor-sharp sensibility is used only to dice up the cornucopia that comes from Uttarakhand, that proverbial 'Land of the Gods' (Deva Bhumi).

The fusion of food with culture lends itself to another Indic insight: that of food as the Supreme Principle (Annam Brahma).

Needless to add, her life story is as colorful as the scrumptious spread of her recipes. She headed the Swahili Service of the External Services Division of All India Radio. Widely travelled, she has several books and monographs to her credit. She was also the Founder Chairperson of Prajna Foundation for Cultural Interaction and Studies.

She has now chosen to give up life in the metropolis and live in Rishikesh. Inevitably, Veena Sharma's mouth-watering recipes draw upon local bounties from the Himalayan.

Introduction It is not for nothing that the Garhwal region of the Himalayas is referred to as deva bhumi, the land of gods. The topography and climate of this sacred land has spawned a rich biodiversity of flora and fauna, which is a natural heritage of the area. Water currents carrying rocks and herbs, fed by high-altitude minerals and vegetation irrigate the soils. Steep hillsides etched by terraced farms and, fed by mountain streams produce crops suited to their particular terrains. The diversity of crops resulting from the variations in elevation, differences in orientation and gradient, as also the velocity of winds and quality of precipitation they are exposed to is what gives to this area its environmental uniqueness.

The different crops provide rare nutrients that cannot be obtained from any single crop. Relying on elements such as sunlight, biomass from forests, and crop residues, farmers here have traditionally worked from an understanding of the ecological principles that underlie natural phenomena, to grow crops suited to their specific area. Respect for. and a connection with nature has led to the emergence of many important religious shrines along the confluences of major tributaries of the sacred river Ganga.

Since the choice of the food we eat is influenced and determined by the society and culture we live in, food in these hills, till recently, had not been driven by fashion or commercialization. For millennia, these hill people lived on whole grains and unprocessed fresh produce. Being connected to nature and the environment, they consumed that which nature provided in different times of the year, as that is what the body requires in those seasons. A combination of natural whole foods and physical exertion in this undulating region is what traditionally gave these people their sturdiness. Hill women are slender and strong as they move up and down the slopes like mountain goats.

**Contents and Sample Pages**