Whose Samosa is it Anyway? - Sonal Ved - ★★★.¼

AUTHOR: Sonal Ved

GENRE: Food nonfiction, History

RATING: 3.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: More suited to food history lovers than to general foodies. Read only if you like history. Luckily for the book, I do.

No one is more surprised than I am that, after not having read a single food book all these years, I have now read two in 2023 itself. And in both cases, the title was the reason. The samosa is a favourite snack of mine, and when I saw this amazing title, I jumped at the book without doing any due diligence. I am sure many of my Indian friends will feel the same about such an appealing book name.

Sadly, the title is quite click bait in intent and misleading in effect. To know what the book is about, you need to focus more on the tagline: “The Story of Where 'Indian' Food Really Came From.” This represents the book precisely.

People always talk about Indian dishes and Indian food. Even I claim that “Indian food” is my favourite across whatever cuisines I have tried. But the fact is that there is nothing called “Indian food.” Food in India is as diverse as its regions and its cultures. Westerners might refer to every single “Indian” dish as “Indian food”, but to us locals, food choices come with a reference to their location or community such as Punjabi, Kerala, Goan, Bengali, Mughlai, Assamese, East Indian (who are funnily not based in East India but in Mumbai), Chettinad, and so on. Contrary to common misconception, many Indians are non-vegetarian as well (and have been so since millenia). Hence, many regions/cultures are reputed for their nonveg cuisine too. 

What is common to all of our food, whether veg or nonveg, is the ubiquitous and generous use of spices. Indian food is quite hot and flavourful, (and its desserts – sweet and flavourful), so it is tough to digest that many of our spices weren’t, in fact, *our* spices just a few centuries ago. The omnipresent potato and green chilli are also not Indian in origin, and our so-called national drink – ‘chai’ or tea, but not ‘chai tea’ please! – was introduced here by one of our colonial invaders. Cucumbers, on the contrary, have their roots in India. Moreover, millets, though hailed as a modern superfood, were a part of the Indian diet even before rice was.

If such a history of our cuisines, our food habits, our spices and our local produce interests you, this is a great book to read. It begins with the early “Indians” around 6000 BCE, then covers the development and food habits of the Indus valley civilisation - the earliest-known culture of the Indian subcontinent around 2500-2000 BCE. Making its historical way down the ages, the book covers the impact of traders, invaders, royalty, and religions on local food, reaching down to modern times, though the modern era is quite brief.

While the author’s perspective on modern Indian food is somewhat elitist—I can bet a million dollars that not every urban Indian has truffle oil in their pantry or enchiladas in their tiffin—her presentation of the historical development of and additions to the Indian palate is spot on. Her meticulous research proves itself in every single chapter and in the long list of reference material provided in the appendix. There are some fascinating facts as well, some familiar to me and some new and mind-boggling. (I never knew that my favourite sambar was named after the Maratha king Sambhaji or that Tagore featured in an advert for Bournvita!)

If I am so impressed with the book’s facts and the author’s research, why is my rating so low? Well, you had to make me open my mouth, didn’t you? Here you go:

🚩 The click bait title, and the misleading quote by Ranveer Brar on the cover page, both of which create wrong expectations.

🚩 The introduction - fabulous but too elongated, containing needless foreshadowing of what’s to come in the rest of the book. It is more like a summary than an intro.

🚩 Because the introduction went far beyond its reach and purpose, the content in the main chapters feels repetitive at times.

🚩 There is an attempt made at humour, but this feels quite forced at times.

🚩 The abundant crosslinking (‘I will cover this in the next section’ or ‘More about this in chapter four’) - quite irritating after a while.

🚩 The samosa is hardly there. Can’t forgive that!

🚩 There is not a single photograph in the entire book! What kind of food book has zero food photos!??!!?

🚩 Including some authentic Indian recipes would have been such a bonus. Especially keeping in mind the credentials of the author, I think this was a missed opportunity, even though it was not the main focus of the book.

Overall, I did like this book a lot, but that is mainly because I am a history buff. As a history book, it is fascinating, but as a food book, it is akin to a dish that is palatable but could have been better seasoned and better plated.

Recommended to those interested in a historical perspective of what constitutes Indian cuisine.

My thanks to Penguin Random House India and Edelweiss+ for the DRC of “Whose Samosa is it Anyway?: The Story of Where 'Indian' Food Really Came From”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

PS: The other food book I read this year was 'Andaza' - check out my review HERE.