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Dishoom: "From Bombay with Love” by Shamil Thakrar, Kavi Thakrar and  Naved Nasir. Published in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B, 3DP, UK. Pp: 399. Price: £ 26.
 
You might want to equip yourself with a few necessary items before entering the magical word of Dishoom, the eponymous restaurants started by the three authors Shamil and Kavi Thakrar and Naved Nasir. 
For instance, you may want to stock on the freshest of eggs, one dozen might do if you’re parsimonious, but we would recommend two dozen eggs, just in case. Also, the authors remind us, there’s something about Parsis and eggs. Be parsigenerous about stocking up on the eggs. So also, with the butter, milk and cream, though mindful of the advent of the veganistas, they do provide alternatives. If possible, get yourself a heavy bottomed pan, that is if you don’t already have an omelet pan, a spatula if your pan is one of those non-stick varieties, some excellent bread from your local bakery, a day old is good for cutting into thick chunks. To be toasted on a griddle so that the faint stripes remain before you heap the freshy quivering mound of scrambled eggs, the spicy akuri, or any of the multifarious varieties of eggs that Dishoom conjures as they march into breakfast items that they recommend are a good way to start the day. There are, of course, some who make fetish of sea salt and how coarsely the pepper should be milled. The three authors of this remarkable cookbook, that is also a love story of sorts to the city they left behind, are not fussy about salt. 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s possibly the only item they do not gaze upon with a rapture akin to those hordes of Japanese tourists viewing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris chirping like one-day-old chicks at the sheer excitement on viewing on the world’s greatest wonders. What they insist upon is calling it Bombay, explaining why exactly they prefer using the old name for what we now know as Mumbai. Or to quote from the contents page: "To channel the late, great Bombay historian Sharada Dwivedi, we chose Bombay over Mumbai because we cherish the inclusive, cosmopolitan associations inherent in the older name.” 
For Dishoom the book, as with the authors, every bit of folklore and façade, statues and statesmen who once created the southern-most island of the city is a source of similar wonder and inclusiveness. They give you a map to mostly South Bombay destinations. Just in case you’re not an explorer or a map reader, they then take you by the collar and lead you gently but firmly into the back streets, alleys, promenades and other nooks and crannies of old Bombay looking for sustenance at different times. They point out where to find some of the legendary Irani cafes and bakeries that still remain and what to order when you get there. 
This is why we recommend stocking up on the eggs and toast and maybe one of the sweet chai recipes of which there are several. It’s a nostalgia guide with recipes. Even if you have long ago given up on cooking from cookbooks, why bother when the Net is there with so many different "aunties” waiting to teach you how to break an egg from her American kitchen, there’s enough in here to satiate the stomach and soul. The photographs by Haarala Hamilton and sketches by Ivana Zorn are a zestful guide to the variety of street foods and corner shops started by Iranis that still hold the reader in their magnificent embrace. You don’t just eat a brun maska along with the authors, you taste the immense joy of dipping it buttered side down into a cup of chai. You become a brun maska. Need we add that this is a bald, brown, crusty bread with a crumbling white interior that is the joy of a morning in that city where no one has time for you. Yet food is one of its defining features. 
You will probably need to take the tour three different times. First of course to look at the pictures. Food photography, as we must all acknowledge, is a variety of gastro-porn. So, yes, Hamilton gets around quite nicely with that aspect. You really want to lick some of the pages, particularly the ones that have a history, the pink and saffron yellow faloodas for instance, the various lassis. We are a cow-obsessed country these days, but as everyone knows the buffalo, as unattractive as Harvey Weinstein in the dock, is the most likely provider of cream-rich milk and curds. 
There’s also a wonderful recipe for Commander’s Drink that recreates the trajectory of the romance of a Parsi naval commander, his English wife, and the dastardly other that shook the powder rooms and bars of 1959 Bombay. It sounds awesome combining as it does generous quantities of navy strength gin, absinthe, peppercorns and a London aperitif called Kamm and Sons. No doubt after a shot of The Commander (no pun intended) at lunch, the reader might like to recline on the loungers at the David Sassoon Library that, we are reliably informed, are known as "fornicators.” Let it be also noted that in less heightened circumstances, these long-armed chairs are known as planter’s chairs. No doubt they must have served similar purposes amongst the planters also. 
Second time round you might want to read the text. The authors have followed in the footsteps of different chroniclers. So, if you get a quick insight into the Art Deco period of buildings of Bombay in one segment, you are treated to the jazz age and the Parsi contributions to theater, music and the arts in general. There are wonderful photographs of personalities and period architecture in these sections, followed by equally colorful and flavorful shots of Bombay in its Mumbaiya avatar. 
Finally, of course, there are the recipes. Here we shall let the Thakrars and Nasir speak: "Back in 2010 when we first opened Dishoom, we (perhaps sensibly) thought our job was simply to serve Londoners good food and good drink. However, as we deepened our knowledge of the Irani cafes and their role in Bombay’s civic culture, we became increasingly conscious that breaking down barriers was important to us too.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

As they continue: "We love serving you dishes cooked in Parsi, Muslim, Hindu and Christian traditions, which all jostle on our tables for space.” It has also led them to make it possible, as they tell us "for every meal we serve, we donate another to a hungry child, and we’ve so far donated over seven million meals to children in the UK and India. A meal for a meal. This is without doubt, one of our very proudest achievements.”  
Which is what makes the book special. They reach into your heart and fill it with memories that satisfy both the eye and the soul. In the process, you may even learn to make that perfect akuri. 
GEETA DOCTOR