Madhur Jaffrey •
Climbing the Mango Trees •

“I may have been born with honey on my tongue, but I was also born squirming against the status quo,” says film star Madhur Jaffrey, whose name means “sweet as honey.”

Take a walk through her spirited childhood with this alluring memoir set in Delhi and Kanpur. Join her as she lights hundreds of tiny oil lamps for Diwali; learns to git pit (speak English) at a Catholic school; and climbs the fruit trees in her grandfather’s vast orchards. Dress in flowing silk saris, practical boy shorts, starched uniforms, or Turkish-style women’s leggings, as the activity demands.

Jaffrey’s extended family, a nearly endless stream of cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, forms a small city in its own right, honoring multiple aspects of Hindu, Muslim, and British culture. “In India, you rarely lose a tradition. You simply layer one on top of another.” Parsi ancestors account for her “inkpot and quill” leanings. During the “unbearable time” of Partition when neighbors suddenly become enemies and the country is awash in blood, a schoolmate complains that she is “too broad-minded.”

India is primarily a land for tastes for Jaffrey, from her mother’s slow-simmered, delicately spiced chicken curry to crisp, puffy paratha from the Land of Fried Breads. A professional snack maker is engaged on special occasions, much the way a magician might perform at a child’s birthday party in the West. Picnics are elaborate rituals requiring days of preparation and processions of hamper-bearing servants. Each festival throughout the year comes with its own foods and ceremonies.

Jaffrey, a cookbook author as well as an acclaimed actress, closes with a trove of family recipes, so that you can experience Indian home cooking for yourself. Feast on lamb patties, cauliflower with cheese, and stuffed okra, followed by light rice pudding “to sweeten the mouth.”