Amish O Niramish Ahar 1 by Pragyasundari Debi [Hardcover]

At a time when there was no tradition of writing cookbooks in Bengali, Pragyasundari Devi wrote this legendary book on a variety of both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes in six volumes. She was the daughter of the Thakur family, the child of Hemendranath, and the wife of the literary figure Laksminath Bezbarua from Assam. She viewed cooking as an art form. For her, cooking was a disciplined practice of a creative endeavor. In the joy of creating these culinary masterpieces, she invited her family and friends, which led her to write this book during that era. This book is a timeless product of that joy. In fact, the first volume of Amish O Niramish Ahar (Non-Vegetarian and Vegetarian Food) was published in the early years of the last century. In this vast book, Pragyasundari described over two thousand of her self-invented recipes along with traditional Bengali culinary techniques. These volumes were meticulously arranged with her instructions. Not only did Pragyasundari’s cookbooks become a pioneer in the realm of culinary practice, but the prefaces she wrote in various volumes of the book have also, even today, gained recognition as essential introductory readings in domestic science. Indeed, Pragyasundari Devi's magnum opus is considered the final word in cookbooks. In addition to the recipes published in the six volumes, several cooking methods were discovered in manuscript form after her death. These writings have now been gathered and planned for new volumes of Amish O Niramish Ahar. The first volume in this new edition contains the recipes for vegetarian dishes, leaving no vegetarian dish unmentioned. This volume is a comprehensive guide to vegetarian food. The text is made contemporary with the help of appropriate annotations and includes a complete alphabetical list of all the recipes.