Chhaunk

On Food, Economics And Society

Hardcover, 352 pages

English language

Published by Juggernaut Publication.

ISBN:
978-93-5345-242-1
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Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/221968653-chhaunk

A sparkling book of essays by Nobel Prize winner Abhijit Banerjee

Chhaunk, oil infused with different spices, lies at the heart of Indian cooking. It is just a few teaspoons, but it finishes a dish and gives it its particular piquancy. The pieces in this delightful book can be seen as a literary chhaunk – a sprinkling of ideas and arguments around the social sciences, which imparts its own distinct flavour.

Part memoir, part cookbook, Chhaunk playfully uses food to talk about economics, society and India, and makes unexpected connections, say, between savings and shami kebab or between women’s liberation and the Bengali vegetable dish of ghanto.

Abhijit Banerjee, economist and Nobel laureate, loves to cook and feed people, and misses India all the time. This delicious collection of essays – light in style and big on ideas – is his attempt to string the many parts …

2 editions

reviewed Chhaunk by Abhijit V. Banerjee

Reads like a collection of newspaper columns

food and economics - in theory, the combination of my dreams. perhaps why i had such high hopes from this book. alas, it failed to deliver. it reads like a collection of newspaper columns put together. the columns aren't faulty or bad. on the contrary, they may be very interesting to a lay person with no prior interest in economics. but I did not find it thought-provoking, though some recipes were a bonus.

Subjects

  • Food
  • Economics