New cookbook celebrates Pakistan’s cultural cuisine

Pakistan News & Features Services

The legend has it that the early cookbooks were meant for the kings as the oldest published recipe collections of the 15th and the 16th centuries emanated from the palaces of monarchs and princes.

Those were the times when no one was trying to build a business out of selling cookbooks. Instead, they were often created within a court culture, partly intended as assistants for chief stewards and partly for royalty to demonstrate the luxury of their banquets. 

The advent of technology broadened cookbooks’ intended audiences. During the following centuries, publishers began putting out cookbooks and their production of cookbooks increased manifolds during the second half of the 20th century, an era of unprecedented food abundance. 

Since then there was been phenomenal rise in both television shows on cooking as well as publication of cookbooks. 

Cookbooks have also been immensely popular in Pakistan and there have been quite a few handy publications in the past. 

The latest in the list is a book in Urdu titled ‘Zaiqon Ki Sargam’ which could be described as the celebration of Pakistan’s cultural cuisine. 

A wide variety of recipes for traditional Pakistani and sub-continental cultural dishes, rhapsody of taste, has been put together from different areas of Pakistan along with typical family recipes, collected with the help of friends and families, in this book authored by Zeenat Azra Khan. 

The author had migrated from South India to Pakistan with her parents in early 1950s. She is author of From My Table to Yours. Whereas her first book was on international cuisine, she has now presented a variety of recipes on traditional Pakistani and sub-continental dishes in A Rhapsody of Cuisine. 

Published by Paramount Books, one of the market leaders in the trade, Zaiqon Ki Sargam not only contains a combination of cultural recipes but also provides the reader with interesting anecdotes and background of some dishes.