The most treasured cookbooks are thus filled with handwritten recipes and, like family heirlooms, fiercely guarded from one generation to the next. But every once in a while, a published collection of recipes comes along that meets the approval of even the most particular cooks. Most often put together by community associations and women’s organisations, they were first published for young brides, but are now being reprinted or translated into English to preserve old culinary traditions.

Unlike new-fangled community cookbooks – and there are now plenty of those – which are written with international audiences and urban kitchens in mind, these no-nonsense collections have no room for tomato puree Tetra-Packs, readymade masalas, coconut milk powder, condensed milk tins or other snappy shortcuts. These are old-school, grandma-approved favourites.

Dadima no Varso
Dadima no Varso is the only recipe book dedicated to the cuisine of the Palanpuri Jain community. To anybody who wasn’t raised in a Jain home, the religious food restrictions may seem harsh. They do not use garlic, onions, potatoes and other root vegetables for fear that insects might be harmed when they’re uprooted. For many days of the month, called teethi, they do not eat leafy vegetables either, because this requires consuming green, and therefore living, plants. Then there’s paryushan time when they abstain from fresh vegetables and fruit altogether. One would imagine there isn’t much left to experiment with, but it is precisely these religious taboos that have led to the inventive creations that fill the pages of Dadima no Varso.

The use of fruit is especially interesting. There’s shaak made with ripe guavas (regulars at Swati Snacks might recognise this one) and ripe yellow bananas, kadis made with only soaked mango seeds and curries made using only the peels of bananas and mangoes. Little goes to waste in the Palanpuri household.

Published by Nita Mehta, Rajul Gandhi, Dr Satyavati S Jhaveri and a women’s organisation called Rachna, Dadima no Varso’s attention to detail and comprehensive coverage of Palanpuri Jain cuisine is an epic effort. It’s a 465-page masterpiece. Each recipe is written in both Gujarati and English and most are accompanied by helpful illustrations that range from the simple – how rotlis are to be rolled out, flipped and puffed on the gas flame – to more complex, like how to get the right consistency of sugar syrup to make mithai. Apart from a long list of vegetable curries, dals, khichdis and rotlas, there’s a section dedicated to winter food, Ayurvedic home remedies and special paryushan menus that use the humble papad in astounding ways. But the best part about Dadima no Varso is that you don’t have to share their beliefs to be interested. There’s enough in here to intrigue even die-hard carnivores.

Recommended: Pakki keri ni chhal nu shaak, ripe mango peels and seeds cooked with dried ker beans and sangria berries in a yoghurt-based gravy. Bapadi rotli, made with many layers of wafer-thin rotis stuck together with ghee. The Palanpuri Jains might have many dietary constraints but restrictions on the use of ghee, fresh white butter and oil isn’t among them.

Available at Shanti Building, Palanpur Samaj Kendra, in the lane next to Warden Collections, Warden Road, Breach Candy. 11am-5pm. Call Virendra Bhai on 2363-2288 to place an order. Rs.600.