TRAVELS WITH THE TUMMY

Zac O'Yeah's travelcum-food memoir is a distillation of eating his way through India over three decades

- Sharmistha Chaudhuri

DIGESTING INDIA: A Travel Writer's Subcontinental Adventures with the Tummy

by Zac O'Yeah

SPEAKING TIGER

It is a good thing that I picked up this book after a soul-satisfying meal, so I wouldn't drool. Or at least that's what I repeatedly told myself while turning the pages of Zac O'Yeah's newest book. Digesting India is a wild ride across the subcontinent's delectable culinary landscape, which the Scandinavian-origin author has explored over the past 30-odd years.

However, it wouldn't be right to call Digesting India a food book. It extends beyond the purview of the culinary and infuses the writer's anecdotes from his travels across India, ties in the lives of literary greats influenced by the country (think E.M. Forster's love for Hyderabadi food or the spiritually-minded W. Somerset Maugham's time in Kozhikode), and provides history lessons to give context to consumption. I myself made a mental note to visit Thalassery if only to devour 'kallumakkai' (or mussels), like the author did after a train ride conversation with a couple who couldn't stop raving about the shellfish. Unlike O'Yeah, I didn't grow up eating mussels, but in North Kerala, I could savour the edible heritage of the ancient spice trade that linked India with the Roman Empire.