"How the banana goes to heaven" and other food fables
The cover of Ratna Rajaiah's book "How the banana goes to Heaven"
"As our cells are nourished and replenished, rejuvenated, our noses should exult in the embrace of a hundred aromas. Our taste buds should laugh joyously at being tickled by all the six tastes," Rajaiah said.
Published by Tranquebar, her book explores the history of "old buddy foods" to discover the nutritional and medicinal value that common foods have.
Rice comes first. Rajaiah explores the unusual history of the country's staple grain - also known as the grain of tranquillity.
"The ancestor of rice that we eat today was a wild grass that possibly grew in the super-continent of Gondwana at least 130 million years ago. From this ancient grass, two mother species evolved and they parented the approximately 120,000 varieties of rice that grow all over the world today, staple for more than half the world's population.
Image credit: www.westlandbooks.in
