Bangali Cookbook

When I first moved to Dhaka, I was delighted to finally cook old dishes my mom used to cook when we were kids. Especially, now I have 2 or 3 to cook for at any time instead of just moi while living in NY! I started cooking all the desi recipes I remembered and then started calling my grandmother and aunts to give me more ideas. One of the challenges were that I had very little idea of the types of veggies that were in the market and more importantly, no idea how to cook them! so, instead of driving my extended family crazy with my phone calls, I went out to New Market bookstores and started asking around for the classic Bangladeshi cook book. Its titled "Ranna, Khaddo, Pushti" by Siddiqui Kabir. The first publication was in 1978. The titled loosely translates into: Cooking, Food/Diet & Nutrition. My mother and her mother used to use the book as a guide! Mrs. kabir is like my grandmothers age and still continues to teach young'uns to cook through her english translated book and cooking show on local TV. There were Banglai and english versions but i opted for the bengali - thinking I should use it to improve my bengali reading skills.

Anyway, its been a great resource and there are so many traditional recipes and abundant tips and other helpful instructions that, really, a novice cook does not really need any other cookbook to learn HOW to cook! Its very thorough! So if any of you ever in Bangladesh - pick up the book!