Picklehead: From Ceylon to Suburbia; a memoir of food, family and finding yourself - Softcover

Candappa, Rohan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0091897785 ISBN 13: 9780091897789

Publisher: Ebury Press, 2006

Synopsis

Rohan Candappa, author of bestselling humour books such as the "Little Book of Stress" and "The Curious Incident of the Weapons of Mass Destruction", is the son of a Sri Lankan father and Burmese mother. He grew up small and round in South London, riding his chopper bike and supporting Leeds United. But, every day his mother would conjur delicious meals out of thin air. His father cooked too, with fiery flavourings, black curries and green coriander chutneys. Their home became the focus for family gatherings and feasts of such delicacy and exoticism that you'd never have known Norwood lay outside the window. Yet, somewhere in his twenties Rohan forgot his culinary heritage and it wasn't until he was bringing up his own young family that he began to think more about his identity as a second generation immigrant and the binding, identifying power of the family meal caught his imagination. And, so he began this beautifully written, funny, poignant memoir of his heritage and his home. Of curry leaves and curried chips. Hot chillis and hot dogs. Pataks and Heinz. About the past and the present - and the place where time should cease to matter...the family kitchen.

About this title

Review:

"A vibrant taste of what life was like growing up in 70s suburbia...a heart-warming memoir, peppered with revealing annecdotes." -- S Sunday Express

"Evocative memoir." -- Sunday Telegraph Travel

"His history, sharply funny, is about the positive, zestful contribution made by immigrants to British life." -- The Times

"If you've ever been part of a family or loved eating food then Picklehead is a book for you." -- Daily Express

"wholesome and sustaining...an eventful, sometimes moving, and often disturbing history,...as thoughtful as it is amusing" -- TLS

From the Publisher:

A wickedly funny, deliciously evocative memoir of an immigrant family and its food

About this edition

• Publisher: Ebury Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0091897785
• ISBN 13: 9780091897789
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320